Wedding bliss

I'm simultaneously over the moon and rather depressed. BA, my partner in crime over here, has just become engaged to be married to the man she loves. And she's asked her three best friends in New York to be her bridesmaids, me along with F & J, at the wedding in the south of France later this year.

But it will inevitably mean she moves back to London at some point. The nature of New York - no one seems to be from here - means that one has to get used to a rather high turnover of friends. M & L have already returned to the UK & I do miss them enormously but hopefully my other wonderful friends are staying put for the time being. I certainly don't think there's much likelihood of me returning to live in London for some years. Although paradoxically, as the negotiations for my new job continue & it's looking like a runner, it means I am likely to be in Europe more as I will be covering the collections.

And I am amusing myself by sending BA pictures of wedding dresses. I can't think why she didn't like this one:

Topshop gladiator sandal

This is the shoe of the summer. £20 at Topshop. Slightly unfortunate that it's going to look very wrong on a lot of women. Do not even think about it unless your legs are up to it.( No point in diminshing the allure of your assets.) There is nothing more unflattering than an ankle strap chopping up your silhouette, giving you tree trunk calves. (I include those fug ugly mid calf boots in the dodgy silhouette group too: I have one word. Trotters.)

Fantasy ball dress - for a Hogmanay party in a Scottish castle

While looking for a J Crew cashmere picture to illustrate my previous piece, I came across this ravishing dress. It's no secret that J Crew are looking to up their fashion quotient (& with it, their price point), and I was somewhat sceptical. After all, if I am going to drop serious money, then it's unlikely to be $1800 on a piece from the equivalent of the American High Street. But a dress like this, in such luxe fabric...maybe*... esp now that I know that the cashmere is from Loro Piana.
The dress has a tulle underskirt for volume, and the back has a very deep V neck wich ends in a pretty bow. The bodice is made from a dense 9-gauge Milano knit for structure, while a looser 7-gauge flat knit gives the skirt a flowing drape.

To be honest, I can't really think of many occasions where it would be practical to wear a cashmere balldress: it's going to be way too hot for dancing in central heating obsessed America. But it would be perfect for a black or white tie party in one of those freezing cold Scottish castles, (or even the arctic village hall in Scourie in Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands where we spent one truly bonkers NYE), and it would look great with a Clan sash draped across it.

*when I win the lottery

Adorable eBay bargain ($14.99!)

Trolling around on eBay I just came across this dress which I adore. It just says party to me - and I loathe the festive prediliction for acres of bare flesh, and bosoms spilling out of strapless tops: so much sexier to cover up with a suggestion. Unfortunately, Mother Nature saw fit to bless me with a very, very generous bust (perched on flamingo legs - dressing myself is problematic), and so it's never going to fit me. Please someone buy it! (And tell me if you do)

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.)

New Season's bag shapes

I'm super bored with the slouchy bags of the last few seasons, and welcome the return of the box frame bag, which fits well with this winter's more controlled look. I have my grandmother's black crocodile frame bag in London, which is going off to be refurbished in time for the shows in September, and I picked this little number up a few weeks ago.

I'm not usually a huge fan of Lulu Guinness handbags, (although I've always secretly lusted over the black satin fan evening bag). But I did pop off to the Manhattan Lulu sample sale just before I went back to London to look for a birthday present for T, who dotes on her designs. Of course, I also found myself a piece for $100: this black suede and leather bag from her higher end Couture collection, (which normally retails somewhere around £500/$1000. Bargain.), was from last year's ‘Surrealist eye’ story, (the clasp is a unique piece of jewellery designed by Lulu and made with a fabulous British jewellery maker, Simon Harrison, in London,) but it's perfect to through to this winter. I'm afraid I actually bought two: one for my mother for her birthday too.

Do clothes maketh the woman?

Ever since my sister and I used to parade up and down the landing at home, decked in the contents of the dressing up cupboard, we’ve always been obsessed with putting together outfits, and their effect on other people.

I’ve always connected looking good, (that means groomed hair, a lick of make-up, heels, suitable, flattering on-trend clothing), with how people rate both my professional status, and my attractiveness. Clothes and shoes are the arsenal in my personal battle with the world.

What I wear affects my mood, my savoir faire. I need to feel comfortable in, and flattered by my clothes, even if to an observer my heels and fashion forward outfit may be the opposite of comfort. Which is why the discovery this week that boys seem to find me as attractive in a short smock, flats, and hedge backwards hair as they do when I am all dolled up has come as a bit of a shock. Don’t get the wrong idea: I’ve never been an obsessive hair drying, inch of pancake wearing, celeb-copying, matchy outfit kind of girl, but I certainly always make a bit of an effort whether I’m wearing flat boots and a swingy dress for jumping around in a mosh pit at a gig, or eating at Cecconi’s in a swish little number.

The heat & humidity in Manhattan this past week, 95F at worst, has meant that minimal makeup and no hairdryer has been the way forward. It’s too hot to take the subway so I’m walking everywhere in flat pumps too. I’ve had four blind dates in almost as many days, and have schlepped off to each with my damp, just out of the shower hair pinned up off my neck, dressed in a £25 loose cotton, puff sleeve, scoop neck, short smock from COS that I bought in four colourways on my trip back to London in April. I could quite easily be presumed to be in my second trimester. Yet, all the men I’ve met seem to be smitten, and have all asked to see me again, one within 20 minutes of my arrival back home.

This throws my entrenched belief that I need my fashionable armour to be found attractive into disarray. I’m not quite sure how to rationalise this: perhaps I care less over here as to how I am perceived, perhaps I’m more relaxed as there is no pressure to settle down as there is in London, perhaps I look more approachable when I’m dressed down, or maybe it’s just as simple as that men just don’t care as much as I do about what I’m wearing and find a stylish woman as disconcerting as a grubby one….

Fashion comes in all shapes & sizes part two

The move towards a more fitted silhouette has been on the horizon for a couple of seasons: for every twenty trapeze dresses, there’s been a Christopher Kane bandage dress, or a Todd Lynn suit.

And so, of course, with such a drastic about turn in fashion sensibility, the new editions of the fash mags all have pieces on how to update your wardrobe for Fall. If you aren’t in the industry then these nuts & bolts service pieces can be very useful. However, my main reaction upon reading JJ Martin’s piece in July US Harper’s yesterday made me want to throw something (probably my already-feeling-very-dated-and-it’s-not-yet-July Chloé wedges). She tries very hard to suggest looks for women with shapes that aren’t fashion model standard, but fails miserably.

“A sexy set of legs and a thicker midsection demand a short tight skirt( or substitute a slim pencil skirt), and a blousy top with the new puff sleeves”

Is the woman insane? Does she ever REALLY look at bodies that differ from the fashion norm? Sure the pencil skirt is going to show off my legs but, take it from me, the cinched in waist that looks best with a pencil skirt is impossible if you have a ‘thicker midsection’. And if you have great legs then you’ve probably got a larger bust, and the last thing you need is blousiness up top – unless you want to look as though you are in danger of toppling over in a heavy wind. I do wish some fashion writers would do more than pay lip service to the idea that women have different shapes. (Although I must give a shout to US Glamour, who, to their huge credit, do occasionally shoot their swimwear on normal women.)

Style comes in all shapes & sizes

As a fashion writer I pay huge attention to what I, and everyone around me wears on a daily basis. It informs what I wear, what I write and how I predict trends. This is, of course, a double edged sword. Whilst I like to think I am a good advert for my own personal take on fashion, I’m not sure my non-fashion friends appreciate always feeling like they are under the fashion microscope. I’ve lost of the amount of times friends (male & female), have apologised for their outfits in my presence. Which is pretty ridiculous as personal style is so much more important than being on trend. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate a nod to current fashion stories, but I’m usually far more interested in the provenance of someone’s beautiful Kashmiri embroidered scarf, or genius plastic bracelet from Shoreditch Market.

This personal obsession with what I wear means that I can easily spend an hour throwing clothes around my room until it looks like a clothes bomb has gone off in there. However, once dressed, I rarely think about my outfit again during the day: I just need to feel right first thing. Of course, it would be easier if I had a classical ‘fashion’ figure: flat chest, neat waist, hips, but I don’t. I’m that rarity, an apple: lots of breastage, no waist, and great legs, As I once memorably described my figure in British Elle, I have a barrel shaped body perched on golf club legs.

Still, years of practice has meant that I generally know what suits me, even if actually translating that into a wearable outfit is more of a struggle. It’s been simple over the past year or so when all I’ve had to do to engage with feeling stylish is to pull on a loose short frock, but I fear their time is coming to an end. This coming season is all about pencil skirts, cinched in waists, a little volume on top, the high heel.

No no no

On my way to the gym to meet my trainer this morning (more of this later), I amused myself by listing & then spotting all the fashion faux pas that seem to appear after the vernal equinox.

1) Dungarees. I don't give a flying fuck if they are in this season. There are only two exceptions: If they are OshKosh & being worn by a child under ten or covered in paint as workwear.

2)Birkenstocks. No, I do not want to see your flat plates of meat. Why is it that Birkenstock wearers always have disgusting feet?

3) The belted trench coat. Ignore the fashionistas. This is a conspiracy to get more Burberry/Daks/Acquascutum* advertising in their magazines. I know you all want to look like Kate Moss in the Burberry ads but take it from a real life fashion editor: out of a studio they only work on tall, completely flat chested women. Otherwise think bag of potatoes with a string around the middle. And as for the shoulder straps, flaps etc, they just add bulk...and why would you want that?

4)Flesh colour tights - especially those with lycra. In fact, make that all tights with lycra - why do you want your legs to shine? It just makes your calves the size of a Premiership footballer's.

* Delete as applicable

Re-sees: Peter Som

One of the absolute joys of being here & not there is not having to do the endless AW07 press days in London. We've hardly recovered from the shows, it's still schizo weather central here, and I haven't even begun to address my summer 07 wardrobe when I'm supposed to be thinking about my a) stories for next season & b) personal orders for my wardrobe for NEXT bloody winter. Ha! I don't even know which city I'll be living in then, let alone whether I'll need a $2000 coat....( that's what it wld cost if I was paying retail - which I don't, obviously)

Fortunately the heavenly (& intelligent - thank Christ) P is dealing with all my mail and trundling off round London on my behalf.

I did make an exception to do a re-see at Peter Som today. Such a beautifully put together collection with an exemplary level of craftsmanship. There's a strong vintage feel - but more Lily et Cie than Oxfam. I WANT this coat. A LOT.



I wore: Plain black 60's A line mini dress with short sleeves from vintage warehouse in Williamsburg. Gold New Look bauble necklace as choker. Wolfords (again). Black round toe patent wedges (bit over now). Black & gold bangle from Express (yay!) Michael Teperson cream bag (Thank you Michael)