The Chosen One: Hannah Marshall Armour Dress

Things have been hectic. Since I came back from Thailand, I have had to deal with, among other things, bills, moving out, fraud, and general analysis of the near future. All very tiring and time-consuming, making my severely sparse attention-span reduce itself to blinks of an eye.

Why am I writing this again?

Oh, right.

So I haven't had much focus (or energy) to post here, even if there was an exceptionally special happening style-wise: two weekends ago I was invited to this soirée in an acquaintance's home that turned out to be a very exclusive Hannah Marshall and Borba Margo sample sale (Roisin Murphy made an appearance during my *time slot*). Imagine my excitement.

I absolutely adore Marshall and her bold use of black leather, shoulder pads, and pleated satin to produce her *future goth* ensembles, so seeing things up close and personal was an absolute privilege - not to say of meeting the woman herself. I remember seeing pictures of her and thinking she must be one scary Morticia-like diva, but she was nothing of the kind, far from it. She was sweet, approachable and had the most amusing laugh - how great a surprise is that?

Not as great as when I tried on what to me is the most iconic of her dresses, the one that press and blogland all over raved about , shooting her status as *promising star designer* up the roof: the armour dress.

There and then, I chose that mythical birthday present.

I remember seeing the picture of the dress and thinking those shoulder pads were made of some plastic material, or something, but it turns out they were quite ordinary spongy pads covered in leather. I was going to wear it for my co-hosted birthday party, another "get together" organised by five of us in a Soho Bar, but last minute I realised that by the time I squeezed myself past 200 people to get to the bar, I would have lost 7 shoulder pads.

It will have to make another rather special occasion. But until then, it's a shame not to show it to anyone, so I asked the Boyfriend to take some pictures. Doesn't it make for great visual impact?

Borba Margo was another great chance encounter, specially after I realised one half of the duo is Brazilian. But that deserves a post all on its own.