Snake Charming!

I was up early this morning, vaguely flicking the duster around the showroom in a mock attempt to have a spring clean along our skirting, when my lovely chauffeur Mark popped in to catch up on news. "Fancy a trip into town Duchesse" he said "I'm not so busy this morning and the weather's beautiful" (it has been such glorious weather in London this past week). Such a nice man - where would i be without him? Now this was a timely suggestion, as I wanted to see the newly installed windows at Alexander McQueen, so I found a darling little lilac cardi in the sample cupboard to slip on under my boa and away we went.

Bond Street is a wonderful place early on a sunny morning, quiet and pristine before the masses arrive (and we were there almost before the streets had been aired)! A beautifully fitting tribute to Lee McQueen has been mounted in the window of the company's Bond St Boutique, which you really must get along and see. To showcase the Darwinesque SpringSummer10 collection, the visual team have installed a snake-fest of writhing elegance! Python skinned, snake-hipped mannequins (which were commissioned from those wonderful magicians over at BODYLINE) were dressed in the most shapely outfits featuring an eye-popping spectrum of colour and marvellously morphed snakeskin, butterfly wing and marbled prints. As if that were not enough, to my great delight, they have squeezed and shoehorned the figures into divine high shine metallic hooves, where they teetered and beguiled against a backgound of squirming snakes.

Now I shall tell you, Miss Mannequin is not partial to any form of serpent (and Mark was a bit non-plussed by the shoes), but these windows are really quite stunning to behold. Slip down there and catch them whilst you can......ooh, and how did they get those mannequins into the hoof shoes, you may wonder? I do know.....but lets just say.....its the McQueen team's little secret!

Exotic reptilian make-up underpins this display of vibrant colour and print at the McQueen Bond St store

I'm ready for my close up now Mr DeMille!

To be honest ... it's all been a tiny bit boring at the showroom during the Easter holidays. No glamorous clients popping in to visit, so no industry gossip to listen into, not even the reassuring tip-tip-tapping of the computers as they notch up another order. I never thought i'd really miss them, but without the hurly burly of the sales team coming on like the stock exchange on steriods and the scatty om om chanting of the design team pondering on their next great development ... it's simply a little bit dull. I sauntered into the sales office to pass some time looking for a new outfit online and suddenly found myself going through some old photos. I found these in the image bank which i thought i'd share with you from a past photoshoot. Well it can't hurt can it - they'll never know.

Have you ever been to a mannequin shoot? We have them all the time at the showroom. What fun they are ... me and the gang striking a few poses for the next brochure etc. I quite like it ... it means we get a full make-over in the latest look. Those wig-making wonders, the D'Villes, send over some lovely new confections for us and the wonderful Georgie boy pops in to gloss me over with whatever the latest must have look in make-up is (he always has the best new lip colours and the juiciest gossip)! Lovely Mervin (my magic photographer) and that sweet kooky sidekick of his, Miss K, rock up equipped with camera, lights and umpteen bits of high-tech computer equipment to score a few shots of us in action.

Here's a shoot that we did a while back that was based on some Victorian body shapes. Very moody and retro, you can see the inspiration pics above (i think they'd been watching Tim Burton movies that week)!

Mervin brought a fabulous smoke machine and did some great pics of my pal Genevive posing in front of the smog. I love the moody shadows on the floor too. The smoke did get a bit overwhelming at one point - i think they must have forgotten that it was still belching out fog (you can just see me wheezing to the right of the set if you look hard - and to think i gave up smoking over a year ago).

Anyway, i don't think they did a bad job, it made a nice brochure cover and even stretched to a super Christmas card. I'm looking forward to the next shoot - i've got a few poses in mind!!

Well, until we meet again - toodle pip, and don't eat too many chocolate eggs or you'll never squeeze into that new spring outfit either!