Ok its beyond being slack……. but all I can say is that it has been very busy here in the European summer. It took more time than we thought to prepare for  our sailing experience and luckily it meant that I had to do a lot more hanging around the streets of Antibes, Nice, Cannes and Monaco. In the end I do think its a win win situation for us all….Except for my bank account.

We finally sailed off to St Tropez. That’s a sailing story in itself….one night we were caught by a mistral in the middle of the night. It was All hands on deck for the next 4 hours while we re-anchored 6 times due to wind and weed. Then we went on anchor watch till daylight and cut our visit short…but I digress. ST  does have some of my fave stores , it is a holiday town like Byron Bay and it always good to see what is out there.

In the end there were a lot of “freaks of excess” in St Tropez.  An over exposure of flesh, beyond Uber-wealth and mind boggling bad plastic surgery and endless tattooed eyebrows in faded shades of grey. Outside “the bar” The award for best / worst look went to an older lady in gold sequin 70’s shorts with green minnitonnka fringe boots, green loose singlet top…with everything on view and matching green sparkle eyeshadow. A very out of control cocaine leg twitch in contrast to unmovable face and major hair flick……sorry no picture she would of sued me. Love people watching.

I will be putting together some lists of cool shops , labels , bars and restaurants that we have been to along  on our travels…. that we thought were good and worth checking out. We also have been going to the vintage markets around the towns and have come up with some nice pieces. I have my usual feelings of not wanting to let go, as I would like to have them in my own home. Not sure I will ever get over the love and regret of things passing thru my hands.

Off to Paris on the 1^st of Sept to have a general look around the side streets and check in with some of our friends that we have in the shop. Make some orders and stock up for Christmas coming. I am also tracking down a couple of new jewellery designers that I have come across and would love to add to the mix of strangetrader. Really hope to have a large drop in the shop come October.

Hang out for the jittery and glitterarti                    Glamour bar..the morning after

Marie Claire September issue featuring Shourouk and Mustafa

sailing trip…3 months on the high seas and the reason the blog was slow.

Starting from Antibes  in the South of France ending up in Corsica…. which is sort of France. I guess the boat is the backbone of strangetrader. Its our mode of transport and the floating warehouse stuffed with the things we collected along the way. All the towns in the South of France have markets  days. They are great as there is such a variety of stuff. We could check out a place, stay or leave when the crowds moved in or run back to the boat if the towns and villages swarmed with crowds from hell. A safe refuge to observe the world or to rubber neck at marinas and moorings with a drink in hand.

The med in summer is an observers paradise from the most beautiful old yachts to extreme ugly uber- boats.