#thisisladyland

A huge chunk of my time is spent browsing magazines and websites admiring and referencing beautiful spaces. It's my porn!

More often than not though, I'm blown away by how creative and interesting my friends and acquaintances homes are. So, instead of looking online and raiding Pinterest, I thought I'd look at real life instead (there's a novel thought!) and bring you a series of snoops into my friends' homes. And where better to begin than with the Ladyland ladies?

It’s no surprise really that Selina, our resident lifestyle guru, has such a beautiful home. Her South London flat is petite, much like she is, but a giant glass lantern roof in her basement kitchen floods the space with light, illuminating a beautifully curated selection of crockery and enamelware that would have Anthropologie visual merchandisers literally wetting their pants.

Originally from Sydney, London is now her adopted home, but there’s nothing transient or temporary about this space, which serves as nursery for two young boys, a home office for her freelance writing and perhaps most tellingly, one of Ladyland’s busiest test kitchens. I’ve always wondered just quite how she does it!

Like the lady herself, the vibe in Selina’s home, a two-bedroom flat in a period townhouse, is welcoming and calm. Vintage Ercol furniture (much cheaper to buy in the UK than Australia, she assures me) nestles next to a 1960s G Plan sideboard she snapped up for a steal on Gumtree ("I'd fill a shipping container with mid-century pieces from here if I could," she sighs). And all the while, she is absolutely the perfect host. On the day of our shoot, she rustles up a snack of sunset pink papaya, with freshly squeezed lime, in the time it would take me to open a packet of Bourbons. It all adds to this relaxed space packed with intriguing finds and junk shop buys you could literally spend hours examining…. 

SELINA: "I love, love, love this vintage cabinet – it came with the flat but I'd sneak it home to Australia one day if I could. It's where I stash my fancy plate collection – I've managed to keep my obsession under control, but couldn't resist this vintage jadeite number I spotted on Etsy. It was in Ireland, so I figure the vintage plate miles aren't too bad. I'm also shamelessly addicted to Anthropologie kitchenware. The rolling pin was a birthday pressie from Ladyland's Emma!"

SELINA: "One of my prize possessions is my vintage Le Creuset pot, which I found in my local charity shop – I love the idea that this trusty old casserole has served up so many family feasts. I got a little overexcited smashing spices recently, so had to replace my pestle – and found this Victorian-era apothecary piece on Etsy. The vintage trivet and enamelware is from a little shop down the road, which is run by two hairdressers who turned their salon into a brocante. It's pretty dangerous: I keep popping out 'for the newspaper' and coming home with vintage kitchenalia!"

SELINA: "I can't walk past old silverware without having a rummage. My favourite finds are a serving spoon monogrammed with an M – which is the closest I'll ever come to using my married name – and a little shell-shaped teaspoon I use every day to stir my Earl Grey. I've completely embraced the British obsession with tea. Oh, alright then: it's just an excuse to buy more vintage teaspoons and pretty mismatched tea cups." 

SELINA: "I spent a good year hunting down my turquoise mid-century pitcher by Dansk. I once saw a picture of a food editor's kitchen with shelves stacked high with brightly coloured Dansk enamelware and it actually made me swoon. 

Regular Ladyland readers will have guessed I'm a bit food obsessed and enjoy a spot of procrastibaking. My vintage Tower scales are a hand-me-down (thanks again, Emma!) and I'm a big fan of the retro Tala Cook's Measure, which is perfect for when I'm too lazy to get the scales down. The chalkboard jars are from Anthropologie."

SELINA: "I actually like that there's no built-in storage in this kitchen – so everything's out on display. I'm embracing the chaos."

SELINA: "I love the look of traditional wooden and tin toys, and am happy to give pre-loved treasures like this rainbow top and London-in-a-Bag by Muji a good home. The Rodrigo el Fuerte print is by local artist Catalina Echeverri, and our boys are London born and bred, so a bit of British design was in order for their room: hence the Matt Pugh owl. I picked up the Songs for Children vinyl at Spitalfields for a fiver – although our record player is back in Sydney, so for now it's for display purposes only!"

SELINA: "We've spent so many summer nights out in our courtyard eating al fresco – it's a tiny green oasis. And even though it's toxic, I have a real soft spot for the Oleander, with its powder-pink blooms – my rather glam landlady tells me it's from a cutting she brought with her from Rome some 30 years ago, and it's from her grandmother's plant!"

SELINA: "Mama and mini-me-sized watering cans. In my fantasy life, we use them to tend to our flourishing herb garden and cherry tomato vine. A girl can dream!"

We love sharing our sanctuaries with you, why not tell us about the little things that make your home special? 

Photography: Kate Berry

Styling: Selina Altomonte

When I started working on this post it was unbelievably hot in London; however today it's raining and the thermometer is barely reaching 18°C! At the time of our mini heatwave, I needed to prepare a cake but couldn't face having to put the oven on, so I decided to try making an ice-cream cake – basically a posh Viennetta.

I tried an Oreo biscuit/vanilla ice cream combo, which was lovely, but I really fancied making an adult/boozy version so I decided to try a Piña Colada-inspired Viennetta! It couldn't be easier to make – all it involves is some biscuit bashing and layering of ingredients. It can be made with pretty much any ready-made ice cream and shop-bought biscuits, although for this particular exercise I made my own Malibu ice cream following Nigella Lawson's recipe. It's not very strong, so when I make it again I might add more Malibu to the mix.

A packet of coconut ring biscuits 50g butter 500ml Malibu ice cream (you'll find the recipe here) 500ml mango sorbet Double cream and toasted coconut, for decorating

1. Take your Malibu ice cream out of the freezer. It needs to softened a little before using. 2. Line a bread tin with plastic film.

3. Crush your coconut rings: place your biscuits in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to bash them to a sandy consistency. 4. Melt your butter and add to the crushed biscuits.

5. Press half of the biscuit mixture at the bottom of the tin to make your first biscuit layer. 6. Whisk you Malibu ice cream until it reaches a spreadable consistency, not a melted consistency!

7. Spread the ice cream and put the tin in the freezer for about 20 minutes, until set. 8. Repeat step 5 and 6 with the remaining biscuit mixture and the mango sorbet. Fold the plastic film over and leave in the freezer for at least an hour to set, then remove about 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

9. To serve, whisk your double cream and spread over the mango sorbet layer and sprinkle with the toasted coconut. Lift the film out of the tin and place your ice cream cake on a dish. Dip your knife in very hot water before slicing the cake. 

Next time, for extra decadence, I am thinking of making a white chocolate ganache instead of the whipped cream...

For once, a catwalk trend and my real life holiday beauty aspirations have aligned. The concept? It's wet look hair.

This is, if you tone down the OTT plastered-onto-your-forehead bit (see the high fashion version at 3.1 Phillip Lim), the perfect holiday hair that was made to be worn on the sand-whipped shores of St Ives, or St Lucia, where tiny bare-bottomed children frolic in rock pools and the next bread-based meal is never far away. We've known it ever since we spied Kate Bosworth's beachy mane in Blue Crush, and on the cover of Italian Vogue. In fact, once you feel the sheer liberation of doing away with your hairdryer, you may never want to go back. Ever.

Of course, it's not actually just soaking wet hair. That would be far too simple. There's a bit of styling wizardry at work here, too. You start with damp hair out of the shower, but what keeps it looking drenched and mermaid-esque is a carefully considered dose of styling products. I quizzed my hairdresser, Kat De Rozario from Daniel Hersheson, Harvey Nichols, on how I could get just the right amount of wet look, without my hair going all stiff and crunchy in the sun. She recommends using two separate products: one to fix the style and shape – she rates L’Oréal Professionnel Techni Art Pli Thermo Styling Spray – and one to give you a glistening wet-look finish – here she suggests a liberal spritzing of L'Oréal Professionnel Mythic Oil.

There are a few other simple beauty rules to abide by. The wet look requires a certain nonchalance to pull off convincingly, so a full face of foundation and Kardashian contouring would probably jar with the whole easy, breezy aesthetic. Instead, make the most of your holiday glow and blob on some bronzer and subtly define your brows with a pencil or powder. For evening, add a scribble of lipstick too. And if your significant other asks you, as you know they probably will, if your hairdryer is actually broken and why you look like an extra from Splash, just smile knowingly and explain, in your most blissed-out holiday tones, that it's actually a thing called fashion. Okay? 

Need a hot tip on the best to see or do? Fancy a good read, meal or conversation starter? Check out what the Ladyland team is making, reading, cooking, coveting and pondering. Enjoy!

Emma is going to try this super cute recycling DIY from brudiy.com – it might even make her remember to water indoor plants. 

Once she finds that elusive piece of land with planning permission, Celia now has all the instructions to build her own house.

Finally – Selina can get the ManServant she's always wanted! 

Bella is a getting a little bit obsessed with Ladyland contributor Kate Berry's awesome Americana photography.

Clementine loves a slushy and she wants to try this adult version, pronto!

Margherita would like to go and hide in this forest retreat this summer. It's in a place called Bohemia. Could it get any better?

There’s a new trend in beauty that I’ve noticed. It’s not about a particular shade of eyeliner or a coltish new model that everybody wants to shoot with. This one’s a lot closer to home. Literally.

In the last few months I’ve been lucky enough to visit the homes of fashion designer Bella Freud, Sisley co-founder, Catherine D’Ornano (above), and make-up artist to the great and good, Charlotte Tilbury, as each have opened up their private spaces to a gaggle of excitable beauty editors.

This at-home launch concept isn’t entirely new, but it’s definitely gaining momentum, and there are certain prerequisite elements you need to make it work.

No. 1: An impossibly healthy, Instagram-friendly breakfast (think Qnola via Detox Kitchen and Roots & Bulbs cold-pressed juices). No. 2: A handsome pedigree pet (pref dove grey) to nonchalantly loll around on the (awfully plush) velveteen sofa in a docile fashion. And, most important of all, No. 3: a west of Hyde Park postcode.

Now that last part I can’t help you with, but what I can at least offer you is a glimpse into this glossy inner circle via the wonderful world of the internet. Follow me…

These wonderful photographs by Cat Garcia from her book Our Time offer a tiny peek inside Bella Freud’s Westbourne Park home (we were politely asked not to take snaps, and it would have felt weird anyway bowling into a stranger’s home and brandishing my iPhone). Besides, I was far too busy examining the photographs on her walls. At one point mid-conversation, she leant over to point out a picture of Hunter S. Thompson – not a print, a real life photo – to illustrate her point. Add that to original paintings by her father, artist Lucian Freud, and the knowledge that her grandfather, Sigmund, had probably sat here in this very same kitchen and, well, I found it hard to contain myself. Her new perfumes are beyond beautiful too, but more about those later in the year.

Around the corner at Christine D’Ornano’s palatial townhouse (below and main image) I arrived late and in a fluster (my cabbie have definitely not done the knowledge) but once over the threshold, a chic calmness descended. One of the starched catering staff fixed me a cup of Earl Grey in exquisite china as I tried my hardest not to let my lower jaw drop open at the sheer wonder and tasteful palette of the place. The fact that I could fit my entire flat into Christine’s understairs cupboard only served to inflate my sense of awe. 

Alas, there are no photos of Charlotte Tilbury’s Portobello pad so you’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you it was equally wondrous. We sat around her basement kitchen table trying out beautiful new velvet-finish lipsticks (really good) and her aptly named Beach Sticks – portable blush wands named after the beaches of Ibiza, where she was raised. Which says it all, I guess. These women are from an entirely different dimension to my own, and their homes aptly reflect this. Still, it never hurts to have a little inspiration, does it?

That’s why over the next few months here at Ladyland we've decided to throw open our own humble homes for your perusal. Yes they are much smaller, less polished and lacking in pedigree pets than the above, but we think they’re no less charming all the same. So stay tuned for the first in our Ladyland at Home series coming soon to a screen near you. Unfortunately you’ll have to sort the catering yourself though, okay?

Words: Bella Binns

You spend £4 on a piece of cardboard, then write something on it that you could say in a text message – in handwriting that is, almost always, not as nice as when you're writing on something that didn't cost you £4. 

You hand it to someone and they open it while you're standing opposite, capable of saying the very words that you've written. But for that brief moment, you are also saying: 'This is for you. From me. In my handwriting, as proof that these are real, true thoughts.' And that's a nice moment. They smile, say thanks – then briefly look at the back of the card as if there's something more to see – before putting it on a shelf. Weeks later they decide that the event has certainly passed and if the card doesn't suck, it will be put it in a shoebox with some concert tickets and exhibition brochures for a few years until one day, they will look at it for another three seconds, smile, and chuck it in the recycling.