America's Finest

Oh goodness it is quite chilly now. We are corralled in a hamster run along Pennsylvania Avenue with no way out. Intending to get in a spot of sightseeing after the Inauguration Ceremony finished, we soon realised that we were meant to stay put for two hours until the parade started. Which is now running fifty five minutes late. Tut tut Mr Obama.

I have been amusing myself by flirting with America's Finest. Forces from all over the States have sent officers, who are lined up down the Avenue in their divisions and who are as cold and bored as the onlookers . So far, we have met the

North Carolina Highway Patrol (I suggest this may be a good day to break the speed limit in NC judging by how many Highway cops they sent), Greenborough NC's cops, some rather lovely guys from The National Guard in full-on desert fatigues & balaclavas, a couple of Uniformed Secret Agents (tautology there I feel), and a very sweet Officer Lopez from the Border Patrol in Texas searched me on the way through the security checks.

The ones I really want to meet are from Rhode Island who look like they have escaped from The Producers, in brown riding boots, britches, and wasp waisted & belted brown leather long line jackets. Although the Tactical Squad from Birmingham, Alabama could give them a run for their money in some rather natty skin tight blue trousers and butch cropped bomber jackets.

Still, for all the light chat with the security forces, it's hard to forget why they are all here. Every high building in sight has a couple of counter snipers in position, and all the policemen have black nylon sacks attached to their trouser legs which don't, as I suggested, contain sandwiches, but gas masks.



Photo: The Barrister

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Waterworks

I've already cried once and I haven't got off the train yet. The gentleman opposite me was here in Washington, marching in 1963. He told me that his life had now turned full circle by coming to Washington today. He just wished his parents were alive to be there with him.

He had been a student activist in the 60s and they all thought the world would change then. It did, but not as they had hoped.

Above all, he said, now crying, Obama had given him a fresh hope. Hope that things would change this time.
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Having been told that every train into DC would be packed, we managed to find two facing quads of reclining seats into which I stretched out, covered in my fur coat, and proceeded to sleep like a baby all the way to Washington.

I've just woken up to find an elderly African American gentleman sitting opposite me. With Obama hat and an Obama watch, grinning like a kindergartner on a school outing in three sweaters plus. The last time he'd worn that many layers, he reckons, his mother had dressed him for school.

I'm the same. Tights, woollen stockings, cashmere socks inside my wellies, a wool bell skirt, silk undies and a cashmere twinset bobble hat, ear muffs and a scarf big enough to use as a blanket. There's no way I'm getting cold.

We've got two hours now until the Inauguration Ceremony starts but I think it'll take that long to get from the station to anywhere near the big screens. I still can't believe we are here.
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Milan Ready to Wear Collections: The Inside Story Part Six. The end

To be honest, I LOATHE Milan. Grey, industrial, clogged with traffic and full of people who don't speak English. (In my defence, I’m hardly linguistically challenged: I speak fluent French and, um, Latin, but it's not easy trying to work so hard in a country where no one has any English.) You try six days in a car with a driver who has no English and gets left and right confused continually – which is no joke when you exit a show in the rain with five hundred other people, all of whom are hunting for their identical black cars which are crawling in traffic to get to the venue, and you are tried, hungry & grumpy, fed up with being elbowed in the exit melee by pushy assistants & bodyguards, wearing silly shoes and a by now wet and see through diaphanous dress in which you totter down to the left hand corner 200 yards away to wait for the car, only to discover he meant right which is now 400 yards in the opposite direction…. And you do that ten times a day.

I am now remembering the shin splints from high heel wearing (technically having a driver means no walking or standing, but there's always going to be waiting outside a venue by which time your driver has buggered off to eat panini & watch Inter kick soccer arse in some cafe for the next hour), and the continually rumbling tummy - take it from me, Haribo are not a nutritious or filling lunch - and the rain. It always bloody rains in Milan. And you can guarantee we'll all be wearing something that doesn't take kindly to wet. Feathers, silk frocks, suede open toe hooker shoes, vertiginous platforms that have no traction on rain sodden pavements.

But of course there is always the moment when something glorious happens and you get swept away on a tide of extraordinary and beautiful clothing that redefines the craft and you remember why you love your job....

Milan Ready to Wear Collections: The Inside Story Part Five,

So, the nuts & bolts. We all stay between the Grand et Milan (I stayed here last time but hate it – old school, rococo nonsense, rooms a cat would object to being swung in), the Four Seasons, Principe and Bulgari. The FS & Bulgari are eye wincingly expensive, the Grand and Princh just staggeringly expensive. Anywhere else is considered decidedly déclassé and people staying elsewhere will do anything to avoid telling you where they are being put up.

The place to eat is a fairly dismal looking trad trat called della'langhe on Corso Cormo (I saw skeletal Rachel Zoe propping up the wall outside having a fag this time round). I’ve never got it but it's cult amongst editors, who happily expense gallons of Prosecco and plates of 50 Eur truffled pasta. Da Giacomo is better but I can think of better things to do than eating surrounded by the same people I've been eyeballing across the runway all day. As for drinking, sure some people (network-y publicists and juniors who aren't doing dinners) party and hang out in the Princh bar ‘till god knows when, but I am always drooping with jet lag & desperate for my bed.

I noticed last season that American magazines were seriously trimming their teams. In addition to the editor in chief & fashion director, there are usually the accessories director & fashion market director, maybe the fashion news director too. If a mag has a creative director like Elle & Joe Zee, then they will come too. The publisher will prob swing in for a few key shows - Armani of course, maybe Versace, Gucci too.

If there are any key contributing fashion editors (who just work on specific shoots, not salaried) on the mag who are household names in the industry, the mag may sponsor them too, certainly apply for their tickets. Maybe several of the senior fashion editors too, but times are tough so they aren't around as much.

On the way to DC...

Beyond excited. Heading to Washington on the 0605hrs train with The Barrister and HZ. I have looked out my silk Patra t shirts and leggings as I suspect that there will be much standing outside in zero temperatures. Other than that, I have my camera and some Haribo. Fully prepared, me. I will be blogging live from DC, so watch this space.

Milan Ready to Wear Collections: The Inside Story Part Four

Did I mention the waiting? The endless waiting for shows to start? And how much everyone bar the newspapers & websites who need continuous streams of civilian-friendly copy, LOATHE celebrities at fashion shows? They are always late and hold up the shows, in turn making editors late for their next appointments. And whose anally retentive, built like a brick shithouse bodyguards always manage to tread on poor editor toes or send ickle twiglets flying with a careless elbow in the after show rush for the two exits (think camels through eye of needle).

Darling we are fashion editors, as if we cared about stupid Beyonce. Actually of course everyone wants to get a good look at her but it's professional death to show any interest whatsoever. Personally, I say thank god for the people-watching. It's the only thing that stops me from getting RSI from pecking away at my Blackberry.

The reason we are all so busy is because we don't just attend the shows: there are the hellish meetings called re-sees. These do what they say on the tin: not only do you have to endure the pastel pailette horror of the Armani mainline show* but you then have to pitch up again at the showroom in the arse end fo nowhere to look through rooms of blah (not just the runway pieces, but all the accessories, jools, bags, swimwear, knickers etc) making nodding gestures and lying through your teeth about how much you like it.

So an average day might have 8 shows and eight re-sees. You just don't stop. I spend my entire time scrolling through Google Maps on my BlackBerry in solitary splendour in the back of my car working out if I have time to fit in the show of a minor advertiser on the other side of town or another re-see appointment or, hopefully, a trip to the Marni Outlet out in the South East – where every single editor goes during the week, preferably the day they arrive &, as mentioned, before the Japanese Marni-obsessive editor hordes descend. (Think locusts.)

*(99% of fashion people secretly ABHOR Armani but we have to a) shoot it because of the advertising and b) go to the shows as the Armani publicists are shameless about harassing you continually if you don't turn up to the sodding show)

The pippets

Mrs Mad tells me that the whippets & Maudie Littlehampton are very cross that I keep mentioning them but with no photographic evidence. Any excuse I say. So, without much further ado,

The Pippets (Violet on the left, ASBO/Billy on the right):


Asbo

Mopsy-dog

And Posetta Baddog (because she'll feel left out otherwise) And do admire the crispness of my new Leica lens:

Look - I'm English - What did you expect? Of course I'm obsessed with my dogs.

English Invasion

Mama is coming to stay on Thursday for five nights. She's feeling a bit January-blues-ish, flights are super cheap on the dreaded Virgin (I would boycott them because of their appalling telephone reservations system, and the fact they don't serve proper breakfast in Goat Class any more NY-LON, but they now have all my sodding Airmiles. And, of course they do have movies on demand. And they serve choc ices during said movies, so there are advantages) and it's not as if I am super-busy right now.

The whippets, Maudie Littlehampton (manipulative Jack Russell) & Iggy-Wiggy (ball of fluff/Maine Coone) are being looked after by R&C our beloved neighbours, who are airport-chauffeuring/house-sitting, & I have a Town Car booked to meet her at JFK so all is in readiness. Glamorous JK has offered up her Soho pad (now that it has new locks) so she even has an NYC base, if required.

I have told Mama to pack her thermal knickers, & she has emailed me to check up on my requirements from home. I reproduce below as I think it sums me up neatly:

"Please confirm to me what you would like me to bring - tins of Baked Beans, Marmite, contact lenses, plastic folder of receipts, Vogues and Grazias."

Ahhhh. The essentials of my life.

Milan Ready to Wear Collections: The Inside Story Part Three

The key thing about covering the Milan shows is that it's impossible without a car and a driver. The shows are spread out all over the city and the public transport system doesn’t seem to go anywhere near the show venues. The shows are every hour and, often, two an hour, so you would never get to anything on time if you took the metro. Average cost of a car & driver (including moderate overtime) for one week: EUR2000 ($2654).

My day started around 7am, but you can easily start an hour before that if you are an uber-groomed American magazine diva (& if you are Anna Wintour you have hair & makeup done professionally), followed by breakfast downstairs at 8am (39 Eur/$52) per head at the Grand et Milan but, fortunately for my expenses, included in my room rate), unless I had a breakfast with a publicist. Then I would totter out in my five inch platform stilettos to hop in my black car (door held open by uniformed driver) which would be idling on the pavement in a line of about 7 or so cars at 830 to take me to for the first appt/meeting of the day.

You rely on your driver to keep you sane during the shows. There's no time to eat (hence the importance of stuffing down large quantities of breakfast in manner of a grumpy dormouse filling its cheeks for the winter, although I expect that the nervy twiglets eschew breakfast for yoga or some such nonsense) so a good driver knows automatically to fill every spare pocket, door and niche (after all nature abhors a vacuum) in the car with sweeties, mini bottles of waters and tubes of Pringles.

Because that is all the nourishment you are getting till you eat at 10pm or later. (Can you imagine being in Italy and not having time to eat?) Some of the early morning shows lay on breakfast, if a Danish, espresso, glass of Champagne can be described as such, and you do actually see people eating - hell this is fashion, people eating is a noteworthy occurrence - because the show will inevitably run late and there is bugger all else to do except graze on carbs.

Urban beauty

Walking through the snow-covered streets of the Lower East Side this morning, I came upon these bird marks in the shadow of the 19th century tenements on Essex Street. How beautiful in such an urban setting to see little footprints, more suited to a park, bang in the middle of the street in one of the most urban areas of Manhattan.

The Milan Collections: Part two

Milan is all about advertising. Editors covering the shows make no bones about the fact that they are there purely to ‘support’ the companies who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in their publications each year. Believe me, there is no other justification for sitting through a MaxMara show. The big advertiser shows ones are still helmed by their eponymous designers, Mr. Armani and his perma-tan at Armani, Donatella and her perma-tan at Versace, Cavalli & his perma-tan at Roberto Cavalli, Stefano & Domenico & their perma-tans at Dolce & Gabbana etc etc…Non-Italian,un-perma-tanned designers barely get a look in: Pucci had Matthew Williamson (UK) who’s just been replaced by Peter Dundas (Norway), and hmmm, oh Jil Sander has the genius Belgian Raf Simons at the helm.

It’s not just editors, models & stylists who fly in for the shows. Editors are seated in country blocks, and each House flies in its key publicists from the major markets to look after their country's editors. (In reality this means sending flowers & gifts to key editors’ hotel rooms, hosting dinners, organizing re-see appointments, doing the seating assignments and then scanning each row to check on editor attendance; absences – construed by publicists as lack of ‘support’ by the magazine - are duly noted when planning advertising schedules). This is not a job I envy as nearly every editor inevitably hates her seat allocation and the publicist then gets it in the neck when editor X turns up to discover that her arch rival from Y mag is sitting two rows in front of her.

This system of publicists looking after their own countries works well for editors if bullying publicists in person for better seats is a priority, but presents a major drawback if they are planning to skip the show of a minor advertiser in order to, say find a loo, or actually eat a meal sitting down (two things that don’t fit into the 12 show and eight re-sees a day schedule)or, sshh, head out to stock up at the Marni Outlet store before it's pillaged by the Japanese editor contingent. No chance that the absence will be missed by the eagle-eyed publicist.

It also fails if, say, the US publicist is busy celebrity wrangling and a US editor in chief is unimpressed to discover her seat is in the second row as happened at the Versace SS09 show. Unfortunately involved, I grabbed the first girl in sight with a headset - who turned out to be the Spanish sector publicist who could not have cared less about helping her. Mind you, faced with a brace of foreign hot, cross editors I’d have the same reaction.

Ethical dilemma

I had the most upsetting experience at a party in Soho this evening. I had been invited by X, a new friend whom I like very, very much, to the private birthday party of an elderly family friend, and was touched to be asked. It was a studio party, with a buffet in the corner, and guests coming and going all evening.

On my way home out of the studio door a woman, to whom I had been introduced in passing earlier, called out after me, pointing forcefully to a pot with money, in which she was collecting tithes for a birthday present. I gracefully said that I wasn’t able to contribute this time, and she asked me forcefully if I was a friend of X. Upon replying yes, she said that X needed to remember who had helped her in the past.

Failing to understand what this had to do with my personal circumstances, and quite surprised that anyone would chase an unknown guest for money, I went back up and said that I was so sorry. It was nothing to do with X, that I had recently left my job and that if I gave money I wouldn't be eating next week - (which is the sum of it – every single cent I have is accounted for until I get paid by my creditors.)

Her response was to tell me never to come back there again. I left and burst into tears outside - it was so humiliating.

I later found out that the woman was the wife of the family friend and she must have thought me rude for walking past her & her gaggle of friends in the foyer and not saying thank you or goodnight, but I had no idea that was who she was or, of course, I would have done.

Here’s the thing: should I have given something? I can only go by my own experience: I've thrown many lavish catered birthday parties for myself and maybe a third of the guests at most, the ones I know well, have bought presents. Should giving be obligatory by every attendee at a birthday party?

If I was in full time employment, I would have put ten or fifteen dollars into the pot without even thinking about it, just to be polite, even though I’m not sure I’m comfortable with being commanded to donate to a stranger’s birthday present. Should I have repaid the host’s hospitality by donating to his present fund (which he didn't know about, I hasten to add) even if it left me unable to buy my own groceries for the week?

Milan Ready to Wear Collections: The Inside Story Part one

I promised a few posts back that I was going to start my Guide to the Collections Abroad. This is part one, Milan.

The biannual fashion collections in New York, London, Milan & Paris are the nexus around which fashion magazine years are planned, but they aren’t always looked forward to with the glee that you might expect (Fashion! Foreign travel! All expenses paid! Celebrity! Parties! The Glamour! The shops!) The more usual reactions for those who have been on the hamster treadmill for some years are Jetlag! No sleep! Sore Feet! Always hungry! Standing in line for hours! Working with morons! Language barrier! What The Fuck Am I Going To Wear?!

Because here’s the thing: the shows are Work. Unless you are a shiny, just out of the box assistant or junior editor, brimming with youthful enthusiasm, the shows are Exhausting. Attending the collections as a senior magazine editor is not, as most people imagine, so much about seeing the beautiful clothes that remind you why you love your job, it’s about being nice to advertiser brands. Behind the stardust supplied by beautiful dresses, models and the odd celeb, is a schedule that brings you to your knees by the time Paris is over. There’s very little time for shopping and fun, there’s certainly no time to eat and those glam-looking parties you see photographed in Vague or on E!Online are cluster fucks of revolting people looking for photo opps and sleepy editors being nice to advertisers.

Whilst being blasé about having a wonderful job is a crime in itself, you do have to work very hard mentally to remind yourself why the circus is supposed to be enjoyable. Because however luxe and lovely the trappings in senior editor land are, if you are sleep-deprived, hungry and stressed they all rather fade away.

The thing to remember is that the Collections are essentially a series of trade fairs, where, instead of talking about rivets or semi-conductors, the participants talk models, make-up and silhouettes. They are not a week long whirl of joy. And, speaking of trade fairs, the general public are actively discouraged from any kind of participation, and the shows generally have little or no impact on the life of the cities.

After all, for the hotels & restaurants, fashion people are just better dressed than normal, business people who require lodging and food in the same way that any guest might. (Although in a slightly more demanding fashion, I grant you.) In Milan, the only Milanese who care about the shows are the Lotharios who prey on teen Eastern European models, the limo drivers who make more money in a week than they do in three months out of season, and the poor Milanese who are continually late for work because of the traffic caused by the hundreds of limos.

In England EVERYONE EATS BAKED BEANS

I was reading my new absolute favourite blog Belgian Waffle late into the night yesterday when I came across her description of the game "In England". This is not just germane to expats in Belgium. All English expats play it.

It consists of regarding your surroundings and saying, "In England this would be...". Basically it's a game of compare and contrast: sometimes the situation would be better at home, other times one is admiring of the foreign way of doing something. For example, in New York one might say, "In England you'd never get the bloody RMT Union to allow the Tube to run 24/7, it's so much more civilised here in Manhattan." or, conversely you might say, "In England, they'd never call a mess of congealed scrambled eggs an omelette".

It's the game that never tires.

Except many Americans LOATHE it. Because, of course, you can't criticise ANYTHING here. Sigh.

Sometimes I do long for the English attitude where, if you burned the Union Flag, no one would bat an eyelid. See - there's another example of 'In England', right off the bat.

Which also brings me to an email from an ex, Mr Avocado, who, upon reading the following line in yesterday's blog:
"*High class and shockingly priced deli/food store/home of deliciousness/purveyor of the $3 can of baked beans."

Commented:
Again with the baked beans, LLG. Honestly. They’re for proles here. And old people. You have a reputation to uphold. I mean.

IN ENGLAND they are a meal of high culinary virtue eaten by everyone from the Queen to, well, me. Seriously, they are a national treasure. Eaten on toast with lots of butter or with chips (Fries) & sausages. And they do not cost $3. More like 60p/90C. They also taste & look different: less sugar and a special green tin, and are probably the most missed food by expats abroad.

Wikipedia explains it thus, "There are substantial differences between the Heinz baked beans sold in the UK and the nearest equivalent US product (Heinz Premium Vegetarian Beans). The US beans contain brown sugar where the British beans do not, and the US product contains 14g of sugar per tin compared to 7g for the British version (equating to 140 vs 90 calories). The US beans have a mushier texture and are darker in colour than their UK counterpart."

I was looking for a pic and just came across this blog entry from another expat extolling their virtue. Altho, granted, even the Europeans think it's weird how the English obsess about them. BA's euro-chic husband Marc is French/Danish and thinks they are the food of the devil.

Being good

I am on the Spending Very Little Money diet which is actually remarkably similar to my normal diet. It's just that this one involves avoiding bloody Whole Foods and the larcenous mark-ups therein, using up every scrap of food in my fridge & larder, even if what I really, really want to do is eat Nachos in a silver takeout tray from Pacquitos, and not buying luxury food like buffalo mozzarella, haloumi cheese or imported Kerrygold butter (also known as the food that makes me fat).

In itself all of this is Very Good. I am being Economical, Green, Seasonal (Turnips! Cabbage! Squash! Curly kale! More kale! More sodding kale!), Healthy, and Inventive With Menus. I'll be joining the Womens Institute soon. And, really, all this economising could really just be called a regimen minceur. Which is a bloody good thing too as I ate way too much delicious and therefore bad food chez mama this Christmas. Crumpets figured largely as did the dread Quality Street. Also Pops gave me a large box of Celebrations choccies at our pre-Christmas, Christmas lunch. This is what happens to the children of divorcing parents. They get fat by having access to twice the amount of chocolate.

BTW I do apologise to those of you who come to this blog in the belief that I will be blogging about my soi-disant glamorous Manhattan lifestyle. I hope to resume normal dilettante behaviour when someone decides that they need to employ me soon.

Meanwhile I leave you with a picture of the rat at the pre-Christmas, Christmas lunch at The Wells in Hampstead (an admirably dog friendly gastropub): Her thousand yard stare when she wants something she can't have (in this case the delectable remains of our shared crumble) was exactly the look on my face outside Dean & Delucca* in Soho this morning.

*High class and shockingly priced deli/food store/home of deliciousness/purveyor of the $3 can of baked beans.

Inauguration Day

Well, I'm off very early to Washington on Tuesday to join the masses. I can’t say it would have occurred to me to hang out in DC to watch the inauguration on the big screens but The Barrister is in town, and he bought me a day train ticket. And, of course, I’m now rather excited.

In England, I’m the queen of blasé. Hanging out in the Mall to watch a Royal Wedding? Pah. State funerals? Nah. Opening of Parliament? fuhgeddaboudit. There’s a better view on the telly. But, this time, I think he’s right: I'd be a fool to miss it. Anyway, I'm a tourist in America, so I may as well admit it and enjoy the experience.

Should it stay or should it go?

I've been mulling over whether or not I should Ebay this jacket for a while. It's vintage and I would guess from the pretty silk satin lining and beautiful finishing that it dates from the 1950s. I'm not sure what the fur is: it's very soft but incredibly thick & heavy, so I think it may be shearling.

I love the glamour of the fur behind my head when I raise the collar, but I fear it's too boxy a shape on me, unless I drop two sizes and that's a pipe dream. As I've only worn it twice in a year, & space is at a premium here, I think it should probably go.

Upon realising that I have too much stuff

No longer being in fulltime employment, my finances aren’t exactly in glistening form. Resigning from my job in the middle of a recession wasn’t exactly a sensible move, although one necessary for my sanity. I’ve had to cut down on my day to day expenses: no taxis, no dinner at Waverly and, above all, no shopping.

That last has been surprisingly easy to maintain. I can honestly say that I have lost all interest in buying any of the things I used to lust after. No more do I pore through the glossy catalogues that clog up my mailbox or press my nose to the glass windows on Bleecker.

It helps of course, that I bought my London home in 1999, and live in a Village shoebox here in New York, so have no need of cookware or interiors stuff (one of my worst shopping vices) right now. As for clothes, not only am I carrying 10lbs of winter overweight right now which takes the edge off desire, but I’ve turned a mental corner. Shopping just seems to have lost its thrill for me. I have a wardrobe stuffed with beautiful clothes, shoes & bags, and there just seems no reason to add to any of it. Actually what I want to do is get rid of it all. I feel quite ill when I look at all the stuff I have that I bought through insecurity or emotion rather than through need or real desire.

I think I’ve been coming to this point gradually for over a year now. When I looked, for this piece, in my wardrobe to see what I bought since I started my job at the beginning of last year, the list was slim. A handful of simple silk tunics & shifts for work in the summer. Zara in Paris furnished me with a black body con dress for everyday, a denim pencil skirt, a black wool bubble skirt and a couple of pairs of shoes that cld pass for designer for winter. A cream & black polka dotted silk shirt from New Look Limited Edition. Two bargains: A camel coat reduced from $800 to $100 in the DKNY sale, and a $70 (from $1200) black knitted silk YSL shirt & matching thin scarf in the sample sale. My new found earning power meant some investment pieces: A classic tux, a leather biker jacket and a beautiful black, bell skirted winter coat from Theory. And my mother bought me some thigh-high black suede boots from Jaime Mascarolo in Paris during the SS09 collections . And that was it. For a fashion editor that was mighty slim pickings for two seasons.

But the common thread between all those pieces is that they are part of one simple style. They all work together. They are all chic, maybe even grown-up. It’s taken me a long while to get here. My personal style has always been schizophrenic, but working in a Serious Job all last year, with no time to shop or even to worry about clothing myself, made me streamline my style automatically. Restricted packing for the Milan & Paris collections in September made me downsize too: 16 days away in one suitcase. It helps too that now I’m in my thirties, I can recognise the person I am, have no need to experiment, and no longer try to be someone else through my wardrobe.

So, this week, I have made the most enormous pile on my bed of every piece of clothing that I’m not quite sure about, all the pieces I've collected and don't wear, every flea market bargain, each sample sale rush of blood to head, all the tops that don’t quite stretch over my bosom. And I’m Ebaying the lot. That should pay the rent for a while.

Slough of Despond

The temperature has dropped again, and with it my spirits. The locksmith has just charged me $383 that I do not have to replace the high security cylinder component of JK’s high security deadbolt. He explained that it is not the key, nor me, nor the deadbolt, but the little pins inside the cylinder that are buggered and that It Was Merely a Matter of Time before the key got stuck inside. We did a spot of Show & Tell and I now believe this to be true, rather than a device to ultimately part JK from her money, or the result of any inept stupidity on my part.

I just wish that a) it had not happened to JK’s lock whilst I was in charge and b) on the coldest day of the year as the chirpy Israeli locksmith needs to keep the door open in order to do his stuff. In fact he has been here for an hour so I guess the money is going somewhere - rather than just into the huge coffers in locksmith land. He is now telling me that the deadbolt is kaput also but that is he replacing that for free as I was close to weeping. Small mercies. Sigh.

What a non-productive blah of a day but, I guess in the balance of things, it is better that it was non-Proper Job I who turned the key today, rather than her housekeeper on Monday, or JK on her jet lagged return, and was able to do the waiting and overseeing of the locksmith.

Bollocks

What to do? I am currently inside JK's apartment in Soho but her front door key is stuck in the outside lock. It turned fine to let me inside, and still locks and unlocks but I can't remove it, & I can't leave to buy any WD40 as obviously I can't lock up. I am now boiling the kettle to see if steam/hot water will expand the lock and maybe the key will wiggle out. This is the extent of my bright ideas...HELP! Otherwise it's the locksmith, I guess..

New York winter continues...

Kerist it’s parky here right now at a numbing -7C (21F) but according to weather.com the wind chill is making it feel more like -13C (9F). The snow probably isn’t helping that either. The cabTV weather forecast called it frigid. (A word that in England is only used by rude men to refer to girls who won’t put out. Not those who are chilly.) Tomorrow it will feel like -21C. Blimey. Forget fur coats, I shall need fur knickers.

To be honest, I’m not cold at all today as I have been lugging my enormous Tumi case up and down umpteen flights of stairs all morning, whilst dressed in my vintage fur coat. After my West Village date last night, I stayed over at CA’s place two blocks away on Perry so I could be there for the laundryman first thing. (I stay there on occasion and, in return, clean & tidy for the odd visiting guest whilst she is in London). I then hauled my case back down her three flights to grab a cab this morning to Soho where I hauled it up four flights to JK’s beautiful jewel box flat, where I am staying for a week or so whilst she is travelling. (My official East Village bed is currently occupied by The Barrister & bird who otherwise would be cosy-ing up together on the sofa.)

And, brilliantly, a thoroughly charming email from F arrived this morning who felt he had to break the news to me that he remained unmoved by my myriad charms but could we please be friends? I hooted with laughter, and emailed him back directly with a link here. (Working on the theory, which I pointed out to him, that if we are to be friends, and I do hope so, he should know that I write this blog as do all my friends. Some people don’t like figuring on here. Others actively engage. Yes, Barrister, I am talking about you.)

On-line dating in Manhattan...the story continues...

As my old readers know, I believe the stigma that surrounds on-line dating is properly outdated. (Hello mother.)I In a city of single people, perversely it seems harder to meet men, so I'm a big fan of any dating method that means I don't have to catch the eyes of random punters in bars. I have a built in embarrassment meter that goes off the moment I see someone looking at me and, instead of tossing my hair, meeting their gaze and smiling back, I just sort of shuffle, go red, look at my feet, stare at the wall, anywhere except at them and then continually bewail to my girlfriends that no one ever asks for my number.

My other problem in this city is that it seems almost impossible to make male friends. I love my boys in London, and miss them quite extraordinarily. J, C & N are all in long term relationships now, but we’ve been friends since school or university and their girlfriends, wives etc have never been bothered if we want to go down the pub, or have dinner together. Here it’s just not the same. Women seem to get quite cross if you so much as say hello to their partners. It drives me bonkers. After all, I’m hardly likely to jump their (frequently unattractive) catches in the middle of the dance floor. And single men seem generally just to be on the pull here rather than looking for female friends.

So, back to on-line dating. God I've met some shockers here. And, equally, I suspect there's one guy, R, out there who uses me as his on-line dating horror story - I'll divulge at a later date. But, if truth be told, the older I get, the more I wonder if I’m really cut out for being in a proper relationship. Serial dating seems like a convenient bulwark against other people’s expectations that I should be in a relationship, and means I can pretend to myself I am making an effort in that direction, whilst never really having to follow through. And, best of all, it’s a great way to audition men for friendship. Case in point: the first man I ever met on a blind date, The Barrister, is now one of my greatest friends. (And he has a fabulous girlfriend now. In fact they are both on holiday in NY, staying in my apartment.)

Speaking of friendship, I’ve had two on-line dates this week, both bizarrely with men who gave up careers in their thirties to go back to school to train in the same profession. There’s a lot of coincidence in the on-line dating world. X & I closed down the West Village restaurant bar in which we were drinking on Tuesday night. Really great company, funny & smart but none of that elusive sparky attraction between us as far as I could discern. I'd like to be friends.

K, on the other hand, tonight, had shocking halitosis which rather coloured my opinion of him as I could hardly bear to look him full in the face. However, halitosis, or not, he was perfectly pleasant but there was zero connection, nothing at all on any level. The entire date felt like treading water until I'd gladly finished my sole glass of wine and hopped it.

I've emailed X to suggest meeting again, and I'd better come clean about my lack of romantic interest, altho I'm pretty sure it's mutual. I shall not be contacting halitosis boy.

Shopping in London's West End

My lovely friend JK here in Manhattan does something rather important and glamorous at an international fashion company. She's off to England to check out their new London store tomorrow, and has asked me for some quick shopping recommendations based around her hotel on Conduit Street. She's only got one day tops, so I've given her a very short shortlist, based on the stores I try to visit when I am in town.

Fenwick on the corner of New Bond Street & Brook Street. Wonderful accessories department with huuuuge, soft as kittens, knitted cashmere scarfs in the sale, and a fabulous millinery section. Great lingerie, interesting small label buy, boutique beauty brands. The Henri Bendel of London. (They have other stores outside of London, but they are quite, quite different.)

Dover Street Market. Owned by Commes, I think it’s probably the best curated fashion & design store in the world of the Corso Como/Colette ilk. I’ve posted about it before here. And the Rose Bakery on the top floor is home to delicious scones and cakes. Lovely cuppa tea.

B Store on Savile Row is one of London's brilliant independent boutiques, with a buy from some of England's most interesting & upcoming designers and a great place to get an overview of high fashion from the UK. Just seconds from JK's hotel on Conduit Street.

COS on the corner of Regent Street & Great Marlborough Street for brilliant everyday clothes with a high fashion nod. Forget that it is owned by H&M, and just gloat over the quality & fantastic pricing.

I could seriously care less about Topshop. I think it’s way over priced now, and the quality of the fabrics and make is conversely worse. Still, I guess the Oxford Circus store is worth a visit for the sheer scale of the merchandise. The shoes can be interesting.

Marks & Spencer‘s flagship store at the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street. Accept no substitutes, this is the only branch worth visiting in London. Brilliant bras & knickers at a quarter of the price I have to pay in New York (granted, I am pretty well-endowed, but still…) I stock up on piles of black lace knickers every time I go home. (Because bloody NYC laundries seem to boil/shred everything.)

New Look flagship store just by the Marble Arch M&S. The store was designed by Future Systems, and although they diluted the shopfit almost immediately (the original aisles were impossibly cramped), it still has a fantastic silver stepped entrance, & great wee shopping carts. 90% of the store is filled with fast fashion, and the new-ish Limited Edition range is really very good indeed if you can truffle it out. ( I am still wearing the black 100% wool bubble skirt I bought last winter, which everyone comments on, and only cost £35.)

Mid range shoe shopping: South Molton Street, top to bottom. Every shoe store on the British High Street.

Liberty’s first floor fashion & shoe department. Great buy. Glorious building. I do love a proper department store, even if this one is terribly grown up.

Just down the road from Liberty is Beyond Retro, one of the few vintage stores in the West End. Prices are obviously higher because of the West End location, but definitely worth a look.

Of course Selfridges is on the way to M&S and New Look from Bond Street, but you could spend days in there and not finish. I prefer to keep my shopping on a smaller scale.

Attic rummaging

Whilst I was in the country over Christmas, I also spent hours up in the attics of our house; the one over my bedroom in particular. It’s a glory hole full of unpacked cartons from 28 years ago when we first moved to Northamptonshire, rammed with the detritus of past decades: I came across bashed up Globetrotter suitcases, records, books, photographs, bric a brac, glorious old linen from my Great Aunt’s house, and clothes including a pristine 1930’s lace wedding dress, a silk top hat in its original case, my original 80s Cure & Smiths T shirts, and all the clothes I wore between 1988-1996. From the ikat jackets and silk skirts I bought on my GAP year in SE Asia when I was 19, to my Leaver's Ball (equivalent of Prom) evening dress, I was in memory lane seventh heaven.

I found lots of great stuff for the dressing up box I’m planning for my goddaughter Amelia’s fifth birthday in two year’s time. Everything else went into the one neat trunk which is now acting as an archive for key pieces from my mother’s and my old wardrobes. Not sure what I will do with these eventually, but I just cannot bear to give or throw them away

But, for all the archiving, I also managed to fill maybe eight ginormous garbage sacks (bye bye to all our bashed up childhood toys) which went to the municipal tip, and another ten of the same with clothes for the local Hospice shop.

Goodness I love purging.

No more take-out

I still feel guilty that I was barely in London over my last trip but, because of the emotional turmoil and various illnesses in my family, I wanted to spend more time at home in the deepest, darkest countryside in Northamptonshire (about an hour & a half from London). I ended up driving down the hideous M1 just three times to the city and, although I got to see all my brilliant godchildren, my very pregnant cousin and a handful of my best friends and their infants, I wish I had had more opportunity to just hang rather than flit in and out of people’s lives.

Still, I had a lovely time with my mother (once we stopped our traditional fighting – two days after I arrived, we had such a huge blow up at Bicester Village Outlet Centre that she refused to get in the car with me & I drove home without her. Oops). But, once we cleared the air, we got back to our normal roles - me: scattering of possessions throughout the house; Muv: shouting at me to tidy them away before the whippets made off with them.

I cooked most nights on my mother’s incredible pro range playing Ready, Steady, Chef in the fridge and conjuring bowls of deliciousnesss out of random ingredients; we watched all the DVRd Christmas telly we had missed (How shockingly bad was Jonathan Creek?)and worked our way through the 4.5KG (9lb) tin of Quality Street sweeties on the larder shelf. (And discovered that my utterly bloody sister had thieved every single chocolate-covered caramel finger before she went back to London. Evil little bugger.)

Now that I am back in New York and have all the time in the world again, I feel inspired by my Christmas cooking, and am cooking twice a day. Last year I had a breakfast almost every day at Balthazar or Pastis, and often a work dinner too at some restaurant or other. And if I wasn’t pressing the flesh, I was eating endless take out at my desk. One day I tipped up my keyboard and grains of rice fell everywhere. A definite sign that one can eat too much takeaway food. All wrong. I am determined that 2009 will be the year of cooking - and eating - proper food. (Apart from the odd excursion to my favourite Manhattan restaurant, Bobo.)

Definitions of funny

God I’ve missed blogging. I have so many things I want to write about that I fall asleep writing copy in my head. And such bliss to be my own editor again too, instead of some witch who continually asked me, “Why isn’t this copy funny? I want funny. Tell me, are you just not funny? I need funny. Can you really not do funny?” GAH.

YES I CAN BLOODY DO FUNNY. The problem is that she and I differed on both the meaning and the appropriate need for funny.

Of course, I never actually said this. I just lowered my lashes and got on with being funny elsewhere.

Lingerie. A guest blog from The Barrister

I'm not in the habit of welcoming guest bloggers, but The Barrister, a old and esteemed English friend & blog commentator, has just emailed me with one of his occasional rants which made me chuckle. This time it's about the ugly mispronunciation of the French word 'lingerie' in English.

Although I'm not sure I agree with him - certain foreign words become bastardised over time - the English pronunciation of 'Peugeot', or even 'restaurant' Anyway, it certainly deserves a wider audience.

"I listened to the dread (Sam) Roddick on (BBC Radio Four's) Woman's Hour talking about her business Coco de Mer (a very upmarket sex shop) and was astounded by her pronunciation of a few words, but one in particular.

Have you any idea why intelligent people of apparently adequate education pronounce the word lingerie as lorn-djer-ray? I find it as unfathomable as it is offensive.

"Lingerie" is a word that one can just about invest with some panache; sophistication at a pinch. "lorn-djer-ray" is disgusting, completely shattering the delicate filigree of a sensual moment. I cannot imagine anything more likely to propel me off an artfully-lit sofa than the utterance of such a noise.

And worse, this absurd, obscene pronunciation has Absolutely No Relation To Any Language Known To Man. Where in Nature does 'lin' emerge as 'lorn'? Why twist the elegantly smooth 'zhair' to the clunking 'djer'? And 'ray' for 'rie': how on Earth does that work?

This is an absolutely artificial noise. I simply cannot understand where it can have come from and how it can have acquired its current penetration. I do know, however, that I will continue to resist it and am powerless to ignore it."

The Golden Globes red carpet fashion

So: the Golden Globes last night. Given my profession, I do feel it behoves me to at least vaguely engage with red carpet fashion, even though it seems to me to be increasingly redundant to judge a woman’s fashion sense based on her ability to pay $10K to hire a stylist to wrangle dresses on her behalf. After all, the likes of Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman or Meryl Streep are hardly fashion plates off duty.

I don’t really care what the stars look like, but I am interested to know which designers are being represented on the red carpet. In the current fiscal climate it makes better economic sense for a house to dress a star and to see those pictures endlessly printed in the world’s media than to fork out hundreds of thousands on a one hit wonder print ad in Vague. Still it’s an extremely expensive business: several couture versions of a dress may be made in a designer’s Parisian atelier (as Theyskens did so successfully at Nina Ricci for Reese Witherspoon at the 2007 Oscars) and there is absolutely no guarantee that the dresses will be worn by the often capricious stars.

This is why many houses cut to the chase and just pay an actress to wear the dress. (Come on, you didn’t think the whole affair was anything less than transactional did you? The star pays the stylist, who brokers the deal, and the house pays the star. Everyone wins.) I don’t think it serendipity that Armani’s patronage of the Sydney Theatre Company of which Cate Blanchett is Artistic Director coincided with the normally Balenciaga-loving star suddenly appearing in a series of Armani horrors at galas and Armani shows a few seasons ago. (I love that Cate Blanchett uses her stardom to such good effect for the community, rather than trousering the cash herself.)

Still, budgets are being squished everywhere and, as I expected, there was scant evidence of minor designers dressing anyone or anything approaching edgy or risky on the red carpet. No house can risk a dud frock in this climate. (Although I do have to take issue with Renee Zellweger’s Carolina Herrera frock, because it only worked when seen full length. Cropped in on the torso the proportions didn’t work. An oddly rookie mistake from the usually red carpet reliable Herrera).

My whole attitude to the celebrity parade was summed up by the glorious Kristen Scott Thomas who, upon being asked what she was wearing, replied simply, “Skin”.

And so the circus begins again...

The preliminary schedule for Mercedes Benz Fashion Week has just been announced. No huge surprises there, bar the already announced credit-crunch absences of Betsy Johnson et al.

Frankly, the shows are becoming one big waste of time: the images & video are on style.com and elsewhere on the internet, the biggest buyers of fashion aren’t necessarily in the same climate zone as Europe so the traditional Fall and Spring/Summer seasons are increasingly irrelevant, and the enormous cost of being at the collections for designers, and the bloated teams of buyers & editors has become extraordinarily hard to justify.

I’ll be posting more on this later but thought, with the advent of show season, that this would be a good time to start a series on what it’s really like to attend the shows as a senior editor, perched in the front rows. I’m going to start with Milan for the simple reason that a few months ago I wrote some briefing notes on the scene at the Milan collections for a Hollywood screenwriter, which ended up becoming a rather long, and very cathartic essay. First installment to follow.

Blogosphere

I’m a little out of sync with the blogosphere: I didn’t have a spare minute to keep up when I was working full-time (much to my chagrin). I was barely able to scan the New York Times & London Times websites each morning, and so I’m discovering that many of my links are out of date and that several blogs I loved have shut up shop.

I was even more upset today to discover that Definitely Stopping at Two is going out of business. She’s a great friend in the real world (we spent NYE together), and one of the funniest writers I know. Bah.

I also wanted to say thank you to Tessa Scoffs & to Nonsense on Stilettos for the loveliest welcome back posts. If I'd known just how many uplifting emails & comments I'd receive when I started blogging again, I'd have done this a month ago! Anyway, do let me know if a link is erroneous or defunct or, indeed, if you’d like to exchange links.

My dating odyssey continues...

I'm not sure what I can add to the following email I received from a 28 yr old guy in Connecticut through my on-line dating service.

"I want you to be completely honest...

I have a serious question for you:

I wonder if you can imagine everything it might mean to you, when you're with a guy, and this guy knows you so completely, and is so strong, so capable, so loving, that you absolutely trust him to take care of your happiness for the rest of your life, knowing that your trust is well-founded, and fall so deeply, hopelessly, helplessly in love with him that you just give yourself to him completely, and you know you'll do absolutely anything he asks you to, just to please him.

Have you had this yet?

I will be in your area as of January 01..."

Keeping warm in the snow

Goodness it’s cold here in New York. Still, I’d rather be battling the snow than dripping in August’s humidity and it doesn't take rocket science to stay warm. My new weapon is a formidably chic mid-thigh length black wool, hooded cape, bought first for cycling when Spring arrives, but which I have discovered is genius for the Winter.

Instead of looking like a bulbous Michelin man in a coat made too small by umpteen layers, its elegantly capacious folds can camouflage lots of sweaters. I paired it with a denim pencil skirt, three layers of cashmere, woollen stockings pulled over my ribbed Falke tights, elbow length leather gloves and my Hunter wellies to walk to supper in the West Village with JK last night. Only my nose peeking out from the hood felt the cold.

Inside it’s more of a challenge: the ancient cast iron radiators in my apartment aren’t quite effective enough against the draughts from the sash windows. During the day I drink endless cups of tea, do my floor exercises and hop around to the new Kaiser Chiefs & Killers albums whilst thinking up story ideas.

Staying warm in bed on my own is more of a challenge. Over Christmas in the English countryside I stuffed the whippets down my bed and toasted my toes on their warm tummies. Unfortunately, there is not such ready access to whippets in Manhattan, and I just do not understand the allure of pyjamas. Not only are they claustrophobic, they bunch up around my legs and make me feel as though I am going to bed in my day clothes. Still less do I get the brushed cotton, Bridget Jones variety printed with penguins or fluffy bunnies. They are Pour Les Enfants.

Instead, I’ve discovered that it’s perfectly possible to be toasty without looking like a kindergartner by reverting to the 1950s with silk or satin lace trimmed nighties, cashmere bedsocks & bedjackets. And, of course, I add two hot water bottles, a proper duvet and the extravagantly high thread count sheets I inherited from my mama.

2009 here I come

So, 2009: virgin territory. For the first time in my career, I have absolutely no idea what I am going to be doing in the year ahead. Whatever happens, I’m pretty sure it can’t possibly match 2008’s rollercoaster ride.

Working on a New York style magazine fulfilled one of my longest held work ambitions and, although I eventually decided to restore my work/life balance by returning to writing and freelance consultancy, I relished the inherent challenge and was proud of my work and of the many relationships I built.

Personally, it was a complicated year. In late summer my parent’s increasingly contentious marriage irretrievably broke down after forty years and my mother served divorce papers.

Illness made being so far away from England increasingly stressful when it became clear that my mother need an operation for her cataracts and my father suffered a minor stroke, and then heart problems. My sister’s MS fatigue continued to sabotage her plans, and I ended up in the ER in September when I fell asleep bolt upright on my sofa in jacket, heels & contacts after a sixteen hour day covering New York Fashion Week. I was diagnosed with extremely painful (and very expensive) Thygeson's Disease and had to rock a pirate look with an eye patch through the Milan collections.

But there was good too: a brace of new babies (hello to Charlie and Constance), bridesmaid-ing in Cap Ferrat (congratulations BA & M) and J&J’s wedding in Scotland (which I missed at the last minute because I was on a ludicrous not-of-my-making print deadline.) Work also meant that relationships took a back seat – it’s difficult to date when you are either trying to attend four advertiser events in an evening, or are stuck in the office ‘till ten replying to the hundreds of daily emails you can’t pass to your inexperienced assistant - and I didn't see nearly enough of my incredibly supportive friends here in New York.

I have several resolutions for 2009, many of which relate directly to my recent experiences. Learning to say no is one of them. Being more proactive about my freelance career is another. The rest are private, but I hope that in trying to fulfill them I keep you all successfully entertained over the coming months.

And...I'm back...

I find it hard to believe that it’s been nearly nine months since I stopped blogging in the guise of Libertylondongirl. A day has not gone by when I wished I was able to blog here. The histrionics, inflated egos, back-stabbing, tantrums, tears and flouncing that I encountered each week, both in and outside my office, made my job a window into the sheer lunacy that pervades the high fashion world and I itched to give you all the inside track.

Because, believe me, the view from the front & second rows is not as shiny as those perched there would like you all to think. (Although I’m not going to lie and say that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy placing my Alexander Wang-clad bottom on those tortuously uncomfortable seats.)

Sure, some people glide through the industry, secure in their talent and, mostly, their self-belief but what I saw most frequently was the fear lurking underneath most senior magazine editors’ immaculately made-up faces. It’s not just the current fiscal climate and lack of advertising pages that makes them insecure, it’s the knowledge that editorial caprice, jealousy and insecurity or internal backstabbing could see them demoted or even fired in an instant. And that’s why so many of them behave so badly. Their (misunderstood) mantra is Charles Kingsley’s, “Do as you would be done by”.

Even those people who loudly prided themselves on being down to earth, “Of COURSE I take the subway”, tended to believe their own publicity. (Make up artists for the most minor public appearance, only flying on BA – the world’s most expensive airline when budgets were being finessed everywhere else, an inability to attend any public event without a chaperone, a refusal to engage with basic technology, a narcissistic lack of empathy.)

Don’t make the mistake tho of writing off fashion & magazine publishing as vapid and pointless just because so many denizens of the fashion world seemingly masquerade as exhibits in a 21st century freak show; the gloss of idiocy, the dispensing with of manners and politesse, and the shiny trappings of success camouflage (rather too successfully to the outside world) a functioning multi-million dollar industry.

But God I’m glad to be back writing again. Because writing features at home at 4am because you’ve pulled a week of food-free and coffee-fuelled, under-staffed and over-worked fifteen hour days in the office overseeing the production of a flagship shoot for a disengaged, bitch on wheels stylist and her incompetent assistant is not what I call writing. That’s just word-churning.

(And, speaking of eating, I never thought the day would come where I would count myself lucky to have carved out a spare second between a model casting and a features meeting to mainline my one, stop-me-collapsing meal of the day: two Americanos, a handful of candy and a brownie. And I don’t even like coffee.)

So, hallelujah, I’ve decided to go back to doing what I have enjoyed most in my two years in Manhattan. Observing, writing and, above all, living properly with my feet firmly on the ground in New York City, rather than floating along on a tide of coffee, adrenalin, sweat and, far too often, mine and other people’s tears of sheer exhaustion.

Yves Saint Laurent has died.

Announced half an hour ago on the wires.

"I tell myself that I created the wardrobe of the contemporary woman, that I participated in the transformation of my times"

That's All Folks!

I started work on Monday, rather unexpectedly and, although I had asked permission to continue writing my blog, just two days in the office has been enough for me to realise that it would be stunningly inappropriate to continue writing about my life when it is so intimately connected with the fashion industry.

Of course, I am devastated as I love my blog, and have loved being part of so many people's daily blog ritual. It's been successful beyond my wildest dreams and that's exciting in itself. (Thank you Grazia for your support.)

Going on, at som epoint in the future I will start up a new anony-blog which will talk about stuff entirely unconnected with work in any way. No fashion, design, beauty, or style. It'll be the other things I love doing that have nothing whatsoever to do with being a fashion & style editor, like going to ball games, cooking or sitting in the park. I'm not publicising it, but I hope some of you may stumble across it and enjoy that too in the future.

I'm also not going to be commenting on fashion blogs under Liberty Girl either as too many people know who I am, and I don't want my personal take on things to be confused with professional opinion.

Thank you all so very, very much for reading. I'm thrilled to have been part of the fashion blog world.

Much love to you all.

LLGxx

Saving my skin: My guide to skincare

I'm lucky enough to have inherited my beautiful mother's skin, if not her looks. In fact both my parents won the genetic lottery and, now that they are in their sixties, still look ten years younger.

It also helps that I am very fair, so Muv stuck me under parasols, smothered me in sun block and taught me never, never to go in the direct sun (altho she bastes herself in Lancaster sun oil and fries. It's so unfair: she never burns & has no melanoma or wrinkles. I just do not understand it.)

I had perfect skin as a teenager, but developed late onset acne around 27 which, combined with my inherited rosacea meant I went overnight from sleeping in what little make up I wore, to meticulously looking after my skin. (Working at Vague House didn't help either: I felt like I wanted to walk around with a paper bag over my head.)

I dealt with the acne by having monthly massage & dermabrasion from Vaishaly Patel who kindly gave this impoverished fashion editor a hefty discount and using Farmacia's Tea Tree Soothing Cream (sadly discontinued). I still have to be careful as my skin flares up from time to time: I tried out some retinol capsules from Philosophy the other day and started work with a rash across my cheeks.

When I'm not covered in red blotches, I'm always being asked how I look after my face and so I thought that for my final blog post (!), I'd give you the full rundown.

The last thing difficult skin needs is residue left on the skin or harsh strippers, so the traditional cream cleanser & toner route is out. I use Shiseido's extremely gentle Power of Silk exfoliating puff ($10)in the shower, followed by Laura Mercier Purifying Oil Rich in the winter and the Light in the summer. ($40)I recommend oils as they dissolve build up while replenishing the essential emollients needed to maintain a healthy lipid barrier. Afterwards I use Laura Mercier
Perfecting Water Light($38.00)to temporarily over-hydrate the skin, & help the penetration of my moisturiser.

Then in winter I use Hakansson's The Moisturizer ($48)(& if it' sreally cold & windy their Oil($51) too), then all year round I use La Roche Posay's FDA approved Anthelios SX Daily Use Moisturiser with SPF15, which protects against UVA & UVB. ($29)

In the evening I useBioderma Crealine/Sensibio H2O Cleansing Solution ($15.69) (£7.95)This buffered cleansing water is an extremely effective, residue-free, make-up remover that doesn't strip the skin like toners do. It's incredibly cheap - a bottle lasts six months or so.

Then I slap onBoots No7 Refine & Rewind Intense Perfecting Serum UK£16.75 US$21.99 at Target and follow up with a facial massage with
C Through The Night paraben free Night Cream by
Yes to Carrots. ($14.99)It's just about to launch in the UK & I love it. It leaves my skin incredibly, silkily soft. Containing vitamins and minerals with juices from the "orange color" product group and Dead Sea Mud, it claims to have anti-oxidant and anti-aging properties, & uses beta-carotene to aid repairing sun and pollutant damage to the skin.

I've got here by trial & error: most of the products above have been sent to me to try by various PRs and, considering the volume of stuff I receive, something really has to stand out for me to actually go out & replace it. Best of all, this routine takes seconds as I am extremely lazy & just can't be bothered faffing around in the bathrom with hundreds of unguents.

Martin & Osa

I don’t think I have a lot in common with Suze Yalof Schwartz, the executive fashion editor of Glamour, who writes a blog on their website but even though we come from different ends of the style spectrum, she does make some very LLG friendly fashion picks. I discovered my Old Navy shoes through her and, most recently, she & the Glamour editors raved about Martin + Osa. I’d seen a lot of their net advertising but hadn't bothered to click through until I read Suze YS's rave. And very pleasantly surprised I was too. The label is owned by American Eagle, but banish all thought of cheapo hoodies & slogan tees from your mind. The buy is kind of like the bastard lovechild of J Crew, Reiss, Banana Republic & Club Monaco. Lots of silk & cashmere, mid-range price point, and simple clean, chic shapes. I love that they have run lots of pieces in navy rather than black. And, for some reason, a lot of it is already reduced.I’ve ordered these two frocks at $70 each.This shirt dress for $59.95:And this cotton skirt for $68:Perfect for a sweltering summer in Manhattan.

Showing some Net a Porter love

I’ve been indulging in rather too much fantasy shopping of late. (That’s what the prospect of a regular salary does to an inveterate freelancer.) I think we can all agree that I have enough shoes to last me through the summer now, but I am still in need of some everyday summer dresses.

When I lived in London, I had started to develop a Net a Porter habit, but I’ve tried to rein it in here in Manhattan but I find myself gravitating back to their delicious site way too frequently. The joy of NaP is that they have so much stock that it’s the equivalent of spending an entire day drifting from store to store in Midtown with all the tourists.

I’m seriously considering the purchase of this Helmut Lang piece:I’m also yearning for this Philip Lim 2.1 frock:And for this Lim top which looks like a pretty good work/home transitional piece. I see it with my navy short shorts and some high wedges.

Dancing shoes

Look what royalty found for me this weekend! Truly the blogosphere is a fabulous place. Few of us blog fashionistas have actually met in 3-D, but we seem to have re-introduced the concept of the pen pal. Not only do many of chat ex-blog but, following in Suzanna Mars’ footsteps (she sent Susie Bubble a lovely dress all the way from California), Queen Michelle & Queen Marie saw these shoes when they were out thrifting in Glasgow this weekend and purchased them as a present. Lucky, lucky me. )

Sakura Matsuri in Booklyn

I’m writing this in true New York style: outside, lying on the grass. Where the English were early cell phone adopters, the Americans felt the same way about laptops and for many under 40s their laptop has become just another limb. In a city of shoebox apartments, it’s perfectly normal here to see people escaping outside to work propped up against trees by the river or typing lying on their tummies in Central Park..Me, I’m hidden away behind a yew fence in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden in a grove of silver birches, where the grass is sprinkled with violets and cherry blossom petals land on my keyboard every couple of seconds. It’s a perfect late spring day. I’m in a silk sundress and my feet are bare so I can wiggle my toes in the long grass and pretend that the City is a million miles away. I can hear the low throb of a generator and shrieking children as they run amok through the cherry blossom orchard and dance to the Japanese music performances that are part of this weekend’s Sakura Matsuri or cherry blossom festival here at the GardensIn fact it’s Japanese culture a go go in Brooklyn today. The Brooklyn Art Museum is still showing its Murakami exhibit, transplanted from LA and there were kimono clad women and harajuku girls mingling with the pot bellied Mid Westerners and Williamsburg hipsters, as they took in Murakami’s barmy cartoon world before wandering down the road for numerous photo ops here under the flowering cherries. Images: Yet more somewhat dodgy pics courtesy of my cameraphone.

I think I may understand baseball...

J & I were talking yesterday about the bubble in which we city dwellers live: it’s so easy to just do the same thing every day, even though I made a promise to myself when I arrived a year ago that I would continue to look at New York with a sense of wonder rather than let the experience glide by me.

So, in the spirit of understanding the city in which I am making my home, when J said she had a pair of freebie tickets, I spent the afternoon in the Bronx at a ball game. Not just any ball game, but a game played by the New York Yankees in their last season at this stadium before they move next door in 2009 to their shiny new stadium. I enjoyed every single minute of the three hours we spent there watching the Yankees thrash the Seattle Mariners.

No more will the sports pages in The Post be a mystery to me. I now understand the differences between rounders & baseball, the importance of Derek Jeter (million dollar shortstop apparently), drinking beer & eating peanuts at a game, and why the groundsmen do a choreographed routine to YMCA whilst smoothing out the sand between innings.

It’s quite a step from the Japanese fan dances which I watched earlier this afternoon under the cherry trees at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, to hot dogs & beers at the Yankee stadium but both seem part of the quintessentially diverse American experience.

The past week

I had a slow old week. Still, that’s not a bad thing as I have just been not very well at all since Sunday, as evinced by my lack of blog posting. I'm very behind with all my admin & letters, my room looks like a bomb site & my laundry needs doing but at least I managed to get two projects to clients and file feature copy on the final minute of my deadline on Friday.

I did make it out for supper on Tuesday to Dos Caminos on Park with BA to meet B and her knitwear designer friend M, and then to Bobo on Wednesday where lovely manager Andy had kept us a fab corner table and I nibbled on their breathtaking ravioli with broad beans.

I still feel pretty ropey, if truth be told, but no late nights and calmness seem to be helping. And an afternoon outdoors in the sunshine is good medicine.

Old Navy summer shoe shopping

I've been searching for some comfy, clunky summer shoes that I can wear to the new day job for ages. Because I'm a half size with exceptionally narrow heels I fall out of most styles, can't wear slingbacks & can't abide heeled mules (trashy), so I generally wear either Mary Janes or styles with ankle straps. They're suprisingly hard to find and, because I'm not in the market for expensive shoes at the moment, I've been stumped up until now.

So, when I discovered that a pair of Old Navy shoes I'd read about were reduced to $19.99, I didn't just buy one pair: I bought them in black and in red, plus another ankle strap platform style in white & in black too. They're all exceptionally comfortable with padded inner soles and canvas strapping.Okay. I accept it. I buy too many shoes. And I'm not very good at self restraint. Still four pairs of shoes for $80 odd dollars plus postage. That's really not a bad deal, although my inability to just be happy with one pair explains why I never have any money.When I went on-line to pick up these images I saw these new on-line extremely pretty ribbon tie espadrilles . Normally tie wedge espadrilles are uncomfortable as the ribbons cut into your ankles and twisted ankles are common as there is no support, but the clever design of these means that the ties are soft cotton jersey, and their extra woven side support stops one slipping off the sides.

But, no, I'm not buying them. Five pairs of shoes in one week is making me feel very guilty as it is, regardless of price point.

Pierre Hardy gladiator sandals for Gap

Wandered into Gap at Astor Place on the way home on Thursday, just for a look, and came out over $100 the poorer. This is what happens when I leave the house during the day. It was the same in my twenties when I worked at Vogue House. For the uninitiated, it’s one block from Bond Street, Oxford Circus and Regent Street meaning that everything single High street & designer label was a stone’s throw from my desk: I started bringing my lunch from home so I didn’t need to leave the office.

I was thrilled to discover that the next phase of Pierre Hardy’s Design Editions range have hit the shop floor. There are several styles of flat sandals, including these brown leather gladiators, which even though they have a toe post, are both extremely comfortable and very chic. Not cheap at $78, but infinitely preferable to anything else that I’ve seen in at lower or similar price points.For me, the drawback of most gladiators is that they have at least two ankle straps and a plethora of buckles. These are immensely simple with just one strap (much more flattering) & they also have a padded sole which is unusual in this style of shoe. I'm just as pleased with these sandals, as I was with the heavenly black patent platform heels I bought from the pre-Christmas collection.

However Gap might like to address the fact that they have ballsed up the sizing on the boxes. The shoes come delivered with European sizing stamped on the soles, but the American sizing on the boxes is a size out. I wear a UK5.5/Eur 38.5/US8.5, but bought a size 7 in the sandals. It should have been labeled as a size 8. I tried on all the styles, but everything had been wrongly labelled. If you are buying in-store, choose a size smaller than normal.

Limited Edition Nike at Dover Street Market

Regular readers may think I am obsessed with DSM, and they may be right. It also helps that they have a very proactive PR who gets blogs* and who sends me emails with delectable pieces (like these bags) every couple of weeks that I just cannot resist popping on here.

These Nike Dunks in floral Liberty print are just immediately covetable. Apparently the Nike Design team selected two classic Liberty prints, Wilshire and Pepper, to create two limited editions of the Nike Dunk. The limited edition sneakers feature a gum rubber midsole and a heavyweight Liberty fabric for the upper which was chosen for its durability.

These aren't the first Nike shoes to transcend the boundaries between sport and style. We've seen the Nike Terminator (Harris Tweed), the Nike Air Force 1 (Merino Wool), and the Nike Blazer designed in collaboration with New York graffiti artist and fashion designer CLAW Money in October 2006.

I think the factoid that I love the most is that British designers working within Nike’s global design team were consulted during the creation of the shoes to ensure the final look was quintessentially British.

I WANT WANT WANT. Even more than I wanted the red Hiroshi Fujiwara Converse I wrote about here. Just how cool would it be to wear such a quintessentially English print as an English fashion editor on a American fashion magazine? I'm hopping back to the UK to do appointments in the next week or so... hmmmm...

Exclusively available from Dover Street Market next week. UK £90.


* Still astonished by just how few PRs engage with the online world. SO incredibly short-sighted. And that's not puffed up vanity on my part, but common sense. On line reach can be intensely targeted to a particular market and produce an ROI way, way ahead of traditional print markets.