Clio Peppiatt AW16

Welcome to Motel Clio. We wish you a pleasant stay.

As part of the On|Off showcase at London Fashion Week, The Vinyl Factory on Marshall Street was transformed into an art deco hotel lobby, complete with a powder blue Chesterfield sofa, shaggy rugs, fringed lampshades, and a hotel porter serving fairy cakes. The guests, eccentrically dressed in Clio Peppiatt, lingered about the lobby like characters in a murder mystery.

The themes behind Clio Peppiatt AW16 coalesce The Grand Budapest Hotel with The Shining, to produce a glamorous, vintage-inspired collection, featuring faux fur coats, embroidered bomber jackets, silk pyjama suits and sequin dresses. To finish these looks, Clio has collaborated with a number of equally creative individuals: jewellery designer Tatty Devine, for the covetable miniature suitcases; milliner Francesco Ballestrazzi, for the berets and eyemasks; and footwear label Streetzie, for the unbearably cute, high-heeled bunny slippers.

Peter Jensen AW16

"Peggy" by Danish-born designer Peter Jensen is named after Peggy Guggenheim, 20th Century art collector and socialite, whose personal style and attitudes - particularly during her later years in Venice - inspire the AW16 collection. Like living sculptures, exhibited on pedestals dripping with white paint, each look seeks to reflect the dress sense of the late Peggy Guggenheim, which includes frills, leopard print, and artwork reminscent of that by American sculptor Alexander Calder, who crafted sculptural earrings for Guggenheim herself. For many of the looks, Jensen has collaborated with Becca Jewellery to match this famously pictured style.

CW Pencil Enterprise

It was a year ago today that Tazz forwarded me a New York Times feature regarding a quirky little pencil shop in Lower Manhattan, and all indecision about our prospective holiday faded in an instant. Upon first impression, CW Pencil Enterprise seemed like the kind of shop you might find on a stroll around East London, however Tazz and I were oddly captivated by the shop's dedication to such a simple an item of stationery, one often overlooked in our digital age. Thus we earmarked the store as a priority on our long list of places to explore.

Fast forward to February of this year, Tazz and I cross Chinatown and spot a giant pencil printed above a glass shopfront, through which we see pencils of every colour surrounding a checkerboard floor. On closer inspection, CW Pencil Enterprise is nothing less than a pencil paradise, with pencils of all grades and sizes - from countries around the globe - neatly bunched in transparent pencil pots. Scented pencils from Portugal, bi-colour pencils made in Switzerland, and pencils from Japan crafted to resemble cigarettes are just some of the wonders on the store's shelves, alongside an array of HB and No.2 pencils.

Displayed among this handsome collection are all the accompanying stationery a pencil enthusiast would desire, including erasers, sharpeners, and notebooks. And to one side of the shop is a testing station with samples of every pencil on sale. As I chatted with two of the store's "Pencil Ladies", Caitlin and founder Caroline Weaver, Tazz settled down at the desk to scribble vigorously.

In a world in which computers have become the standard tool for many creative works, CW Pencil Enterprise is certainly a curiosity, but its triumph as an independent business goes to show the resilience of the faithful pencil. If you ever find yourself on the Lower East Side, do pop into this stationery heaven and pick up a pencil or two.

CW Pencil Enterprise is located at: 100a Forsyth Street, New York.

Danielle Romeril AW16

As my fellow style snappers stormed Tate Britain in anticipation of Topshop's star-studded guest list, I escaped around the corner to the somewhat calmer Danielle Romeril presentation at the Chelsea College of Arts. The set was minimalist, in which a laser grid of claret, blue, green and black ribbons had been weaved throughout the otherwise blank show space, to form a geometric backdrop to the AW16 collection. Featuring a medley of fabrics, fine embroidery, and a selection of colours that reminds me curiously of football kits, Danielle Romeril cleverly arranges loosely-fitted garments into structural silhouettes through the distinct use of cut-outs, some of which are accentuated by zip detailing.