Well, hello there!

The photograph above is of me, Sasha Wilkins. It was taken in the East Village, New York by the very talented photographer Jackie Dixon on our trip to New York in November 2006. We stayed in our friend Todd Selby's apartment, took some meetings, did a lot of flea market shopping and decided we had to spend some more time in the city. *

I had nothing to stay for in England, (recovering from a bad break up) and by February 2007, we were back in New York. I knew immediately I wanted to stay in the city for the indefinite future. (Miss Dixon went back to England once her NY projects were finished a month later.)

I knew hardly anyone: my address book was full of contacts but, too English & shy and yet to discover that Americans love to be asked for advice, I didn't call any of them.

Instead I started writing this blog. And met so many of you who have changed my life in so many ways for the better. (I'd like to say a big thank you to the brilliant fashion bloggers DisneyRollerGirl, who was the first blogger to leave a comment here, and Queens Michelle & Marie of Kingdom of Style for being such wonderful & supportive blogosphere friends when I knew no one on-line in the early days.)

2007 was a blogging learning curve. When Grazia first wrote about me at the end of the year, I still couldn't believe that anyone bar my friends & family actually read me.

And then I stopped blogging: I was offered my dream job as Executive Style Editor on the global launch of The Wall Street Journal's WSJ magazine, setting up the fashion department, and over-seeing beauty, fashion, accessories & jewellery.

That was one hell of a rollercoaster and, at the end of 2008, I went back to writing full-time. I re-started LLG on 10 Jan 2009 and within six weeks I was on The Sunday Times 100 Best Blogs in the World list. And then it just went MENTAL.

So, here I am, standing naked in front of you. I've had to reveal my identity for two reasons. Firstly, other people were on the cusp of doing so publicly and I wanted to control how my identity would be released and, secondly, I wanted to be able to attend events & fashion weeks as LLG, not just as Sasha.

So, it was obvious that if I was to come out as LLG, the story needed to be in Grazia, who have continually supported me. So I want to say a big thank you to Hattie Brett for championing the LLG cause since 2007, and for interviewing me for the Grazia feature.

* I just love that three years down the line all three of us, me, Jackie & Todd all have successful blogs. Funny how the world works...

Photo: Sasha Wilkins by Jackie Dixon

Running errands in Manhattan

So. New York. I left you as I drank tea with one of my Twitter acquaintance in Soho House. With a train to catch back to the sticks at 1745hrs (me) & a very nice lunch guest awaiting (my friend), our meeting was necessarily short, and I whizzed off to the arse end of Chelsea for a poke around in my basement storage container.

When I gave up my Manhattan apartment in February, I put all my household goods, spare clothes and books into storage. It looked like this for a while, but I've spent a few hours each time I go into the city going through each hastily packed bag and case throwing out junk, making piles for The Salvation Army, trying to consolidate everything.

I had a fine old time yesterday going through it all, ferreting out house keys, Oyster cards and other London essentials. Although I spent most of the time picking out clothes for London. I have a few winter pieces here in New Jersey, but not only has it not dropped beneath 55F here, they are of the comfy variety, as opposed to the trussed up cocktail/smart lunch/dating variety, all of which activities I have every intention of indulging in once I hit London.

I also downgraded to a much smaller container: I've got rid of so much that I don't need the bigger space any more, & I'll save $50 a month. After a while I emerged, blinking, (it's no wonder I have so few wrinkles - I never see daylight), onto the ground floor to sign the papers and casually checked the time. 1620hrs! I had been down there for THREE & A HALF HOURS.

It completely threw me: I don't wear a watch, so hadn't marked the passing of time. It seemed like only an hour had gone by. I had a scant 60mins to run all my errands and get back to Penn at 34th. Ack.

Now completely stressed, and lugging my wheelie case, thigh high boots threatening to become ankle boots, I struggled across 21st street all the way to 8th and hopped an E to Rockefeller Center to buy my mother's 2010 engagement diary from The Met Store on the Plaza. I am such a good daughter. Then, after a quick swing by (overrated) Magnolia Bakery's midtown location for the Red Velvet cupcakes I always bring Y from the city, I sprinted to the subway, taking no prisoners as I & my case cannoned into tourists every few metres. (I have zero spatial awareness at the best of times.)

Of course, even after another stop to fulfill my mother's esoteric magazine requests at Hudson News, I made an earlier train. Manhattan is so tiny, and the subway so fast, efficient and frequent that I had made it from 21st & 11th to 53rd & 5th to 50th & 7th and down to 34th & 8th in just fifty minutes, shopping time included. God I love New York

Lovely day in lovely New York

I spend most days writing & staring out of the window. When I emerge, blinking like a particularly squiffy, cross owl, to actually do something, I am astonished at how much I can achieve in a day if I put my mind to it, especially when serendipity comes into play.

I’m very good at rising to a challenge, so when I got an email at 915am asking if I could pop in to Manhattan for a meeting today, I begged darling Y to drive me to the station, looked in the mirror, shrieked in horror, trowelled on an inch of slap, pulled on my thousand league suede boots and was off to the railway station within twenty minutes.

At Penn Station an hour later I nearly expired, knocked for six by the unlucky combination of mass humanity and unseasonally warm weather. Beetling down to Soho House in Meatpacking to pick up my post, I stripped off my leather gloves and abbreviated Batman cape, untwined five foot of cashmere scarf from around my neck and raised my face to the sky. There really is nothing like Manhattan on a sunny day.

There’s a handy public Mac in the drawing room of SH, so (as my Blackberry is kaput) I popped upstairs to check my email & Twitter. There was a DM waiting for me from an online friend suggesting tea at SH if I was in the city. I looked up and, sitting working with his back to me, was my friend, easily recognisable from his Twitter profile. Kismet.

He did look a bit taken aback when a random woman approached him, smiling like a loon and saying his name. I remembered then that of course not only do I use a nom de plume on Twitter but I’ve posted an unrecognizable portrait of me too.

Once he’d realised I was me,(it’s quite odd introducing myself as Liberty), and not a crazed stalker, we had a lovely pot of tea and talked about ships & sealing wax and cabbages & kings.

Twitter is a funny animal, but one thing has become evident to me over the past year: Twitter requires an ability to distill thoughts into 140 characters. If the contraction still lets personality shine through, then that person is bound to be fascinating in real life.

More of my NY day later.

The Empire Fulton Ferry State Park in DUMBO, Brooklyn

This little stretch of sand isn't on a deserted beach. It's right here:



The Empire Fulton Ferry State Park in DUMBO* is wedged between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge:



It's the perfect place to take a delicious home made ice cream from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory (look for the converted firehouse) at the Fulton Ferry Landing round the corner, and just gaze at the Manhattan panorama laid out in front of you.

*DUMBO stands for Down under the Manhattan Bridge. The area is full of old warehouses, converted into lofts and galleries

More pics on my Flickr feed

Halloween costumes

I do love a good Haunted House party

Growing up in Smarden, a little English village in Kent, meant that I never experienced trick or treating. There might have been the occasional children's party - I remember one at Vesper Hawk Farm where wonderful F&J organised apple bobbing in the crepuscular Tudor drawing room - but Halloween was more of an occasion for telling ghost stories and drawing pictures in felt tip pens of witches, black cats & pumpkins (which seemed terribly exotic back then), rather than shoving buckets of sweeties down our gullets.

That's partly because Halloween was never a big, popular celebration in the UK and partly because it was always over-shadowed by Smarden's version of Guy Fawkes (Bonfire Night) on the fifth of November when everyone in in the village wore fancy dress and paraded through the village on themed, tractor drawn floats before congregating on the meadow behind the Village Green (the Minnis) to watch a firework display and huge bonfire complete with straw filled Guy Fawkes effigy. *

I remember one particularly glorious year where the Brownies did an Alice in Wonderland float for Bonfire Night, and Lil'sis was the Cheshire Cat. Another year we were a mixed fruit bowl, with me as a bunch of grapes. (Green balloons stuck on a white pillowcase.) But never, ever costumes for Halloween.

That is, until I came to New York, and stuck a wary toe in the Halloween malarkey that goes on in Manhattan. In 2006 I was just visiting, so JD & I picked up a cats eye mask (me), and a blonde wig (JD), at GirlProps in Soho for drinks with some friends.

In 2007 I was with all my NYC girlfriends at Soho House for the Seven Deadly Sins party. I was determined not to dress as a hooker (look, unless someone can convince me otherwise, a nurse/policewoman/cowgirl/Snow White/Alice/whatever costume that consists of stockings, a corset, perspex platforms, micro mini and hoisted up breasts outside of the privacy of one's bedroom is a sex worker's outfit), so went as a Black Widow (avarice) in an LBD, mourning veil, gloves and stilettos.

Last year the theme was horror movies and I had intended to go as a murdered bride. Except that was nixed when the wedding dress I had intended to splash with blood failed to arrive on time from eBay. I compromised and went as a very restrained murdered person in a black silk grosgrain Osman cocktail dress with whitened face, a bloody gash across my neck and more blood trickling down my mouth. (Photo at top.)

I'll be in New Jersey this year. The boys have turned down supper in Manhattan to do the community thing out here, complete with decorated front lawn and candy for the local children, about which I'm rather excited, as I've never seen a proper American Halloween evening. (Running around NYC does not count.) GG was muttering about pirates last week, and I quite fancy a Pirates of the Caribbean style serving wench costume. Although maybe we'll just pop some wings on Finchley.

*(Although why the English still feel the need to celebrate the prevention of the blowing up of the Houses of Parliament & the execution of a Roman Catholic martyr/terrorist four hundred years later is slightly beyond me. Fact of the day: it was compulsory to celebrate by fiat until 1859, to celebrate the deliverance of the King of England. Thanks Wiki for that.)

The DKNY Cozy

I first saw one of these almost exactly three years ago when the ever chic JD from Show Me Your Wardrobe turned up at Heathrow for a Halloween trip we took to New York before moving over here.

She has the art of travelling down to a T. She's always swathed in beige & cream cashmere & wool, pants tucked into sheepskin boots, hair tied loosely up, looking like she gets upgraded just by existing. I follow in her effortlessly chic wake, dropping my passport & boarding pass, trailing wraps & shawls, arms full of magazines & water bottle, feeling cosseted by her professional traveller shtick.

When I saw her wrapped in her DKNY cozy, essentially a long sleeved cardigan, short and fitted at the back, long and flowing at the front, I immediately wanted one. I hoped it would confer on me the same kind of traveller style that had evaded me up to that point.

But I didn't get round to trying one on until my mother came to Manhattan a year later for her annual Christmas shopping expedition. We wandered into the Midtown flagship store and there, just by the door, was a rail of cashmere cozys emitting a subliminal siren's call. They weren't cheap but they looked great on her. I flexed my press discount; she bought one for herself and, a day later in the DKNY store on Broadway she bought me one too in black merino.

It's perfect: I wrap it around my body under my coat when it snows here in midwinter. I wear it loosely over LBDs when I don't want to reveal my curves at work cocktails, drape it around my torso to look chic with pants and, finally, wear it over a T shirt on planes when I want to look like I, too, might just deserve an upgrade.

Black Merino Wool Long Sleeve Cozy $160 from DKNY.com

Compass for navigating New York

Over the time I've lived on Manhattan, I may have made one too many cracks about needing a compass to find my way over the East River and thence around Brooklyn. My friend, the erudite and somewhat barking, Mr Avocado met me for dinner last week (in Brooklyn) and brought me a present:



I particularly like how its strapline reads: "Replacing luck". Thing is, as I don't possess an iPhone, which apparently has a compass facility, this may actually prove more useful in Brooklyn than Mr Avocado realises. The single most irritating thing about the New York subway system is that there are usually several exits, which aren't always marked with the direction.

In a city like London, where the streets aren't on a grid system, it's paradoxically easier to work out where you are going upon exiting the Tube. Whereas here, if there are no landmarks around you, the grid system gives you no way of knowing which way is north.

It's not uncommon to emerge blinking mole-like from the subterranean depths and have absolutely no idea which way is north. I have both collared and been collared by passers-by, desperate to know which way they or I should be walking.

As I don't know Brooklyn as well as Manhattan, a compass should prove invaluable as I explore the borough. Thank you Mr Avocado: your joke may well be my gain.

Manhattan to New Jersey: Urban to bucolic in one hour

This is the view two nights ago from the apartment at Sixth Avenue & West 25th Street where I have most recently been staying in New York:



This is a regular view from the living room in Colt's Neck, New Jersey, to where I travelled yesterday in just an hour on the train from Penn Station:



Quite a change of pace.

Coney Island September 2009

Coney Island out of season seems caught in time. It's just a thirty minute subway ride from Manhattan to the very edge of Brooklyn, but it feels like a different country.

Plastic bags blow down the empty boardwalk; the only sound is the crack of penants flying above the shuttered snack bars.













Whilst the future of Coney Island's attractions is unclear, it seems some have already been dismantled:



Yesterday was the first cold day of autumn here. As the sea breeze whipped around my head, I pulled my fluffy cashmere scarf up to my ears and tried not to scuttle for the warmth of the subway back to Manhattan. It was sunny though at 5pm and I took photograph after photograph before my fingers froze and I succumbed to Nathan's Famous.





Click on any image to take you through to my Flickr set

Tuesday in the Park with Max

I wandered up to the Upper West Side this afternoon to drink jasmine tea from Mariages Freres with Lovely Lola, and admire her new infant.

As I have been absent from New York for a few months, and Lola has been in Spain for much of the summer, today was the first time I met little Max. He's six months old now and it seems a long time since I wrote about the baby shower held in his honour back in February.



He is, of course, adorable, and at that perfect age where he can be dandled on a knee and amused with Aunty LLG's jewellery. (He's managing to stuff the DVD remote and two necklaces in his teething mouth in the photograph above.)

We scooped up the dog, popped Max in his buggy, and headed off to Barney's by way of Central Park. I was dog wrangler which, in a park full of saucy squirrels, is no sinecure.

It's been a perfect autumn day, with crispy orange leaves underfoot, and weak sunshine filtering through the trees. I don't make it up to Central Park very often, but every time I'm there I get pole-axed with homesick-ness and a wave of longing for Hampstead Heath & Posetta Baddog.

Still, having a lovely dog in tow helped ameliorate the sadness, and I can't think of a nicer way to spend two hours than with a girlfriend, her infant and a hound strolling through the Park and the Upper East Side.

After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, by Evie Wyld

I've had a relatively quiet time here in Manhattan over the past fortnight. I've seen few of my friends, and have concentrated on writing, working & meetings.

That's not to say I haven't ventured out of my bed high classing working environment. My second night here coincided with the visit from London of dearest L, an old friend & roommate, literary agent & author who was here for the book launch uptown of one of her authors.



Evie Wyld is one of Granta’s New Voices of 2008 and the book, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, is her debut. Set in Eastern Australia, it's the more remarkable for being a story written about men, their behaviour and the emotions they can't express. Dealing with the mental inheritance of war through three generations, her voice is quietly confident, compassionate and wholly convincing, transporting the reader into an uncomfortable, edgy world that holds one rapt. I highly recommend it.

Available from US Amazon & UK Amazon

Play stopped by rain: A washed out Manhattan Sunday

Today was to be the perfect Manhattan Sunday: L & I were going to hit the Brooklyn Flea market in DUMBO, after which I planned to walk around Park Slope & Prospect Park to research a piece before walking my bags over to the apartment I'm moving to for the next few days.

I have woken up at the ludicrous time of 6am to leaden skies and drizzle. It's been raining all night, and I think it's fair to say that autumn is now officially here and, with it, the cancellation of all my carefully laid plans. Open air flea markets, whether or not they have a Rain or Shine policy are not much fun in the rain, and dragging my wheelie suitcase through the puddles is a no-no.

So it looks like this will be a writing Sunday instead which is no bad thing, as yesterday was a non-starter owing to a slightly too enthusiastic Friday night out.

We had thought to start off with drinks & snacks at the lovely bar at Bobo in the West Village but there was standing room only, so we re-directed to the distinctly less glamorous sports bar opposite to catch the end of the Yankees vs Red Socks game (them not me), and eat some stomach lining fried food.

I also may have drunk two frozen raspberry margaritas. Like most English people in New York, I am endlessly fascinated by these icy Slush Puppies, which my Americans friends think are the height of naff.

Then we sloped off to Soho House. I was all for the squishy sofas inside but Z, fresh from London, was seduced by the fresh air and twinkly lights of the Manhattan panorama up on the Roof. So fresh that the shivering staff brought us fleecey blankets to curl up in on the sofas. More margaritas, these ones spiked with coriander (cilantro) & chili went a long way to keeping out the cold.

Some hours later, we ended up at Happy Ending on the Lower East Side where, in this former massage parlour turned club, we bounced around and drank beers.

And yesterday, well, yesterday I napped, ate, napped and ate.

Note to self: three margaritas good. Five margaritas bad.

Manhattan's Financial District seen from Brooklyn Heights

ah...Manhattan...

Sorting out my possessions: the storage container condundrum

I am bad: look at my lovely Michael Teperson bag in its lilac dustcover just flung on top of Godknowswhat, my Pierre Hardy gladiators just peeking out, squished beneath a Liberty shoe bag. This, I must admit, is the condition of the New York storage container I had back in March, just before I left for California.

The container was too small to allow me to pull cases out to repack them each time I dropped by, so I just lobbed stuff in there as I moved out of my apartment. When I got back, I hauled it all out and moved to a unit with shelves so I could at least get stuff in and out.

I braved the storage facility yesterday and, after a four hour forage, I managed to retrieve a capsule winter wardrobe. I also managed not to drop anything on me this time, which is A Good Thing, as I am still nursing an unhealed hairline fracture above my ankle from the beginning of August when a crate came crashing down from on high

I do feel daunted when I go in there: it's a small sized room with a shelving unit, and it's at least three quarters full. Where did all this stuff come from? I lived in my own home in London for eight years and have those contents in storage over there. How can I have so much here?

Most importantly, over the course of a year will I have paid more than the contents are worth to store them?

But then I started rationally examining everything and it's not quite as bad as it seems. I've avoided buying any big ticket furniture over here, and much of the stuff has come from England gradually over the past 2.5yrs, so it's not as though it's all duplicates of things I already owned.

And, once you discount the huge case & garbage bag that contain towels, linen, duvet & pillows, the very large box of kitchen equipment, wellies, the floor length evening gown hanging from the ceiling, the two boxes of beauty stuff via work, approx a hundred coathangers, a stack of Vogues, the printer, my wine, a crate of cables & wiring, books, and a few large lamps, mirrors & fans, very little of what is left is what I would class as miscellaneous crap. Of which I usually have a lot. In fact, this time, I only seem to have one small box of it.

Pleasingly, I have also filled an enormous case with clothes, books & shoes for The Salvation Army, and a trashbag with knackered old shoes. The former because no one needs to keep airport novels or clothes they are too old or fat for, & the latter because it occurred to me that I really am too old to wear shoes once the heels have broken down, or the toes become scuffed beyond repair, just because they are comfy, designer or gorgeous. Or a combination of all three.

Maybe I am finally shedding my squirrel tendencies.

Maelstrom by Roxy Paine at The Met

Sunday afternoons are for The Met. Ambling around The Temple of Dendur, peering at the models from the Tomb of Meketre, admiring the Robert Adam Dining Room from Lansdowne House and, especially, checking out the installations up on the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden.

Each year, under the unwavering stare of Rodin's Les Trois Ombres, a different sculptor's work is showcased up there: in 2007 an installation of recent work by Frank Stella, in 08 three pieces of previously unseen work by Jeff Koons, including Balloon Dog (Yellow) which reflected my distorted image back at me like a fairground sideshow.

This year it's Maelstrom by Roxy Paine, a site specific piece from his Dendroid series, which explore systems such as vascular networks, tree roots, industrial piping, and fungal mycelia.

I first saw his work in Madison Square Park in 2007, when Conjoined, two oversized silver trees, reached branches towards the skies, fingering their way through the real trees.


Image: Madison Square Park
This year he has gone a whole lot bigger: Maelstrom is a site specific 130-foot-long by 45-foot-wide stainless-steel sculpture. Intended to give the feeling of being caught in a cataclysmic force of nature, against the background of Central Park and the New York skyline, it succeeds in both being alien and natural.



The tree limbs were made elsewhere, and craned over the roof of The Met to be welded together on site. Do watch this fascinating video of its construction:



There are great flashes of humour up there too:



Due to end on October 25th, the installation's public viewing schedule has been extended through November 29th.
Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom
April 28, 2009–November 29, 2009 (weather permitting)
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden

ps Can you spot where I shot my blog header now?!

New York, New York

I've been in Manhattan for five nights now and I still don't feel entirely back at home yet. This year has seen me all over the place, from California to London, Geneva to New Jersey, and the only constant has been my big black Tumi suitcase.

Last week I worked out that this year I have only spent 78 days in New York, the city which is ostensibly my home. I've seen little of my friends here, and can count on my fingers how many times I've had a night out in Manhattan since March.

Yet New York is incontrovertibly my home. I feel torn: one one hand there is the constant pulling feeling that I should be exploring America whilst I can, on the other the suspicion that my restlessness is caused by a fear of settling down, of making a commitment, and that I should just stay put for a while.

My time in New Jersey with my wonderful hosts must necessarily end soon: there is a limit to how long they can be expected to put up with me, and I need to decide what to do next. I had hoped to be in Los Angeles by now, but circumstances have conspired against that move so far.

If I can fiscally support it, I am starting to think that maybe the best plan is to find an apartment in New York, move my possessions here from London, NY, Chelsea and where ever else, and then sublet it for weeks/months at a time when I want to be in LA.

Meanwhile I am in New York until around the 28th. Hopefully I will have come to a conclusion by then.

So Much To Do, So Little Time

T gave me this genius notebook when I was in London last. She knows me so well. I' m a headless chicken today: tidying, cleaning, ironing, making lunch, curling bloody hair, slapping on the make-up, packing...

God I hate packing. I'm leaving this afternoon for ten days or so in New York...it's only an hour away on the train, but I haven't been in the city for five weeks, owing to an unscheduled trip back to London for a funeral, which was extended for another one. I've been given the use of some friend's apartments whilst they are both out of town, so I thought it might be a good idea to shake the hayseeds out of my hair, see some editors & drink some cocktails.

I'm extremely excited to see my friends, but equally shall miss the boys and the Hounds. I'd hate for them to think that I am hot-footing it back to NY at the first opportunity - but I do think they need a break from me from time to time.

I normally travel with a small shoulder bag and my laptop, but this time I am dragging my huge Tumi with me. I moved out to Jersey at a couple of day's notice at the beginning of July, so brought only summer clothes & shoes with me. Although it's still in the seventies here, the mercury is going to drop later this week, and I am thoroughly bored with all my floaty frocks and sandals. So, I've washed & ironed my summer clothes to put back into storage until next Spring or Los Angeles, whichever comes sooner, and am going for a forage in my Chelsea storage container for my winter wardrobe.

Notebook made by The Cooper Family

How I learnt to have grown up hair

My hair is long, naturally blonde and poker straight. It needs no product or clever cutting. It just hangs there, and so I've worn it in exactly the same style, that is no style, ever since I can remember. Bar the Christmas holiday of my final year at uni when I went to Harvey Nichols' hair salon, (for reasons I no longer remember), and had it all cut off in one of those sleek chin length at the front, shorn up to the crown at the back bobs.

I spent two years growing it out.

No one had told me that short hair was a royal pain in the neck. It needs styling. It requires product. And hairdryers. And God knows what else for it not to look like crappy bedhead. And I am really, really lazy when it comes to things like hairstyling. I just cannot be bothered. As I soon discovered, tousled Brigitte Bardot bedhead with long-ish hair is sexy. Bedhead on a 1960s Vidal Sassoon style crop is not.

So it's a shame that I hate my easy to manage flat straight hair. It was bearable in the days when everyone was obsessed with ghds, maybe five, six years ago. I was Little Miss Smug then, rolling out of bed and, after a couple of strokes with a Mason Pearson brush, looking like I'd been straightening it for hours. But I rarely want what everyone else wants. And in this case I wanted waves. Not so much Farrah Fawcett as Rita Hayworth.

For two years, whilst everyone else was sporting sleek curtains, I religiously went to my local granny salon in North London before parties to get my hair set in rollers, before being shoved for an hour to bake under a dryer hood with the rest of the purple rinse brigade. Thing is once the rollers came out, I only had a couple of hours before the curls drooped, leaving me with something nearer to a shaggy perm than sleek movie star waves.

I gave up when I moved to America 2,5yrs ago, making do with blowing out my hair with a round ceramic hairbrush, so it at least had bounce in a shampoo advert kind of way. I had a few pro blow drys from session stylists, hoping they could give me waves, but the artful lightly tonged loose curls they added looked wonderful for just about as long it took me to get home.

Then came the epiphany. I had to have my official portrait taken last summer for work. The Selby was commissioned to shoot it which was all well & good, (thanks Todd), but the real highlight of the shoot (sorry Todd), was the hair stylist, the venerable & lovely Francois Ilnseher, who asked me how I liked to wear my hair. Wavy, I replied, whilst thinking, my hair is dry, ramrod straight, silky just washed ; we've got barely 30 minutes to effect a hair & make-up transformation from sleep-deprived, over-worked office monkey to polished fashion editor. Good luck with that.

Unfazed, he proceeded to almost produce a silk purse out of this sow's ear. First he gave me the best smokey eyed make-up job I've ever had. Then he produced a pair of curling tongs, things I - and other stylists - had used before but never to any lasting success.

I raised an internal eyebrow but, not being one to make a fuss, let him get on with it. Soon there were bouncy tight Victorian ringlets hanging around my face. I looked like the girl off the old Quality Street chocolates tin. My internal horror meter was close to screeching point, as he produced a cushion hair brush. I squeezed my eyes shut as he brushed through the corkscrew curls. Upon opening my eyes I was gobsmacked. Instead of the frizz I was expecting, I saw the hairstyle of my dreams: beautiful deep waves in a Rita Hayworth kind of way. As the day continued, the waves just morphed into gentle volume with a little curl at the end of each lock.

What a revelation. The secret was to take the curls tight with direct heat so that there was no danger of them dropping. Next day I hotfooted it to the hairdressers supply store down on Fifth, bought a ceramic curling iron and sure enough, I got similar results.

It had never, ever occurred to me that you could just brush out hideous, tight ringlets to achieve waves. A good spritz with Elnett Extra Hold Hairspray and the waves stay in for a good while too. I invested in a Braun Cordless Hair Styler ,(a small portable curling iron), for my handbag, and became an adept at curling my hair in the back of Town Cars, on trains, buses and in the loos at restaurants. In fact I'm usually better at it now than a hairdresser, which has saved me hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours in the styling chair.

Finally, I have a hairstyle that takes maybe twenty minutes, looks grown up and makes me feel sexy. A win, win.

Thank you Francois. You are a gentleman & a superstar.

9/11/09

Last year I worked next door to Ground Zero. Each morning I biked down muddy, wet, gravelly Liberty Street from Broadway, past the orange clad construction workers, the new Fire House, and through the mass of spectators who were gathered there at all hours, every day.

I would chain my bike to the scaffolding of the temporary walkways that ran alongside the site and over the West Side Highway, and watch the diggers & cranes through the wire fencing as they carved out the foundations of new buildings where the towers had stood.

Late, late at night when I worked alone in the half dark office, I would look down into the void of the floodlit construction site, and try to imagine what had been there. And fail. Such a geographically precise square cut from Manhattan’s grid system. Such a small space for so many lives.