Lucky Voice N1
173-174 Upper Street N1
020 7354 6280

Want more fashion and style stories? There are plenty more here.

Improving rather than moving? Property expert Kirstie Allsopp is working with mydeco to help people make the right decisions when it comes to redecorating and renovating their properties.

• Seek valuation advice: If you want to increase the value of your property ask two or three local agents to come and value its worth. Ask them how you could increase your house price with specific work and sharpen up your space.
• Plan carefully: Make an accurate floor plan then spend time researching the best-priced furniture for your home, which can often result in saving a massive amount when redecorating.
• Utilise every inch of space: Space means money so make the most of every inch. Look into utilising both indoor and outdoor space. Gardens are a great place for Home Offices and can be cost effective.
• Draw up a timeline so that you know when everything will be completed: This will save any miscommunication with trades people and a lot of stress. Download a free contract from www.findabuilder.co.uk. Get quotes from various local builders to ensure you get the best deal.
• Improve exteriors: Revive tired looking exteriors by washing away dirt and grease with a detergent solution. Rinse off with clean water and allow to dry, then cover with a fresh lick of paint. It’s not easy but you’ll reap the rewards.
• Paint efficiently: When painting any room start with the ceiling, then the walls and finally the woodwork and metalwork such as radiators and pipes. Always plan your work and work systematically, that way you will not miss bits, which will show up when the paint is dry.
• Makeover tired rooms: Update a tired-looking kitchen or bathroom. Invest in new cupboard handles. Use matt paint to disguise surface imperfections.
• Research finishing touches: Investing in your home doesn’t always mean making hefty structural changes. Think carefully about the other elements that make up a room such as furniture and personal touches, from kitchen fittings to artwork. Use interiors magazines for inspiration.

www.mydeco.com/property

British artist Dan Baldwin borrows images from popular culture, art, religion and history to create Dead Innocent, a collection of new works to include paintings ceramics and installations.

Incorporating 17th-century images, political 1960s paintings, skate graphics, aerosols and more, Baldwin’s energetic pieces are surprising, shocking and humorous all at once. ‘I love the contradictions,’ he says. ‘It’s always about balance. There’s always a balance and harmony between life and death and beauty.’

Forster Gallery,
1 Chapel Place,
Rivington Street EC2
(020 7739 7572)

Read more Diary stories here.

Scandinavian Modern Home (on sale from October) documents the history of the movement, gives a visual A-Z of key Scandinavian homewares and furniture, and shows how the look has been beautifully interpreted in a variety of stylish international homes.

And with practical tips for putting the look together, from spotting classic designers to mixing new and vintage pieces, the book is bound to inspire new fans of this elegant, contemporary look.

Scandinavian Modern Home by Elizabeth Wilhide (Quadrille, £30)

22 August-26 September.
MOT International
Unit 54/5th floor, Regent’s Studios,

8 Andrews Road E8 
www.motinternational.org

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The dog is the giveaway. Charlize is quirky. More than that – she’s not obvious A-list.

You can go as far as to say Theron is the Johnny Depp of the Hollywood beauty palette. She consistently refuses to capitalise on her looks. An Oscar winner (Monster) and Oscar nominee (North Country), she subverts her beauty in nearly every movie she makes. Her most recent roll was in anti-superhero movie Hancock. She played a teacher, married to Jason Bateman, with the perfect suburban life until tortured superhero Will Smith drops in and blows their life apart.

She chose the role for its subversion of an archetypal American tradition. ‘It’s always brave to take a quintessential genre and turn that on its head,’ she says. ‘What if superheroes were alcoholics, tired of saving people, actually lonely, wanting love. I thought that was interesting.’

Why she doesn’t want a traditional career is obvious when you meet here. She’s off-the-wall, she’s funny, she’s strong and if you haven’t heard her story, it helps to explain why.

Brought up in South Africa, on a farm, her parents ran a construction company. Living in a state of unrest they were political, ‘in our house the news was always on, the newspaper was always on the dining room table and my parents had a real thirst for politics’. When she was 15, her estranged father Charles, broke into the house drunk, with a gun, fired it and was shot dead by her mother, Gerda, in self-defence. This isn’t something she talks about, other than to say: ‘I don’t think you can go through something like that and not kind of walk with it, hand in hand.’

Her burgeoning career was only quintessentially pin-up for the first film, Two Days in the Valley. By The Devil’s Advocate, she snaffled the role because, she says, ‘I stopped wearing make-up and brushing my hair, cut down on my sleep and turned up with dark circles under my eyes. Eventually, I convinced them I was physically right.’ She has since gone mainly for meat and anti-glamour. Treading the terrain of the character actress. And every time she’s opted for this route, she’s garnered accolades.

Mention this and Charlize gets antsy with the argument. She’s into real: ‘you can’t fit into a lot of worlds wearing John Galliano or Dior dresses.’ And being herself, saying of her ‘dowdy’ in Valley of Elah ‘that’s my natural hair colour. That’s me with very little make-up. That’s what I look like, so if you don’t consider my character beautiful, I’m sorry, but that’s really me.’

Read the full interview in our July 2008 issue.
email fabric.editorial@redwoodgroup.net to order your copy

Nicole Farhi

Nicole’s
158 New Bond Street W1
020 7499 8408/
www.nicolefarhi.com

Any artist who calls themselves WK Interact is sure to produce some pretty gritty and conceptual work.

Elms Lesters Paintings Rooms, 
1-3-5 Flitcroft Street WC2
020 7836 6747
www.elmslesters.co.uk

(image ©WK Interact, courtesy of Elms Lesters Painting Rooms)

Steven Short gets into hot water in Austria…

Last week I spent a rather lovely afternoon floating in bath-warm silky water, totally relaxed, listening to plinky-plonky chimes. No, I wasn’t in a hippy-dippy flotation tank but the Vulcania thermal pool of the Rogner Bad Blumau spa and resort, 90 minutes outside of  Vienna. 

Imagine a holiday camp designed by Catalan architect Gaudí with a touch of primary school and the Hobbit thrown in and you get an idea of what to expect at Styria’s leading ‘wellness’ centre. Colourful buildings with lawned roofs appear out of hills (the work of Austrian painter Friedensreich Hundertwasser) while steam rises from the thermal pools, around which stressed-out city folk lay on loungers lapping up the summer sun. 

My sister and I had decamped to the spa after a couple of days of  Viennese culture, taking in endless museums and checking out The Ring, Vienna’s new five-star ‘casual luxury’ hotel. 

Slap bang next to the Opera, the hotel (left) is all pared- down elegance: our beige and green room featured huge twin beds, the biggest and softest towels I’ve come across, fresh fruit and flowers and views over the old city, just minutes from our doorstep. It is also home to acclaimed At Eight restaurant. Our tasty post-museum feed included asparagus and saffron quiche followed by tournedos of excellent beef with oxtail and cauliflower for Tracy and ultra-fresh tomato and coriander salad for me, followed by an equally ‘healthy’ red mullet with calamaretti. 

Eager to keep up the good eating and hungry for some R&R we left for Rogner Bad Blumau the next morning. The spa’s sprawling grounds feature plenty of opportunities to lose yourself in nature including the Bach flower walk and Celtic tree circle, but most of our fellow spa-goers were obviously here for some serious lounging and pampering – treats on offer range from facials and pedicures to Tui Na and reflexology.

While sister had a ‘lovely, really relaxing’ aromatherapy massage I handed my museum-trudging weary bones over to Valentina who first of all smothered me in mud, wrapped me in cling film and left me to grunt myself in and out of sleep for 20 minutes (as undignified as it sounds!) before treating me to an extremely firm Intuitiv Senstiv massage, which, she said would give me a spiritual lift. I emerged an hour later, my dignity restored, rosemary-scented and invigorated. 

Having checked out the various water worlds – there are 11 pools in total, including Vulcania, fresh water ponds, endless Jacuzzis and a pool with a wave machine – we hung out in the sauna (clothing optional) and discussed plans for the evening.

Foolishly we’d forgotten to pack Scrabble (make sure you don’t – you make your own fun in the evenings) so our nighttime entertainment consisted of eating and drinking. The spa offers a buffet-style supper, which really did feature something for all tastes. We started at the salad cart, heaving with endless options from ultra healthy leaves, seeds and nuts, to lardy-by-stealth coleslaws and garden salads, before moving on to mains. A tasty liver stew with cauliflower cheese and broccoli for me, virtuous sole fillets and roasted vegetables for Tracy. Her halo slipped somewhat, however, at the dessert trolley. A weird- sounding, but utterly delicious, corn soufflé with raspberry coulis and a helping of homemade vanilla custard ice cream quickly helped her find whatever pounds she might have lost in the previous days. All washed down with a lovely local Riesling. 

After breakfast next morning (eggs galore, seven types of bread, endless preserves as well as hams, cheeses and cakes, all organic and as locally sourced as possible) we took off on a cycle ride – bikes are free to hire at the resort, as are tennis courts. The countryside around the spa is picture-postcard perfect: all rambling flower-filled meadows and fir woods – perfect for a nature top-up before the inevitable flight home. 

ROOMS AT THE RING START AT 390 Euros
www.theringhotel.com.

Two nights’ half board at Rogner Bad Blumau start at £214 per person
including two treatments of your choice. For bookings and information please visit www.austria.info/spa or call 0845 101 1818.

Austrian Air flies to Vienna daily, 
with flights starting at £120 (incl taxes) from
London Heathrow and City airports. Book at www.austrian.com.