Dating: Why do I bother?

I met an attractive man on a blind date last night in Soho. Unfortunately he blew it within one minute of opening his mouth. Here's why:

1. Do not start off by pontificating loudly and repeatedly on the lax criminal & penal system in England compared to America. This is rude and quite possibly ill-informed.
2. Do not repeatedly press your date to have another drink when she has said very firmly she is happy nursing her current one. To be attentive and ask once is charming. More than this makes you look like a sleaze with an alcohol problem. Above all, do not order her another drink when she has specifically said no.
3. Do not introduce your date to every person in the bar. It makes you look desperate, insecure and a barfly.
4. Do not spend most of the date talking about how the English talk weirdly and then correcting her English pronunciation. Mate – She’s lived there all her life. She knows how the English speak. Your once a month business trip does not an expert make.
5. Don’t try to tell her that Fosters is the smart drink of choice in an English pub. And then argue with her about it. Maybe in the dives you hang out in, but not in the ones that she does.
6. Probably best not to bang on about being a Republican if your date works in the media. She is unlikely to share any of your views. She will also think you are a dick beyond redemption when you say things like, “Why recycle, worry about carbon footprints, bother about food miles etc when the Chinese don’t?”
7. Do not keep pawing her knee, holding her hand or pulling your barstool closer to hers. She doesn’t need to smell your beer breath. She's only just met you. Down boy!
8. Do not tell really filthy sexual jokes.
9. A well-judged compliment germane to your date is always welcome. A shower of rent-a-quote compliments every five minutes or so is not. They appear insincere.
10. It’s lovely that the barmaid is your best friend, (& really, she’s great), but you are here to talk to your date. Do not keep calling her over, or including her in your conversation.
11. When you ask her where she goes swimming, and she says she uses the pool at Soho House, don’t tell her she is name-dropping, and that she is ‘better than places like that’. It’s where she swims, bottom line. You asked the question. It’s not her fault if you don’t like the answer. Get the chip off your shoulder
12. When your date mentions having to ‘do’ something, don’t reply with, ‘will you do me?’ Even as a joke, it’s not remotely funny on a first, second or even third date.

Sometimes I do not know why I bother. Dating in this city, apart from requiring an entire set of rules and etiquette that is so far removed from the English way, to be practically indecipherable, seems to be the province of the crazy, weak-minded, sexually rampant or plain dull.

Or perhaps it’s just the kind of men I attract….

Style crisis

I am finding getting dressed in this heat a nightmare. My walk-in closet is stuffed with sexy wool dresses, sky high stilettos that can only be worn with tights if I wish not to be crippled, pencil skirts and cashmere.

The thermometer is hitting the mid-eighties, it's stickily humid, most of my summer glamour wardrobe is in England in storage and I have nothing to wear. Of course, normally that would be a lie, plain and simple. But I am stumped. As I have decided to ramp up my social life I need cocktail dresses in profusion: this week alone I have been to Bungalow 8, an engagement party at The Spotted Pig, a cocktail for the Brit-Lit set at Anthony Gottleib's place, and still have to come two dates, dinner in the Village, cocktails on the Roof at Soho House & super stylish BA's bday bash on Saturday. (She'll be wearing Donna Karen.)

Last night I ended up wearing a simple black washed silk tunic from Rory Beca, with big silver hoops, and very elegant silver flat sandals to Bungalow. I was the only woman in the joint in flats, & felt like Stumpy McStumpy, but the dress is wayyyy too short, even by my usual abbreviated standards to wear tights-less with heels. (Although I didn't belt it - it really would have been knicker-flashing) I still have my eye on French Connection's Queenie dress But, as I discovered yesterday when I hopped on my bike down to Broadway at 5.30pm in a last-minute shopping frenzy, the AW collection isn't in store until 06 October. Gah.

Rory Beca dress image from shopbop.com
French Connection dress from fcuk.com

Poisoned - or not

Today I have a hangover. One of the horrors of turning thirty was the realisation that alcohol was a deathly toxin, rather than a necessary adjunct to a normal night out. What is even more depressing is the knowledge that I feel this ill for drinking perhaps three glasses of champagne and a few glasses of red. Sigh. Still it’s nothing that a take-out box of Nachos Grande, a can of Coke and a handful of Solpadeine can’t cure.

Then H rang on Skype from Amman and pointed out in his usual intelligent manner that of course I was ill. The ‘few glasses’ I had just described drinking actually came to well over a standard bottle of wine, consumed on a practically empty stomach. So I feel a little less old, and just a little more stupid now.

But oof, I have two parties tonight, and then two more things every night until Sunday. I think I may be sticking to water from now on.

Sex & (no style in) the City

The New York dailies are full of pictures & gossip from the set of the Sex & the City movie which is filming here at the moment. I wasn't that fussed until this photo burnt itself onto my retinas. How, how can these women possibly be considered to be style icons? Has Pat Field let success go to her head? Kim may be working this season's colour blocking trend but she looks abysmal in it, like a Russian wife, and the stand-by wardrobe girl appears to have forgotten to stuff her bag so it doesn't look like she's toting an empty purse. Kristen looks unutterably blah, although Cynthia actually looks great which, if one consders the freak outfits she had to wear in the final season of the TV show is, well, surprising. But the palm for most hideous getup goes to SJP who I can only presume must be contractually obliged to wear outfts from her ghastly Bitten line for US discount clothing chain Steve & Barry's. Why else would she be wearing this shocking sub-Annie Hall number in what looks like flammable fabrics? Oh God, I am scarred by that tie. Really, it's just plain cruelty to fashion stylists everywhere.

Where is your brain?

I know I really shouldn't rant on about PRs all the time. But today's Idiot of the Day award goes to Mary Portas' outfit, Yellowdoor in London for calling me on my US cell at 0526hrs. And what really astonishes me is that the brainless moo will have got the number from my UK mobile which specifically says that this is a New York number. Surely, surely she must know that there is a time difference? And why couldn't she just call my assistant in London anyway? Here's a hint for her: I'm an editor. I stopped doing returns, ooh about eight years ago, so, no, I haven't got a flippin' clue where the John Smedley sweaters are. Grrr.

A weekend of excess

Back to New York after three weeks on location and Miss P’s wedding. Last week I unpacked and settled into my new quarters, a fourth floor walk up on St Mark’s in the East Village. (I foresee hamstrings of steel in less than a month.) On Thursday I spent a very enjoyable three hours between The Container Store & Bed, Bath and Beyond on Sixth – I swear these stores are like crack for the 30-something – buying shelving, boxes, special hangers, and cosmetic organisers. Sheer bliss.

And then my social life kicked off with a vengeance: Friday was drinks in the East Village with an English writer, NC, over here on assignment, and a long boozey (almost inedible) supper on the Roof at Soho House, swapping dating horror stories with J&L and their glam actress friend A. Rather the worse for wear I jumped in a cab back to the East Village at 1am for delicious cocktails with SE at Death & Co, possibly my favourite speakeasy bar in Manhattan.

Saturday was a late lunch at her UWS apt with Christina Oxenberg (I can’t decide if I love her more for finding me & my hangover a Flake & a packet of Smarties or for letting me play dress up in her AW collection), followed by a two mile walk through Central Park and down Madison to check out the new season’s collections.

Supper was at Sip Sak, a mediocre Turkish in Midtown with an old friend Stephane and his Euro crowd. Then we cabbed it to EuroCentral (the seriously overrated Soho bistro Felix) for a nightcap. I walked the mile & a half home through the raucous crowds celebrating the feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy & Nolita – alone. Sunday was a long brunch in the East Village with SE at Yaffa, and a bike ride round the neighbourhood to try to work off the excessive amounts of food I ate all weekend.(Although none of it was very good. New York may be known for plentiful restaurants but I have only had one or two meals I would actually recommend since I arrived.)

Wedding beauty for an English Rose

Years working in the fashion industry, as well as occasionally writing about beauty, has given me an admirable stash of products and tools, plus a little knowledge from watching some of the best in the industry work their magic backstage & on location.

So when Miss P got married a couple of weeks ago I got to be make-up artist for the day, as well as her personal stylist. We had thought about booking a make-up artist – well, hell these pictures are going to be around for the next forty or fifty years. But a pro costs at least £250 plus their travel and, seeing as she is seven months pregnant, she has better places to direct her money. So I did it for her.

Still, I don’t profess to be an expert so we took a couple of shortcuts to ensure I didn’t balls it up too comprehensively.

First stop: Selfridges Beauty Hall in London where we both had our brows shaped at Blink’s threading bar. This is the most effective and longest lasting way to keep them in shape. It’s also good if you have no pain barrier (like me) as it removes multiple hairs at a time.

I then marched Miss P to the Prescriptives counter. Their Custom Blend foundation (£40) is mixed in front of you to match your skin perfectly. We choose the heaviest coverage because it needed to last all day and still look good in flash photography.

Because of the flash photography we couldn’t use the perfect concealer: YSL’s Touche Eclat, as it reflects back light (that’s the reason some celebs have white panda eyes in photographs), so I just didn’t use any, blending foundation with a flat brush under her eyes instead.

Then we went to Laura Mercier to choose a lipstick so she would be able to keep the tube in her purse all day, rather than me blending a colour for her which we couldn’t then replicate. LM’s colours are wedding perfect as they are all pretty neutrals: nothing too strong or un-Miss P looking.

We also cheated by heading to Pout in Covent Garden for their Luscious Lashes application (individual eyelash extensions) (£15). They take just ten minutes, and last for up to three weeks if you buy some extras and replace each one with tweezers & eyelash glue as it falls out – a lot easier to do when you have a whole lid’s worth already in place.

On the day we kept it super simple. MAC Kohl Power Eye Pencil in Orpheus, a soft brown, smudged through the lashes, the pale creamy colour from Clinique’s Colour Surge Eye Shadow Duo in Like Mink over the whole eye socket & up to the brow, with the crease defined in the darker brown, blended & then blended some more. Brows were groomed with MAC clear mascara, and defined with a stiff eyeliner brush & Estée Lauder’s Pure EyeShadow in Espresso Cup. I used just a tiny amount of waterproof mascara on the outer lower lashes – no more because she would just cry it all off eventually. I finished off the look with pretty rosy cheeks using Shiseido’s cream stick blusher in Peach Flush.

New label Suzannah launches for AW07

Every day my inbox is filled with emails from hopeful PRs (& also from those staggeringly dim PRs who haven't taken a squint at Fashion Monitor for over six months and therefore haven't computed that, no, I don't work at ***** any more.) I read them all - I'm such a good girl, & then file the majority in the bin.

But, once in a while, a gem appears. Ladies (& the odd gentleman), I give you an English line which launched for AW07 called Suzannah. (It's been showing to press & buyers at The Met during LFW for you industry people.) Suzannah certainly isn't reinventing the wheel, but occasionally I want to see clothes I don’t just covet but can actually wear.

I’ve fallen in love with her AW07 looks. Sexy, elegant and well-thought out, this capsule collection is note perfect for this season. The look book is beautifully shot and the pieces are priced at a level that used to be normal for clothing exquisitely cut from beautiful fabrics before the marquee name fashion houses got greedy for BRIC* money. Each piece is made to order, specific requests of fit and colour are met if possible, & all the manufacturing is done in London. The fabrics are predominantly Italian or vintage. In fact, with the promise of such incredible service, I think I might order the first dress.

These two dresses have fantastic detailing back & front.

Charcoal black Future Tuck Jersey Dress. Lined wool blend Italian jersey with grosgrain straps £285


Sculpted Pleat Back Dress: Black fully tailored and lined Italian wool cocktail dress with grey detachable Grosgrain tie £350

This Italian silk satin print dress with grosgrain detachable belt is £300, & fits the 1940's vibe that is one of the key looks this season: I love these two coats.
Drop Waist Pleat Side Cashmere Mix Coat £425 (also available in black) Pintuck Cashmere Blend Coat £450
I like the easy simplicity of these four pieces for SS08. Already the SS08 shows in NYC have pointed to the return of the strapless dress, and this one looks perfect for wearing all summer. I love the yellow dress at the end - it's got wedding outfit written all over it.
*Brazil, Russia, India, China

All pictures from www.suzannah.com

Bungalow 8 opening in London

Please let this be true. Popbitch reported the following today in their weekly digest:

"Bungalow 8 has a reputation for being the most exclusive, celebrity-friendly club in
New York. It's about to open in London. The club held a launch party last Saturday. And the starry cast of A-listers in attendance? For most of the night it was Caprice... and Howard, from the Halifax adverts."

(For my American readers, Popbitch is a pretty reliable insider's gossip forum, mainly used by disgruntled celeb/TV/music industry employees. Caprice is an English D-list version of Paris Hilton in her 30s and Howard is a rotund, bespectacled guy from a cheesy Bank commercial.)

God help us.

Giles is the hottest show ticket in London. He works out of the Rochelle Studios complex in Shoreditch and he shows there each season, hugely restricting the numbers of press that can attend. Which is why I find it depressing that space was made for on his front row for David Walliams, Margo Stilley, and Savannah Miller. Outside of the UK I doubt you will have heard of any of these people. For your edification they are: One fashion-irrelevant millionaire comedian with a fondness for arm candy, one MTA* notorious for a) having explicit real sex in a Michael Winterbottom film, & b)going to the opening of an envelope, and a young designer, famous for being the sister of an actress. Even more dispiriting is that the badly written LFW official daily email saw fit to mention these people as being newsworthy attendees. Is this really what LFW & the BFC* has come to?

*Model-turned-actress
*British Fashion Council

Hi-lo maintenance

Susie Bubble ran a post this week about her disinclination to wear makeup/do grooming. It struck an enormous chord with me as I ran around Vogue House for the whole of my 20's not giving a damn. British Condé Nast admires the individual fashion statement & immaculate grooming tends to be viewed with suspicion in the young. I made a religion out of just not caring about beauty & grooming. I got so much free stuff that I never needed to enter a Beauty Hall, although I gave most of it away to my friends. My mother used to lunch with me and despair at my long un-blow dried hair & shiny face. "Darling, you really should be wearing foundation." The only time I ever got a blow dry was for a big work party, using my Condé Nast discount at Mahogany (the salon opposite Vogue House where everyone goes for lunchtime remedial work.)

Then I hit my late 20s. Those continual late nights & endless vodka, lime & sodas in Soho House & the Groucho started to show on my face and, even tho I have great skin, it started to need some help. And then my hair started to look wrong too. The insouciant, hedge backwards, tousled look no longer worked with my almost 30-something-ness.

I started to make sure it was always brushed and shiny, & when straightened hair was all the rage, I was laughing as my hair is naturally poker straight, but the moment straightened hair came off the catwalks & into the mainstream I bought some heated rollers, a round brush and a hairdryer. Thus my initiation into the world of hair maintenance. My saviour has been Liana at Markos in Hampstead who shoved me to bake under the helmet dryer with my hair in tight rollers. A Blackberry-filled hour later I would have cascading curls, which an hour or so later would soften into gentle waves. (She's a great cutter too - £20, bargain.)

Now I'm in New York I have yet to find someone who can deal with my hair so, much against my inclination, I blow dry if I am leaving the house, and rather admire my salon selectives bounce. I still fucking hate doing it tho, but truth is, you can't wing it over 30....

Perhaps she isn't 'a talentless German sausage' after all....

I know I don't normally do celebrities, but I LOVE Heidi Klum's Edwardian updo at the Prime Time Emmys last night. And I never thought I'd be using the words Klum & love in the same sentence. Maybe it's because she looks completely unrecognisable in this shot...

Perks of the job

One of the perks of the fashion editor's job are the endless goodie bags, parcels of beauty stuff in the post and the discount cards & vouchers given out at pre-season press days that are meant to entice you into stores & boutiques. Some of these are more useful than others: 25% at Chanel doesn't really go that far, but 40% on the High Street does. The most sought after is Topshop's 250 card. They give out just 250 (funny that) 40% cards, and are scrupulous about ID-ing purchasers. (Not that that is any bar to lending/borrowing said card, everyone knows to just rock up with fistfuls of cash and the 250 card owner's business card).

I've hammered my 40% New Look one over the years, buying cute metallic flats, trashy jools, organic cotton Ts, and surprisingly well-cut skinny & wide leg jeans. Coast's gets borrowed by non-fashion girlfriends looking for party frocks, but Karen Millen's 40% & Laura Ashley's 30% have, so far, remained unused.

Finding inexpensive fast fashion in Manhattan is practically impossible, so last Wednesday when I had a couple of hours to kill before I got my flight back to NYC, I took myself off to Oxford Street to see if I cld actually spend some of the Press Day vouchers I've had kicking around for ages (in Sharon Millen's case, at least four season's). I failed to find anything in Schuh (too remedial, round toed, granny-style for my taste), so that's £50 for my sister to try to spend, & drew a blank in M&S (I guess I'll spend those vouchers on houmous next time I'm back) but I struck gold in Sharon Millen, Gap, New Look & Oasis. Pics to come!

Wardrobe dilemma

I left New York's August humidity & sunshine three weeks ago for London's failing gasps of summer. Last week the crispness of Autumn was in the air, and I started to road test my A/W wardrobe, about which I am unfeasibly excited, given that this season marks an abrupt change in silhouette from the billowing, waistless-ness of the preceding four or so seasons. Imagine then my disappointment on arriving back in Manhattan on Thursday to discover that it is in the grips of an Indian summer, and the possibility of wearing my AW pieces is far, far off. And I have NO idea what to wear.

The wafting sundresses & T-shirt dresses which I have lived in since late April are inappropriate now that the temperature is in the early-mid 20's, and anyway they feel all wrong. It's not helping that I have lost 6lbs also (not that I am complaining). I thinking jeans may be the answer, although I haven't worn a pair for some five months now. I guess they'll have to be the bridge between bare legs and my new Falke woolly tights. I bought a splendid pair of boy cut, wide leg jeans in American Gap for $60/£30 the day before I left for England, which even the UK Gap PR admired, and which look just fine with Converse and with platforms.

(It is a little disconcerting tho to see Hallow'een displays everywhere. It's nearly six weeks off, for Christ's sake.)

Wedding chic

My adored best friend Miss P was married to the love of her life, Mr M, last Saturday in London. We thought long & hard about what she should wear (being seven months pregnant made it a more, well, specialised decision). Maternity wedding dresses have a curious ability to look like a bizarre combo of shroud and djellabah. And who wants a bump covered in sequins? Miss P has a tiny back and good legs, so we looked at non-maternity, empire style dresses from Whistles and various other boutiques.

In the end tho, she wore, & looked utterly ravishing in, a pale blue, knee-length silk dress she ordered, & I brought over from New York - from, drum roll..... Gap Maternity. She accessorized with very high L K Bennett gold heels, a large bead vintage pearl necklace from my collection and, underneath it all, Agent Provocateur silk maternity undies. Her bouquet was pinky blue scabious, hydrangeas, & roses. I arranged for the groom to have a fabulous navy bespoke suit made on Savile Row by the reinvigorated Norton & Sons.
The infants, step-daughter & niece, both aged four, wore pale blue, rose sprigged cotton dresses & bright pink cardies from Boden, with ballet slippers. Adorable. And me? My mother told me roundly my choices were too short, so I wore a very simple puff sleeve, navy blue silk, knee-length tunic from faithful old Topshop with beige quilted satin open toe Chanel heels, bright pink lipstick and large pearl drop earrings.

The marriage was a glorious ceremony in the Victorian council chamber at Islington Town Hall (they walked, on air, back down the aisle to Love Is In The Air and the infant bridemaids & I danced in our pews), a journey on a chartered red double decker bus, photographs by the Thames, and lunch (rivers of Billecart Champagne, wondrous wines, amazing canapés, organic chicken pie, wilted greens & new potatoes, cheese, scrumptious brownie wedding cake with crystallised violets & rose petals) at The Blueprint Café on the South Bank all added up to the most perfect wedding day.

I was the non-bridesmaid. I particularly recommend this role: I got to spend two days beforehand having beauty treatments with Miss P, avoided a hen night, dressed & made-up the bride for the wedding,(bliss to get to use my prop kit on a friend rather than a model!) had confetti duties, got to sit opposite the charming father of the bride at lunch and, best of all, no need to wear a bridesmaid's dress.

Pictures © Tim Hayward

Shiny new Manhattan transport

I can't recommend NYC-based greatusedbikes.com enough. I'm fed up with hot $100 boneshakers with crap brakes from dodgy blokes on street corners. And, given the shocking state of Manhattan's streets due to the contraction & expansion of hte tarmac in the freezing winters and boiling summers, (this causes huge potholes & cracks everywhere), a comfy saddle is super-necessary. This outfit undoubtedly the way forward. And he threw in a proper old school bell for free. Yay.

What not to wear: Part Two: Men in the summer city

My first not what to wear list back in Spring was pretty comprehensive, but female orientated. Observing the male species in Manhattan this summer added some male don'ts to the list.

1) Backpacks worn with the straps over both shoulders on men over 16 in the city. The quickest way to look academically challenged. It's time to leave behind the wipe-clean trappings of childhood and buy a Proper Bag.

2) Teva sandals. File under Birkenstock. What’s wrong with a nice pair of leather sandals? As noted before, you are a grown up after all, not a German backpacker.

3) Short sleeved shirts on men. Smacks of office clerk-dom, Forrest Gump and Sta-Press slacks. Roll up a long sleeve shirt instead: much more stylish.

4) Short shorts in the city. You look like you got distracted from your original mission to go to the beach in your swimming trunks. Inappropriate.

Fashion shoots: ah the glamour...

I spent last week shooting in Norfolk, on Holkham and Wells-next-the-Sea beaches. There's no vehicular access to either beach, so we drove our rather large location van down a private lane on the Holkham estate to a point half a mile behind the sand dunes. Then my assistant & I set up our outdoor working area. This would have worked brilliantly, except every passer-by thought we were a jumble sale.

Why their tiny little brains would have thought we were doing this down a wooded country lane is beyond me...When we came back from the first shot our fabulous driver had made the following sign:


It was so cold & windy on the dunes that the crew kept nicking all our samples to keep warm:



This is a small proportion of the returns piled up in my assistant's living room the evening we returned from shooting.

Urban wellie wearing: Part Two

I found my purple Hunter wellies! The dachshund thought they were very interesting too. Now I just have to remove all the Hampstead Heath mud from last Autumn, & scrub them up to a gleaming New York standard.

I'm all blown away...

My frentic shooting schedule means I've been posting little snippets here & there without having time to properly engage with the MOST flattering news! Not one, but THREE blogs I admire have tagged me as a Rocking Girl Blogger. I'm gobsmacked: when people say lovely things quite out of the blue, it takes one's breath away. So THANK YOU Style...A Work in Progress AND Lacquer: A Blog in Lady Lessons & The Discourse of Style and The Glossy

Now I have to engage with listing some blogs I love: thing is we all read each other, so Lovely Liz who is obviously a girl at heart and a fab, valued commentator has already been bagged by my beloved Mrs Fashion who wld also be up there too with Disney Roller Girl. So, here are my tags du jour:

Love Made Visible for her love of good design, be it interiors, graphics or frocks
The Coveted for her window into San Francisco style & the twist she puts on vintage too.
Please Don't Feed The Models for being sharp & gossipy without being crass or overly salacious and for not shying away from reporting on the murky, ethics free side of fashion.
I WAS going to tag The Glossy - which is how I discovered SHE has already tagged me! So this is a sort of tag in a you got me, I got you kind of way....

New York Fashion Week

When I was first commissoned to shoot in England at the beginning of September, I realised that making it back to NY in time for start of the shows was going to be impossible. Then when my best friend decided to get married this weekend, I thought sod it, I'll skip the whole of NY FW, not just the beginning. Then I made the momentous decision to miss all the shows, get on with my life, and keep up to date on style.com

This would have been my 22nd (gulp) season at the shows but in a way it's kind of a relief not to be on that merry-go-round this Autumn. So, apologies for no dispatches from the frontline in NY, London, Milan & Paris this time round.

Pierre Hardy for Gap launches later this year

Hmm. My beloved Pierre Hardy is not just going to be starring in Gap's current European ad campaign, but is collaborating on Gap by Pierre Hardy, a capsule shoe collection for men and women, previewing later this year in the UK and in France, with more pieces rolling out in Spring 08.

Well, if Gap is good enough for Roland Mouret...

Good things come in small sizes

I've never been one of those women who can go out for a smart evening with just a lipstick and a credit card. My pack rat nature demands I carry proper back up - not the industrial size make up kit I saw a girl whip out of her vast handbag in the loos of Shoreditch House last week -but at very least a hairbrush, mints, lipstick, my 'phone and, I think, most importantly, something to read in case of abandonment/acute boredom.

Problem is that evening bags aren't designed to carry more than a basic survival kit, which is why I've always been obsessed with minature versions of those everyday items. Which brings me to these cigarette packet size books from Tank which my adorable friend Tank friend E gave me last week. Quite apart from their clever packaging (we expect nothing less from Masoud and his band of brilliant design mavericks), the idea that you can pop a copy of Kipling or Tolstoy into your bag and it take up less space than your compact is genius. The complete set is above, minus Hemingway, which was an obvious donation to JSL whose screenplay of Hemingway's Garden of Eden has just finished shooting in Europe.

Yes, we do eat.

The myth that fashion people don’t eat is very, very dull. Most of the shoots I’ve been on have seen the entire crew elbowing each other out of the way to get to the food stash at lunchtime. The editorial assistant who went out to buy lunch for our 16 strong crew (we had a separate team filming us all for a behind the scenes piece) on Upper Street on Friday, bless her, had to go out again to double the amount of food she bought: yet another person who believed we all subsist on carrot sticks.

The picture above is the snack section of the kitchen table of the location house I was shooting in last week in London. It’s no wonder we were requesting more fruit by the end of the week: it’s far too tempting to grab a mini Danish or a little choccy bar for on-the-hoof sustenance as you nip past the snack table hunting for your prop kit, which you know you put down SOMEWHERE on the last shot when you were tit taping the model together –again.