BODIE and FOU Gift guide Part 3: Christmas Gifts for her

Here is BODIE and FOU Gift guide Part 3: Amazing gifts for amazing women...nothing less, nothing more....And if you are dreaming of having something gorgeous on your arm like La Trop but can't quite afford it yourself, why don't you put together your Wish list on BODIE and FOU and get your other half to get it for you....
At the end of the day helping him to find the gift that is going to make you the happiest woman in the World this Christmas, will be a massive relief for him :-)

From top left clockwise:

1. La Tropezienne tote bag: £169.99
2. Leather covered notebook: £20 only

3. Any books from Edition Paumes: £20

4. Handmade Grass vase: from £29.50

5. French Bath & Body care by Cote Bastide: from £8

6.The Old Oak's Last Dream print by Missemai: £145

7. London, Paris, NYC map print by Famille Summerbelle: £45

8. French mercure candlestick: £36 each

The email from Irish Tatler that set me on fire today

So today, between thousands of things to do, I took 5 min to write a press release about La Tropezienne leather tote bag (tote leather bag not sure how it goes...) and within 2 minutes, I got a wonderful email from the Editor of Irish Tatler magazine (yes exactly!) who wrote:

"Can you tell me where I can find this exact bag on the site so that I can order it? It’s the bag I’ve been waiting to find forever!"

It took me a split second to answer and another split second for my energy level to hit the roof! I was on fire and I can't believe how many bags we've sold in a week!
Now, I really really like this leather wrist wrap with studs from Clare Vivier, the designer of La Trop...it costs around £49....What do you think? Shall we go for it??

DIY Bird pegs Advent calendar

Now that our Advent calendar by Noix de Coc' has sold out (I should really have kept one for myself!), I'm thinking of doing my own like the one below but with our Bird Clothes pegs rather than wooden pegs - because of course between Xmas orders and our family move next week, I have plenty of time on my hands to do this (ah yeah at 5am, just before going for a run....ca va pas la tete!!)

More beautiful Advent calendars on Eco-stylista

A Day at BODIE and FOU Via The Beat That My Heart Skipped

The Beat That My Heart Skipped just featured A Day with BODIE and FOU.....
I felt out of breath just reading it! Can't believe I'm squeezing so much in a day...and for the records, I actually don't run every day but this was done the day I went for a run in the morning.
Rohini, the Editor of The Beat That My Heart Skipped was so nice and complimentary, that I think I'm going to print it as a positive reminder of how far we've come and read it when I feel down, tired and I feel like giving up....
I thought it was interesting to show behind-the-scenes for a change and I love all the others 'A Day with' Rohini did with Deborah Bowness and Mibo so here is ours....

A Day With… Bodie and Fou

I am delighted to introduce the inspirational Karine Kong [FOU] of BODIE AND FOU. Karine is going to introduce herself and you will soon discover what an amazing woman she is.

I can’t even begin to describe how talented Karine is to juggle being a successful business woman, a creative thinker, run her own warehouse, do her own PR and be a mother of the most adorable little girl Mila – and all with seemingly effortless efficiency, I really admire her. So without further ado, I will now hand you over to the wonderful one-half of BODIE AND FOU.

Oh – and BODIE AND FOU have kindly agreed to offer our readers a 10% discount on any purchases till the 8th of December. Just enter TBH09 at the checkout. What lovely ladies!

A day at BODIE and FOU…we like it busy, inspiring, exhilarating and it often is…

BODIE and FOU is a chic online boutique based in North London, UK but we ship regularly orders around the world. As we don’t have a brick & mortar shop – we thought it would be fun to show you what’s going on at BODIE and FOU behind-the-scenes…so please come in…

First, a little introduction about us…. We are two French sisters: Elodie and myself, Karine and we launched BODIE and FOU 4 years ago when Elodie was still living in London [she is now based in Barcelona... yeah how lucky is that!].

Our company is named after us: Bodie has been Elodie’s nickname since she was little and Fou is the nickname that Steve, my New-Zealander partner and father of my daughter Mila Sienna gave me when we met because he thought I was mad…Well it should have been ‘FOLLE’ but his French wasn’t great at the time so FOU was it. As Elodie moved to Spain last year, she is now less involved in the day-to-day running of the business but we heavily use Skype and emails to keep in touch. We also go to trade shows in Paris and get together regularly in London, Barcelona or our house in France. I’ve lost a sister but I’ve won a brother as Francois, the youngest of our family joined us last January as Warehouse Manager.

So here is a day at BODIE and FOU… 6.20 am. Stumbled out of bed and go for a run. I don’t especially enjoy running but I’m all over the place if I don’t, and my gym is fab… a bit like a Manhattan loft with fabulous natural light and brick walls. Back home at 7.15 am to find the two loves of my life having breakfast. Steve jumps in the shower while I get Mila dressed for school and answer emails from overseas customers. I get ready in 20 min, have breakfast or pick up something yummy from Brook’s.

8.30am. Heading to the our warehouse in North West London which is 20 minutes away. I drive or cycle with my brand new pink single gear bike depending on weather and meetings ahead.

9.00am. I’m at my desk ready to spend the day the head down on my beloved Mac Book Pro. I work from a very old and distressed wooden door which I love. It’s a lot bigger than your average desk which enables me to display things I like and it has a story to it. Years ago I had read about a beautiful Swedish apartment in Living Etc and the owner was using an old door that she had painted with white gloss paint as a dinner table. I thought it was a brilliant idea so, as soon as I saw this gorgeous distressed door in the street, I knew exactly what to do with it! My ‘desk’ started its new life as a coffee table at home and it was a great to display a few beautiful interiors books and candles and gave my home a little boho feel. Then we launched BODIE and FOU and it got upgraded to the rank of office desk with a pair of oak trestles. It now sits against a wall in our warehouse and makes me feel like I work from home.

The BODIE and FOU warehouse…. We are very lucky to have a fabulous space. It has white walls, high ceilings and heaps of natural light. I sit at the far end from the dispatch and customer service teams by our lounge/meeting area so it’s a bit quieter.

In my corner, I put together a mood board with photos from my daughter Mila and my niece Lily, pages torn out from magazines and other bits and pieces and great examples of typography and design that inspire me.

We started the business from home four years ago, then a year later the business was growing so fast that we had to move to a warehouse in Bristol. It was in a great location but our warehouse was incredibly cold and dusty so it’s nice now to have a space that is light, airy and warm and to be back in London!

After making a pot of herbal tea, I checked the orders we received on BODIE and FOU and our sister site WhereDidYouBuyThat.com and then catch up quickly with my Twitter friends. I love Twitter… It can be time-consuming but if you know how to switch off when you need to, it’s actually a fantastic network of nice, friendly and helpful people and we got some great PR and success stories on the back of it. When we launched the Paris map print and the London map print, they sold out on pre-orders alone following a tweet.

Quick meeting with Francois our warehouse manager to go over orders, customer queries and stock levels and with Olive or Katie to go over press samples and high-res pics to send to various magazines and things to sort out.

Then I go down my list of things to do. I usually go through my emails and answer/action things straight away, send thank you emails and post happy things that are happening on our blog like a nice email we received from Marie-Claire Maison out of the blue or some new gorgeous designs we’ve added to the site As we are now getting very busy for Christmas, we’ve added a lot of beautiful gifts and things for the home which we need to tell people about so I spent a good hour writing a press release about exciting new products like the Japanese books by Paumes and send it out to the World!

Throughout the day, I will liaise with Jim, our amazing web designer to finalise new functions like the Wish List we have added on our new website and I will skype Steve, Elodie or my friend Mandy who also have an e-commerce website to pick their brains on website design and marketing ideas. Lunch time. Have a quick break to eat something [trying to be healthy....doesn't always work)] watching Corto sleeping or chewing.

After lunch. Switch off from everything to focus on things that are less creative but need to be done: SEO, action points from meeting with our Google Analytics agency, look into ad hoc marketing requests, cross-promotions with partners and bookkeeping. We outsourced our bookkeeping to file our VAT, Staff wages etc, but I pay the invoices myself to know exactly what’s going on. After checking with Francois that everything is running smoothly and that our orders are ready for our daily collections from Royal Mail and Interlink, I work on our E-news either for BODIE and FOU or WhereDidYouBuyThat.com to announce offer of the month on WDBT, competitions and send VIP code to all our customers so they can get 10% OFF each month on BODIE and FOU. If I have enough time, will pitch a feature to magazines….Photographer Michael Paul came to our house in France to shoot it for a New-Zealander magazine. It will be featured at the end of the year when the kiwi Summer starts and because we are working together to sell the photos to other magazines in Europe for a Spring release, I cant really show them but they are gorgeous!

5.20pm. Leave work to pick up Mila from her baby-sitter’s. Once we get home, I do a few more emails before Steve arrives from work. I spent the first three years working non-stop until 2am during weekdays and weekend when the business was growing but not enough to hire the right people. Now our business is in a good place so I no longer work in the evening or the weekend except around Christmas time where our volume of orders triple. It took me a long time to get the balance right but now I’m fairly on top of things [give or take a stressful day] so it’s time to give some quality time to my little family for the simple reason that if BODIE and FOU is ever going to be massive, I want to be able to share its success with the people I love.

Et voila!

I almost forgot.....If you like our blog, feel free to vote for us here, thanks!

Celia Birtwell collection

Muse of David Hockney and Sixties fashion legend Ossie Clarke, Celia Birtwell is one of the most influential textiles designers of her generation. She has been described as the face that launched a thousand prints and her contribution to the world of interiors has been phenomenal. Celia first started a textiles design course in 1956 at Salford School of Art then she moved to Notting Hill in 1961, lived in some colourful establishment (I like the euphemism from her bio :-), socialising with the swinging sixties bohemian crowd but it's not until she started designing for Ossie Clak in 1965 that she gained international critical acclaim as a textiles designer. While Ossie lived the rock'n roll life, Celia drew her inspiration from a more romantic and classical world such as Vita Sackville-West's Garden, Leon Bakst's costumes for the Ballets Russes, Picasso and Matisse.
Recently, one of her designs: 'Pretty Woman' has been re-edited in a range of beautiful gifts for women and I'm super excited to have these on our sister site because I think they will make wonderful gifts for my mother-in-law who is her keen gardener. She has one wonderful garden in New-Zealand and I'm always very admirative how everything looks so beautiful and green!
I wish I had green fingers....I've just managed to keep alive the beautiful orchid my brother and his girlfriend Julie gave me for my birthday last March and then my mum arrived and thought it was a fake one....it shows how much faith she has in my gardening skills!
I really like the Celia Birtwell range. It's so pretty and feminine and I wouldn't mind getting hold of the metal tin that comes with the Celia Birtwell Kitchen Drawer Kit, look at this! Isn't it gorgeous??? I can feel a collection of metal boxes coming along. I saw someone displaying lots of metal tins to store tea bags in their kitchen in one of the Kitchen books from Paumes and it looked terrific! Anyway I hope you like the range too!

All available from here

La Tropezienne & Messenger tote bags now at BODIE and FOU

About two weeks ago, I was pondering whether we should stock the gorgeous La Tropezienne tote bag on BODIE and FOU. Usually Elodie and I just follow our instincts and our hearts and the more excited we get, the more we know that it's going to be a hit like it happened with the beautiful prints by Famille Summerbelle but this time we were branching out into fashion rather than design and decoration....The feedback you kindly posted to answer my question was really wonderful and warm, which I think it's amazing given that we are all glued behind our computers so I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.
La Tropezienne bag is now available from B&F and I just would like to say to the 5 customers who ordered one today from Norway, France, Switzerland and England, that I really hope you will love your bag as much as I love mine....
I can't tell you how much my heart was beating the first time I laid my eyes on La Trop and why since then, I became totally infatuated with my handbag. It's a beautiful bag with no frills or bling-bling except that I probably love it for all these reasons....
In all its simplicity, this bag is a wonderful reminder that things do not have to be complicated to be beautiful and to last.

We've also added the gorgeous Messenger bag which may well be on my Christmas list!

BODIE and FOU Gift guide Part 2: Christmas Stocking Fillers

Here is BODIE and FOU Gift guide Part 2: Gorgeous Christmas Stocking fillers....basically lots of little gifts that don't cost the earth and will make the recipients very happy!

From top left clockwise:

1. Charlie & Lola soother: £5.95

2. Charlie & Lola plasters: £3.95
3. Bird Clothes pegs: £9.50 for a box of 25 BEST SELLER!

4. Blogs & Coffee art print: £20

5. Familia cup: £12.50

6. Lilliput robot: £19.50

7. Cote Bastide Massage glove: £7

8. Doudou Poppy: £15 Buy 2 & get 10% off (as mothers we thought you would appreciate this, especially if you lose one which as you would know, could be a real drama for the kids!)

9. Rubber vase: £20

10. Egg cube holder: £16

Gifts for men at BODIE and FOU

Here is our Gifts for men Christmas guide to help you find unusual, stylish and practical for all the men in your life (the grown-up ones!...we will do a special guide for the little ones soon...).

From top left clockwise:
1. Type map print: £38
2. Cognac glasses: £32.50 for a set of 2. Buy 2 sets, save 10%, buy 4 sets save 15%! (see review in Shortlist magazine)
3. Sunbeam car Tin replica: £19.50
4. Bugatti Volo toaster, black: £165
5. Move card holder: £34.50
6. Move key holder: £21.99
7. Mirror wall clock: £35.50
8. Little Robot: £7.50
9. Chef's Knife made of Japonese steel : £70
10. Soft anthracite bath towel: from £22.49

fashion fashion fashion.....Vivienne Westwood's Anglomania love

Given the weather, I really don't feel like going out today but I've just seen these gorgeous frocks from Vivienne Westwood's Anglomania range at Urban Outfitters and I really feel like I have to move my lazy bum and check them out! sigh....

Via Designer's Block

By Graziela: A mother & daughter adventure and a little house tour....

The Award-winning ABC poster is flying off the shelves today and it made me realized that I totally forgot to finish the draft post I had started about By Graziela and the two great ladies behind this label: the legendary Graziela Preiser and her daughter Nina Nagel.

Graziela Preiser's iconic designs were hugely popular in the 1970’s in Germany. Like a few other textiles & print designers and design houses that were fashionable in the 1950s to 1970s (i.e. Marrimekko, Cole and Son and Barbara Hulanicki's Biba to name a few), Graziela and her daughter decided to dig into the archives from 1972 and and revisits the 1,2,3-design - which has a timeless appeal - and features cheeky, big billed ducks, retro owls and numbers in a refreshed colour palette.

It’s a timely rebirth of the brand, as those who cuddled up with these beautiful bed linens in their childhood can now pass on their love of the range to their own children and given the recent success of the ABC poster (designed in 1970!!) and the Farm poster (designed in 1977), it's pretty obvious that not only vibrant colours and unique designs still appeal to parents but more to the point, great designs last a lifetime!
For obvious reasons, I also love the fact that By Graziela is a mother/daughter business. If you can make it work, working with family is great and if I go over all the great jobs I had in advertising, the film and music industry over the past few years then really, the past four years working with Elodie and now my brother plus our mum who comes to help us at Christmas each year (and bakes yummy WW chocolate cakes at weekends!), have probably be the most enjoyable and the ones feeling the least like work.
Now I couldn't finish this post without showing you Nina's beautiful flat so you could see by yourself how stunning these retro designs look in a contemporary home and in a nursery....
Nina, her husband and their one-year old son (+ two cats) live in a flat which was an old forage warehouse for horses from 1870, and then later was used as a spice warehouse in the later 20th century. As you can see from the photos below, it's a beautiful living space. I really like the brick walls, the metal beams, the original floorboards, the high ceiling, the natural light....ok I will stop, it's a great place..enjoy!

The ABC poster by Graziela is available from here, the Farm poster from here and the bed linens featured in the pic above from here and are available in bed cot size and single bed size.
Now I'm going to start working on the BODIE and FOU gift guide....a plus!

House tour in Amsterdam

This is the house of Karin Gaasterland and Alain Parry, the owners of Balthazar's Keuken - a little crowed restaurant in Amsterdam, where I really want to go, next time we are there.
To these days, Amsterdam remains one of my favourite European cities. It's a beautiful place, unpretentious, family-oriented, charming, hugely inspiring and beautiful to shoot.
Having so many people riding their bicycles definitively add something to the city's atmosphere but it is also a place where you will find a lot of shop and restaurant owners showing a great deal of creativity and individuality in their retail space, unlike all the high-street shops on Oxford Street, London.
When the weather is a bit warmer (it's quite windy there), I would love to go back and also check out this shop. The website doesn't do any justice to the beautiful and unusual lights they have but my friend Gabrielle got her gorgeous lamp from there and she said it was a bit like the Cavern of Ali Baba. She also recommended Anouk Beerents' shop which specialized in beautiful antique mirrors....thinking of it, we will probably need to drive there rather than fly :-)
Karin and Alain's house fascinates me. I'm more often than not, attracted to white interiors, but I can not help being drawn into this family house whose walls have been bravely painted in dark grey, and which somehow, looks welcoming, light and airy....
Don't you think that this house looks incredibly calm and relaxing?
I'm in awe with their kitchen which has almost a Yin and Yang feel to it. On one side, a brick wall is painted in dark grey with dark concrete floors. A large wall clock and a few Tolix chairs also add to a strong masculine, industrial feel but on the other side of the kitchen, everything is toned down by handmade ceramics with organic shapes, honey coloured vintage pine table and natural textured cushions. The same concept has been applied to the bedroom and works wonderfully. Instead of making the room dark and small, the black painted floorboards actually enhance the whole room which has been kept clutter free and softened with a pretty crochet bedspread. I have been told by my lovely Twitter friends that similar rug cows like the one below can be found at Wovenground or from here

I also heart how they've painted the name of their son onto his bedroom's wall...talking about building a child's confidence :-).....this room looks great, simple and very personal.

Now their restaurant, located in the heart of the Jordaan district, is in a converted former Blacksmiths workshop and doesn't lack of style either. Unfortunately I couldn't find decent photos to show you but it's worth checking their website for more information.

If you've been to Amsterdam, fell in love and discovered a beautiful little shop or an amazing cafe, a restaurant or even a nice, contemporary B&B like this one, I would really love to hear from you.
(C) these gorgeous photos are from Hotze Eisma

Show us some love.....

We've entered the Dorset Cereals little blog Awards.....Not that we expect to win anything - we never won a single competition, prize draw or even the lottery in our lives but if you enjoy reading our blog, then maybe you can help us to win this one.....
Show us a bit of love and vote for us by casting your vote HERE ! :-)
merci merci merci

The 2nd issue of Papier Mache is out....

The 2nd issue of Papier Mache is out....This is going to be a lovely Sunday, full of inspiration and creativity....I was totally in love with the first issue and looking at the second issue, I think this is going to be a nice and steady love story... This issue is also available as a pdf so you can print it off and read it in bed....

Have a wonderful, relaxing and inspiring Sunday!

Petits Bonheurs...rien que du bonheur

The love of my life is in Milan this weekend, watching New-Zealand Vs Italy with friends who flew from New-York and New-Zealand....yeah that's dedication for you! I joke that I'm a rugby widow but actually I don't mind.
Especially since this weekend I started packing our stuff in prevision of our family move in just about 3 weeks and that if my rugby fan had realized how many interior magazines and books I have and more to the point how many boxes of them he may have to carry, he would have gone mental and force me to throw some away (again!).
So with a light heart, I happily packed all my treasures alone....in peace....in my own time and I'm thinking that I may have to rename the contents of the boxes on my packing list with some kind of secret code...like bank statements/admin stuff instead of interior mags ;-)
However I'm tired. I went to bed last night at 1am and got woken up this morning at 6am by the stupid alarm I had set up the day before to go for a run so I wasn't really planning to write anything but tonight something made me feel really good....
Someone left a really kind comment on the blog and true to her words, went to buy our lovely Advent Calendar.
As usual, I had a sneak peek to find out who left such a lovely comment and I simply fell in love with Claude's blog and her gorgeous family photos....Beautiful, poetic, simple yet creative....a world, a style that I really like. I love what her girls wear, I love the new bedroom of her little boy, I love the way she shot her family....She made me dream, she inspired me....(and unfortunately Mila doesn't want a grey bedroom in our new house) and I hope you love her too. I leave you with Petits Bonheurs...which is exactly that....little moments of happiness.
Bonne nuit!