Random picture of the day

I miss my dog.

Erickson Beamon for Target

Mystery: Target spends big dollars on blanket promoting the hideous McQ by Alexander McQueen collection. Yet a rather good diffusion line by the fabulous jewellery design partnership Erickson Beamon goes almost completely unheralded.

I only discovered that it was on sale by chance when I was flicking through the Design for All section of the Target website. Bizarre. It's not as if they weren't intending to promote it: I went to the press preview back in October. Checking my notes, I have an estimated Feb 15th delivery date. So God knows...

Anyway, these rather chic necklaces are available and are $49.99.

These cuffs are on the website but not delivered for order yet. (No price listed).

Lovely earrings are $49.99.

If you don't know Erickson Beamon, let me assure you: these prices are a bargain for costume jewellery from the label. A cuff would normally run somewhere around $500, and earrings from $300 - $500. The business is based in London's Belgravia, where their store is a treasure trove of alluring pieces, most notable their collar necklaces and the chandelier earrings with which they made their name. Although the label is often thought of as English, its creators, Vicki Sarge Beamon and Karen Erickson are from Detroit.

Over the years they have collaborated with pretty much every major designer label and have also moved into using diamonds and semi-precious stones. I have both worn & shot Erickson Beamon for years, so I'm thrilled at an opportunity to pick up pieces at these price points. When I examined them at the press day, I was impressed by the quality of most of the pieces: the rings aren't so great but the cuffs, in particular, are a steal.

My sister:The one thing I am grateful about

Oh hurrumph. This Five Things to be Grateful meme has driven me bonkers. I’m copping out and writing a paean to my little sister instead. She’s the thing about which I have most to be grateful

Our parents have driven each other batshit crazy and we need each other as no one else could possibly understand our situation but our relationship is based on more than supporting each other in a war zone. Without her I would be a lesser person in every way. She bullies me, grounds me, makes me see sense. We trust each other's opinion implicitly.

We speak every day on Skype, often just wittering away about how much we love the psycho stumpy dog who is generally doing unspeakable things in the background. She’s kind, generous, super intelligent, & very skilled at driving me crazy with her self-consciousness & lack of self-belief. She thinks she is boring and unattractive when she is mesmerizing. She is little, just 5'2", with skin that puts peaches & cream to shame and will never need cosmetic intervention, silky thick brown hair with auburn lights & a widow’s peak, a nose that tips up in just the right way, a tiny waist & gentle curves that men adore.

I am way more social than she and so am forever introducing her to people who come away wanting to be her friend. But she either doesn’t believe them or thinks they are just trying to be nice. Pah. I keep telling her that everybody is essentially selfish so if they want to be her friend it’s because they REALLY want to. The single thing that scares me most in my life is that she won’t get all the things in life that she deserves so much through her self-sabotage.

Oh & she is going to be FURIOUS at me for posting this.

Blog stuff

Just to let my regular readers know that I keep changing my header description to try to find a way to stop people I know & won't tell the address to from finding my blog through Google searches. (If you Google the obvious words that are associated with me & my job at present, this blog comes up in first place and that means random people (i.e. people I go on dates with) can find this blog rather too easily.) Once here, it's not exactly rocket science to work out that I am the author if you know me, and I do prefer my dates to get to know me face to face rather than by reading about my disasters.

I also wanted to thank sweetA Pretty Face for awarding me a Your Blog is Fabulous badge, and my beloved Jacob Wrestling for asking passing on her meme, asking me to cite five things for which I am grateful. I am working on it and will post later.

GQ April Cover - Robert Pattinson

Apart from Morrissey when I was sixteen, I don't think I've ever found an actor, celebrity or famous person attractive in any way. Then I saw this today. But Robert Pattinson is twenty-two, so I'm just going to say that I greatly admire (photographer) Nathaniel Goldberg's body of work.

Random virtual shopping

As my new found financial rigour disallows any shopping apart from essentials such as new sunglasses, I have decided that virtual shopping is the way forward. Usually this would imply Lanvin frocks & Tom Binns jools, but now I even have to virtual shop for the kind of reasonably priced stuff I would normally have bought without even thinking about it. This is today's trawl of frustration:

Lovely new Pierre Hardy satin sandals. A mere $150 on Ebay. This does pain me IMMENSELY as they were originally over $1000 in The Shops.


A miniature pressure cooker for LLG-sized portions of all the beans I can't be arsed to boil for HOURS. All about instant gratification, me.


Two everyday sundresses from Gap. After all, they do have a 30% off Friends & Family sale this week. And sundresses last about 30 seconds in the NY humidity. Left: T shirt dress $24.50 (was $34.99). Floral shift dress: $47.60 (was $68)

Wardrobe frustrations

Last summer, although I had a healthy bank account, I was too tied up with my job at the House of Pain to do any real shopping. Occasionally I would do a mercy dash into Banana Republic or Zara on Fifth after being sheep dipped in fake tan next door to pick up a generic frock for work to replace my humidity crumpled rags, but that was about the extent of it.

I certainly didn’t have the time or inclination to engage with my wardrobe in any meaningful sense, certainly not in any agenda setting, I am an up my own arse Important Fashion Editor type of way. And, consequently, all that I have in my summer wardrobe (er, suitcase) are a series of faux pregnancy smocks from 2007, knackered work outfits from last year & vertiginous heels suitable only for Town Car transport.

What I want for my Cali trip are short shorts, perfect jeans, sundresses that don’t suggest the third trimester and clumpy wedge sandals to give impression of colt-ish legs. (Look, I said impression, okay? I am allowed my fantasies.)

Unfortunately, my usual solutions are out: I now know that sample sales are the route to wrong-ness - it’s 100% guaranteed that every piece you buy will end up on Ebay owing to over-enthusiastic belief that a whopping discount equals desirable item, vintage in this city is pretty hit & miss given the jaw dropping prices of the stores on Manhattan & the un-bosom-friendly sizing, fast fashion retailers have dubious ethics, fabrics & longevity, my sewing machine is in London and anyway, now that I am a freelance hack again, I have zero funds for wardrobe renewal.

Bloody annoying.

Just a quick reminder

I've said this before, and am writing it again as I believe it bears repetition: Fashion is a multi-millon dollar industry. Although clothing more advanced than a toga or a sarong may be perceived as unnecessary by some, it's no more unnecessary than any product that is 'designed' to be attractive beyond its essential usage, be it a car, door knob, book or house, so why people persist in thinking of fashion as self-indulgent nonsense is beyond me.

Scattering accessories like confetti

The most aggravating thing about New York, (apart from the cab drivers who try to mow down poor cyclists), is the schizophrenic weather. It’s perfectly possible to frolic in spring sunshine (60F) one day, and cower in a raging sub zero blizzard the next. Not only does it make dressing fraught with complication (take it from me, trying to walk in ballerines on iced sidewalks in a freak snowstorm is impossible) but it requires diligence with accessories too.

As someone who always loses one of each glove, can never find her sunglasses/ear muffs/hat/scarf* and scatters umbrellas like confetti around the city, I can guarantee I am never carrying the right accoutrements for the weather. Of that list the absolute bane of my life are my bloody sunglasses. Can I ever find a pair of the sodding things when the freak sun shines here? Can I heck. When I’m not hiding them under the bed, behind the sofa or in the fridge, I am leaving them in random shops on the bus.

I have now lost THREE pair of Oliver Peoples tortoiseshell Vanadis. They are categorically Not Cheap and it distresses me enormously. The lovely London PR gave me my first pair, and that was it. Hooked for life. But now that I am here and not there I feel it would be rather rude to demand freebie replacements.

So sans Vanadis, and having snapped my emergency Bottega pair across the bridge of the nose, I have had to buy new sunglasses. Not only does this pain me financially (I’m supposed to be sticking to a shopping moratorium in Lent), it hurts me fashion-wise too. I do not suit sunglasses. Wrong face shape. Weird nose. They look all wrong on me. Hats yes, sunglasses no.

Anyway, I finally caved & bought these yesterday.

I know Mrs. Trefusis will be unimpressed, but they were super cheap ($70 on Ebay), have proper sun filtering lenses (which is almost impossible at that price point), and do actually suit me.

I just have to live with the fact that I look like I am trying to channel sodding Kirsten Dunst. I certainly can’t hang out in Williamsburg this summer wearing them in case I am mistaken for a faux hipster.

God, I want my Vanadis back.

*delete as applicable

Dating post mortem

Well, what a turn up for the books. After gibbering away on Twitter all afternoon about my lack of sleep the night before (insomnia not partying) and subsequent drained Skin of Death, I was persuaded not to cancel the date and to turn to expensive face cream, Champagne and good old Blitz Spirit to get me there. India had pointed out quite rightly that often one enjoys most the events that one was most tempted to scratch and, in this case, she was absolutely correct.

After raiding the beauty bucket under the bed (I’m not an ex-beauty ed for nothing), I resorted to a killer combination of Sisley Eclat Tenseur, Clarins Beauty Flash Balm and MAC Strobe Cream under my RMK Foundation, which managed to raise the morgue like pallor of my skin to something approximating a youthful glow. I eschewed the Champagne for a reviving pot of Earl Grey and hopped it to the date feeling that I was, at the very least, earning dating karma points for Making An Effort and Showing Willing.

This time the date looked exactly like his photographs (very good looking in a sort of clean cut, actor-y way; not my type but appealing nonetheless), was not a midget, made me laugh & did not overstay his welcome. And, even more impressive, emailed within a few hours to ask me out for dinner. Of course I am ridiculously flattered by this and am going to say yes without having to resort to an opinion poll.

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My Manhattan Dating Odyssey Continues.

Od⋅ys⋅sey
   /ˈɒdəsi/ –noun, plural -seys for 2.
1. (italics) an epic poem attributed to Homer, describing Odysseus's adventures in his ten-year attempt to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.
2. (often lowercase) a long series of wanderings or adventures, esp. when filled with notable experiences, hardships, etc.

I did go on a second date with the unappealing man. I weighed up all your opinions and came to the conclusion that everyone deserves a second chance. But, to all those who said I was bonkers even considering it as he sounded so boorish, you were indeed correct as to our incompatibility.

We met at eight for supper, and were done by nine thirty as the tumbleweeds of our conversation gently rolled off into the dark. I don't flatter myself: I suspect we were equally unentranced. Still, the food was excellent, I was home in time to watch CSI, and had proved a point to myself: don’t flog a dating dead horse.

I have my fifth date of the year tomorrow with a man about whom I know very little, apart from an amusing online dating profile and his age (45). He has plenty of full face photographs, is over 6ft (rare in this town of vertically challenged men) and can spell. I feel that this is plenty to be going on with. We are meeting for coffee, mid-afternoon, short & sweet. We can size each other up and go our separate ways with no danger of either of us over-staying our welcome.

California Dreaming. part two

It’s now three weeks until I depart for California. I already seem to have planned out the whole of April there quite successfully, and am wondering about extending the trip through May now too.

This much I know: I intend to fly into LAX, spend just one night in the city before driving on up the PCH (the coastal route) to San Francisco, stopping for the night en route twice, certainly in Big Sur (I want to see a redwood forest) and not sure where else. I don’t particularly want to do this on my own, but neither do I have a problem with driving alone or being alone, so shall just ensure a well-stocked iPod is on hand to keep me company.

Then it’s glad rags time in San Francisco with the ravishing L for two nights, followed by a meet with an old friend from London who is also an ex too. And with whom I hung out in SF when I worked on a paper there one summer during my University years. It’s a complete coincidence that he ended up back in SF, but it’s the reason why I haven’t seen him for maybe ten years. Anyway, there’s no putative romance there – he’s now married with two children but I shall be curious to see if DS (ex- techno head/Drum Club aficionado/stoner) has mellowed into the Californian version of Suburban Dad.

Then I think I may meander up to Calistoga to check out the mud baths & hot springs, followed by a leisurely drive back down to LA along the edges of Yosemite, depending on snow clearance. JK then arrives for a week of play along the coast. We will start off at her brother’s holiday house on Venice Beach, and then we are thinking beaches, hiking, and spas and, um, well, me anyway, is thinking Disneyland. I’ve always fancied a pair of mouse ears.

Then we are driving out to Palm Springs for Coachella, although we are toying with the idea of leaving a few days early to overshoot PS and visit Joshua Tree National Park first. Then it’s back to NYC for JK, and I shall go find E who is fortuitously flying into LA from her London mag job for a rare holiday about the same time. Bliss. I cannot wait to see her, even if we only manage it once.

Of course, these plans are all completely up in the air right now. There’s a couple of things I’m waiting on in NYC so I can’t book my flight out, JK hasn’t got her vacation signed off, LW is thinking about joining us from London & Tales Near the Runway is shooting in the middle of nowhere so can’t confirm plans for Coachella quite yet but fingers crossed.

I haven’t had a holiday since LW & I went to Lollapalooza in Chicago summer 07, & Manhattan is starting to feel like Narnia in the days of the White Witch.

No fun and an endless winter.

What we really wore in the 80s

Watching 90210's pilot last night when I couldn't sleep reminded me to post an NB to all those infants who think 80s clothes are cool. We didn't look chic in 80s fashion, as Decarnin @ Balmain would have you believe: this is what we really wore...primary colours, camel toe lycra, slouch socks, tucked in shirts with unflattering jeans, baggy T-shirts. (Yes, I had Junior Gaultier striped cycling shorts which I wore over tights in my teens. However the only photo I have (from 1988) is this, which is kind of tasteful, all things considering. Please note highwaisted & cuffed jeans, de rigeur holey grey cardi, flicky hair & DMs.)

Technorati

Just a spot of blog housekeeping. As I took an eight month break from blogging when I went to work on a fashion magazine here in New York, I believe that many of my links are defunct and that others who have linked to me are not linked here. I am working on this but, in the meantime, please do email me or leave a comment if you follow a link that is out of date or if you would like to exchange links with me.

I also wanted to remind new-ish bloggers that they should register their blogs with Technorati in order to make full use of the linking system as it can be difficult to discover who is linking to you and return the favour accordingly if blogs aren't listed there.

The projection of perfection

I had a meeting earlier this week with the kind of intelligent, extremely successful, stylish and, above all, young woman who makes me feel as though my career trajectory has been stuck on slow for the past ten years.

Yet, as I watched her glance over my career profile, I distinctly heard her say something along the lines of, goodness I’m always amazed at how much people have achieved in a short time.

I cannot tell you how reassuring it was to hear this. All my working life I have been haunted by the belief that I haven’t achieved enough, that I have wasted myriad opportunities, and that every other working woman I meet or see lauded in the media has achieved so much so quickly. Much more quickly than me, at any rate.

A recent posting by Belgian Waffling lamenting her mental sloth and stupidity where quotidian tasks were concerned and asking for readers to chime in with their own confessions elicited a staggering litany of unpaid bills, uncashed cheques, unchecked voicemails and suchlike. My perfectionist sister told me later that it was the most reassuring thing she had ever read. She spends her life beating herself up about not completing her endless To Do lists and to discover that women out there who do the same were legion was an eye opener.

She and I really are our own worst enemies as, I think, most women are. Instead of finding pride in what we do, in an acceptance of both our successes and our limitations, we endlessly hold ourselves up to imaginary models of perfection projected onto women who themselves believe they are sadly lacking too - which we would know if we bothered to ask them.

What we need to realise is that we, each and every one of us, do this dirty little compare & contrast trick, and that maybe what we all really need to understand is that we are all equally, gloriously, incapable of perfection.

Dating travails part three hundred

I make no secret of the fact that I use an on-line dating site here in New York. After all, it's not as if I’m ever going to meet an eligible man in the fashion world. When I’m browsing through the site, the usernames make me hoot with laughter. My personal favourite (filed under Not Necessarily Alluring But Damn Funny) is SarcasticJerk. But he has nothing on the following list of usernames:

Swordsman
Jestermike
Monkeyclumps
Mannyloco
Holdenkawfield
Linguistacunning
Flybynight
Sexyluvcharmer
Divvo

Surely they can’t believe these are going to snag them the woman of their dreams, let alone the shag of their dreams? Which of the above do you think wins the Least Likely To Snag The Girl prize?

What I actually do...sometimes...

I really do need to work on leaving the house occasionally. It’s one of the reasons why having a Proper Job is good for me, even if my talents are probably better suited to being freelance. This is because I’m unusual in the fashion industry as I have worked as both a stylist and as a writer, & jobs that combine both disciplines are rare. (I generally describe myself as a writer these days.) The freelance projects where I can write & style, with deadlines set by others, and which pay very well have always been high on my list. Not least because they mean I have to get out & about, but don't have to work from an office.

These projects are generally either as a fashion editor on various contract publishing magazines or as a consultant on their launch or re-launch. (Contract magazines are the high circulation, usually giveaway, mags produced by a publishing house for a client, such as in-flight mags or mags for shopping malls, that kind of thing, rather than for general sale on newsstand.)

The job isn’t that different from that of an editorial fashion editor, just substitute tricky editor in chief for tricky client. Usually it involves coming up with all the fashion content of the magazine, both written & shot. The editor then either writes or commissions the copy, and conceptualizes the fashion stories, working with the art director to commission photographers, cast models, book hair & make-up, and choose suitable locations.

The overall difference from straight editorial work on contract client magazines is in providing content that is both acceptable to the client and not so bland that editorial interest is completely subordinated to commercial considerations.

This can be quite a tightrope to walk as often the product we have to shoot is not enormously appealing, and clients are often extremely opinionated but not necessarily informed. (For example: choosing models. If the managing editor is inexperienced enough to give the client ultimate sign off on model choices it can take weeks to find a compromise choice, as the client will ALWAYS want to book a model based on who they fancy or admire, rather than picking the model who is best for the job, a subtle differentiation you generally only recognize when it’s your job to book models, rather than gaze at them.)

On my last job, over a month & with the help of my wonderful assistant, I styled over 100 pages of commercial fashion editorial, covers and on-line content on location in South Africa (necessary to enable summer clothes to be shot in sunshine in January) and in the studio in London.

The difference on these shoots from standard editorial work was that instead of making sure I included pieces from major advertisers in the fashion stories, I had to ensure coverage of practically every label stocked at every retailer renting store space across the client’s four shopping malls. (In reality this meant not only calling in product from publicists, editing the selection down and packing the product (listing every single piece on customs forms), but tracking the photographic placement in the fashion shoots of over two thousand pieces of vital fashion product on location, without duplication or error, bearing in mind the malls all had separate stock allocations, vastly differing client bases, & the models didn't always fit the clothes. It involved way, way too much use of Excel for my liking.)

In the same way that advertising pays way more than editorial work, these projects can be pretty lucrative, as the pay needs to be high enough to ensure that good editors & photographers are happy to work on what are often extremely commercial projects. Money jobs like these have great rewards: they often involve shooting on location in lovely places, with fab crews, and can be unexpectedly challenging from the editor’s point of view (see Excel use above). This is a good thing: no one wants their brain to atrophy, a constant risk in fashion editorial work.

Back on the diet wagon

I’m back on the Lenten Fast with a vengeance. No more sneaky French fries dipped in mayonnaise for me. My biggest food indulgence has always been allowing myself to order anything I want on the menu when I eat out. With the consequent results on my tummy & thighs. I met lovely Lola yesterday for lunch(so pregnant that I’m surprised her waters didn’t break in Café Luxemburg), and instigated the new regime: instead of the omelette frites with cheese & mushrooms that I really wanted, I ordered a small bowl of butternut squash soup and drank water.

I did eat three small pieces of bread & butter with it but that’s got to be better than a big fat American sandwich or the plate of French fries I would normally have ordered.

And above is today’s lunch: a bowl of organic no-fat yogurt (since I read Michael Pollan I’m steering clear of BGH and other nasties when I can), blueberries and my own mix of organic linseed, porridge oats, sunflower & pumpkin seeds. (According to this piece in the NY Times, pumpkin seeds are one of the top ten superfoods we should be adding to our diets.)

Why thank you internets!

Blimey. That's a lot of opinions on my shopping choices. Thank you so much each & every one of you for weighing in. (I should do this more often.) The Ebay auctions don't end for the frocks for a few days yet, so I'll keep you posted - and I'll get someone to do a headless photo of me in whichever one I win. (Or both - my little sister who thinks I am a spendthrift, impecunious fool suggested I buy both. Unexpected.)

It's also prompted me to go forage in my storage container for the blue & gold sequin version to see if enough time has elapsed since its celebrity overkill to enable me to resurrect it from my fashion archive.

Only problem is that yesterday, when I tried to dig out my writing portfolio from underneath all the crap piled high in the unit, I almost decapitated myself with a volley of baked bean cans. I may be taking my life in my hands looking for my dress.

Prospect of frock vs. danger of bodily injury. No contest. Frock wins.


The blue & gold version - sadly not modelled on me.

Choose Me My Wardrobe

So I found a new version of my ruined dress in an Ebay auction - except it's a size too small. Decisions, decisions. Do I bargain on my Lenten Fast working that well, or should I just accept if I buy it I will end up with two dresses that don't fit? (It is very cheap.)


Or. This dress in black. Disclaimer: I have it in blue & gold from maybe six seasons ago. I stopped wearing it as I bought it from the pre-collection and then it got bloody photographed on every celeb from Natalie Imbruglia to Heidi Klum. The blue & gold still seems overly recognisable (& I do not like my clothes shrieking at people) but black seems more subtle?


Or in silver. Granted, I am the colour of skim milk right now, but once I sheep dip myself in finest fake tan, silver might be quite Jane Fonda-ish sexy with blonde hair & bare legs, no?

If I was given a choice in what I wore, none of these three dresses would necessarily be my taste, but I know what works for me. This tunic style, T shirt shape is the style that works best for my body, camouflaging my out of control bosom and not flat tum, whilst showing off my legs. Price isn't an issue here, as they are all under seventy quid. And I need a new cocktail dress for my LA trip, as well as wearing in Manhattan.

So, internets, your thoughts please? Which one should I buy?

Confessional

As you, dear readers, will have worked out some time ago, consistency is not my strong point. After vowing no to dress replacement shopping, I promptly hopped onto the internets looking for a new frock. Fortunately it seems that Ebay may be able to furnish me with something that both covers my underwear and my dignity for the grand sum of twenty quid. (Whilst wistfully thinking of Lanvin & of Net a Porter.)

Equally, even tho I am supposed to be suffering through the Lenten Fast, I used my 48hrs of gastric flu as an excuse to head straight to the Diner on 9th this evening with Tales Near the Runway to plough through a burger, fries and vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. I don't suppose that fact that it was a Garden burger helps? And that I drank water? No, I guess not.

I suppose I should also confess that only twenty minutes earlier on the elegant grey velvet sofas of the Soho House drawing room, TNTR, fresh off a Heathrow flight, whipped out a dozen contraband M&S Hot Cross buns from her handbag and palmed them into my bag.

(Believe it or not, this is better going for the Lenten Fast than last year, when she FEDEXED me two dozen of them from London via San Francisco.)

Through the Looking Glass: The Horror of the Milan Shows…. From a publicist's perspective. Post round up

Here are all the links in one place for my Deep Throat publicist blogger's series of posts on what it's really like to work as a fashion publicist at the Milan shows:

Part one: Preparing & getting there.

Part two: Eating (or not), being forced to wear show samples and the show itself

Part three: The aftermath

RIP my beloved cocktail frock

I am distraught. My best frock, my absolute go to, always looks hawt, covers up the lumps, illegally short but not slappery, good for every occasion from date to dinner, doesn’t scare the horses dress has been shrunk a good two sizes. I am being punished for taking it to the Chinese dry cleaners down the road who only charge pennies to clean. They did such wonders on my tux and shirts that in a mad rush of blood to the head I thought that they could be trusted with a silk, pailette covered dress. WHAT WAS I THINKING?

And it’s all the more frustrating as my body is not easy to dress. This frock wasn't madly expensive, maybe $250 from French Connection, but I cannot walk off the street & find clothes that fit me. This particular dress was the first cocktail frock in two years that I found that both fitted and flattered me.

Plus it's the only posh frock I left out of storage. Which means either buying a new one or spending hours foraging through the cases of junk and random boxes of crud in my container for a replacement number. Actually I can answer that straight away: I'm saving all my money to spend on fast living in Los Angeles next month, so I mustn't buy a new one. (Begone from my thoughts Net A Porter.)

I suppose I've been lucky: the destruction of a beloved dress has only happened once before when Valentina, the wildly expensive dry cleaners used by Vogue House, appeared to have boiled an Ungaro evening dress I bought in the sale, destroying the interior bodice and, with it, the only outrageously expensive piece I have ever bought myself. Lesson learnt. Until now.

(Wld like to point out that the frock was not quite THAT short usually – my arms are raised in pic to embrace les gars. Of course now it's bloody indecent. Unless the Lenten Fast drops me 20lbs my frock is lost to me forever.)

Hello working week

So, I’m procrastinating. I’ve been horridly, vomitously, ill for two days and consequently have a pile of errands to run, not to mention confronting a lurking deadline, and the bushel of editors that need to be harassed about commissioning me. The only thing that seems really attractive right now is planning my month in California. So I’ve spent the morning happily playing on the internets, ordering guide books off Amazon, looking for hire cars and dreaming of sunshine & Disney & boys on surfboards.

I haven’t left the house since Saturday night, but I can feel the ice cold draught through the gaps in the windows and the sound of slush being scraped across the pavements; it’s not filling me with an enormous desire to get out there. I’ve got enough food in the fridge for a week, plenty of phone credit, lots of Netflix and … bugger – I really do need to get out there for my sanity alone. It’s not good to start considering a nightie as perfectly acceptable daywear. Even if it is very pretty with lace an’all.

I blame Twitter. It makes me feel as tho I am connecting with the outside world. In reality, it makes me no better than the children who spend their hours locked in dark rooms in front of Wiis or Playstations or whatever it is that the youth of today occupy themselves with.

Through the Looking Glass: The Horror of the Milan Shows…. From a publicist's perspective Part Three

And here it is, the third & final part of my publicist mole's account of her Milan Fashion Week experiences. I know she's thrilled with all your feedback, so do keep commenting.

9. Hoorah, time for bed. You will definitely be in a nice hotel, maybe not all that nice but certainly with a nice little basket of toiletries. If you are super unlucky you will be in a very grand hotel, at which point you will discover that your client/boss thinks it’s ok for you to share a room with up to 2 other PR girls. Yup. You are an international PR professional in a dorm.

10. Your client will have booked you on a flight back that requires you getting up at 4am, latest. You will probably wake one of the other PR girls who will then hate you unreasonably for ever.

11. Your boss will look on your Milan trip as a ‘treat’ and will require you to go straight to the office to do your report, which your client will require by the end of the day.

This is only a broad outline - there are of course variations on this. You might be sharing a room with annoyingly box-fresh PR’s who want to go and party and will then bounce in to your room at about the same time as you are leaving, looking, you might charitably call it ‘tired and emotional’, following the shock discovery that at 3am and following much booze and what-have-you in a seedy Milanese discotheque, their new gay best friend editor is actually only interested in the strapping Milano taxi driver by the bar and not in chatting about shoes.

Or perhaps you will stay another day or so, at which point you might get to do a quicky hustle up Via Montenapoleone where, now the Euro is strong, you will spend an unfeasible amount on a pair of shoes that you will subsequently regret , followed by a lunch of really quite dire, shockingly expensive rocket salad at La Langhe. But these are rare treats.

So perhaps I am being unreasonably churlish, but it is a fact that for the properly jaded fashion PR, the Milan shows are really only fun once in a blue moon.

Through the Looking Glass: The Horror of the Milan Shows…. From a publicist's perspective Part Two

Welcome back to the second installment of my publicist deep throat's account of what it's really like to be a fashion publicist at Milan Fashion Week. Part three tomorrow.

5. Lunch? Hahhahahaha. This will be crappy espresso from a machine and special Italian sandwiches (mystery meat on dry white, no crusts) eaten during the Endless Meeting which will make you wonder why Italy has such a reputation for great food. There may be mysterious dried up pastries too. Do some phone call stalking of editors remembering all the while and through the haze of embarrassment, that if they don’t come to the show, you will probably get sacked. You would not believe what a motivator this is.

6. If you are especially unlucky, your client will insist on you wearing pieces from the current collection. Which will be in sample size. Which you might not be (despite the lack of food and espresso based diet). You will all try these on together – the fun! - in the clients showroom. The Japanese PR will, of course, look incredible. Ho hum. Your blackberry is still flashing with angst ridden fashion assistants double double checking seating allocations.

7. Show time! This is actually the easy bit where you, wearing something ill-fitting and for which you are not in the right shoes, stand next to the catwalk and herd your editors into their seats whist dealing with the two or three melt downs caused by editors not understanding the runic symbols your designer has chosen to indicate which block and row of seats their squiggles, stars and stickers actually refer to. You will continue to do some phone stalking to make sure your senior eds are not skiving off to do anything as lame as eating or worse, go to some other designer’s showroom.

8. You will then be invited to a dinner, this is unless you are unlucky enough to have a proper ‘intimate dinner’ hosted by your designer for key editors. Assuming not (frankly the ‘intimate dinner’ scenario is a whole world of pain that I cannot at this point delve into without regression therapy), you will then be given a scrap of paper by someone you vaguely know from sales or merchandising, with details of a restaurant somewhere miles away, if not in fact actually outside Milan. Dinner will be from 11pm. Remember you have been awake since 3am at this point.

You will politely chat with a member of the sales team who you will be stuck talking to for hours, as you get steadily more tired. Try to drink your way through this without getting embarrassing. Remember to wait for the Italians to fill up your glass though as they are pretty convinced that self-service indicated alcoholism.

Clothkits relaunch

When I was a little girl in the Seventies,Clothkits were the last word in style - amongst the under tens. Consisting of kits of fabric, thread & all the notions necessary for making up the garment, the USP was the avoidance of paper patterns: the pattern pieces were printed directly onto the fabric. All one needed was a pair of scissors.My friends & I all wore a lot of Clothkits, run up on cranky old Singer sewing machines. There were kapok-stuffed cotton dolls too made from designs printed on the spare pieces of fabric: I also had a beloved blue & white sailor doll & my sis had a red Golly. I'm filled with nostalgic thrills to see the company (which closed in 1985) relaunched for the 21st century. It's perfect timing: craft and home sewing has seen a resurgence in the last couple of years, and with the global recession only just starting, the low prices are a proper selling point. (The skirt kit above is just £35.)

Clothkits were famous for - and identifiable by - their whimsical textile prints, and the re-launch of the company (for adults too) by artist Kay Mawer has seen collaborations with some wonderful contemporary artists and designers including screen printer Jane Foster, the glorious Rob Ryan and designers People Will Always Need Plates. This skirt is the current Rob Ryan Design: I particularly love this skirt:
All images reproduced from the Clothkits website.

MS Research Funds at Stake

My little sister was diagnosed with MS over ten years ago. Last year I used British MS Awareness Week to explain the illness through her personal experience (Click here to read), and this year I'd like to draw the attention of my American readers to a small way in which they can help research into MS through the auspices of the American National Multiple Sclerosis Society. MS Research Funds at Stake: Contact Your Members of Congress

Any day now Congress will start making decisions about crucial funding for MS research. This legislation would invest $15 million to support MS researchers whose discoveries could hold the key to new treatments or a cure.

More than 400,000 Americans and their families are living with multiple sclerosis. This investment in research could change their lives and get us closer to a world without MS.

There is no time to lose! Your members of Congress need to hear from you right now with an urgent request to support MS research funding. Click here to email.

Kathy Griffin hits MSG

Having been in a state of dormouse-like hibernation since I returned to Manhattan from London, I decided last Saturday to ramp it up a few gears. After the horror show date the night before, my sanity preservers, Y&GG, abandoned their Bassett hound to whisk in from the outer burbs of Jersey in their super-macho SUV with tickets for Kathy Griffin at Madison Square Gardens.

A KG show is the perfect antidote to hideous dating: not a lot of straight men in that audience. She’s a fierce & funny performer, although to the English ear a woman using the C word isn’t exactly ground breaking or even provocative, but her American audience obviously find her incredibly transgressive, given the gales of laughter & approval that meet her every swear word. She reminds me of an over-pepped, Hello or US Weekly-reading housewife: her two hour set is like being in the company of an over-excited friend who’s just hung out with some celebrities and has to tell you every detail of the encounter.

I was super grateful to les gars for perking me up no end. I do adore them both: they are old friends from London, and it’s beyond blissful to have people here who know me well. It’s the friendship equivalent of a long, hot bath. Although hanging out with them always makes me extremely cross.

They’ve been together for umpteen years, married several years ago, share their lives, house & hound, yet because the American Federal Government refuses to accept civil partnerships contracted outside of the US, Y has no spousal status here. RIDICULOUS. They are more committed than most straight couples I know.

Through the Looking Glass: The Horror of the Milan Shows…. From a publicist's perspective

My series of posts about the reality behind Milan Fashion Week has prompted a huge response from my friends in the industry, including an email that had me hooting with laughter - and wincing with recognition. It was so good, so spot-on, that I persuaded her to let me post it here. She agreed - if I promised never to reveal her identity.

So, LLG presents the second in her series of guest blogs, a deep throat riposte to her fashion editor's view of Milan Fashion Week from X, her absolutely favourite London publicist.
________________

Much as with Senior Editor jobs, the life of an upscale fashion label PR looks just faaaaabuolus from the outside, parties, free stuff, behind-the scenes access, international jet setting, etc. But the Milan shows are more of an endurance trial for the average fashion flack than a hotly anticipated jaunt. There are a number of absolute certainties:

1. Your client will spend the absolute minimum on your presence in Milan, which means 5am flights (yup, that’s 4am check-in), strictly cattle class. Not only will you be in full body shock at the fact you had to get up at 3am and get dressed in the PR uniform of smart black clothes, but when you get to the airport, you will instantly run into around 25 other PRs, editors, models and maybe a sprinkling of your own clients. Etiquette demands hello-nodding and polite chit chat in the coffee line. It is 4.30am.

You will then purchase the following for the 1 hour plane trip: 4-6 heavy glossy magazines, 1L bottle water, industrial quantities gum. On boarding, you will go to sleep immediately and then have to schlep this stuff around for the rest of your trip. If you are spectacularly unlucky you may end up next to an editor of one of the magazines you are reading. You will then spend the following hour making enthusiastic noises about the contents of said magazine at the hypersensitive editor with a degree of diplomacy that would impress Kofi Annan. It is not yet 5am.

2. There will not be a car and driver waiting for you. On landing, you will negotiate a 1,000,000,000 person line for cabs, replete with a surprising number of snappily dressed Italian gents who will shoulder their way into the queue in front of you. Practice saying no politely. Milan is a company town and they probably work for your client, or the show producer or any of the three million other people who can make life hell for the unwary PR.

Surmount almost impossible odds and get a taxi. Your driver will be either super surly, or chatty. Practice saying ‘Guarda la strada!’ (‘keep your eyes on the road!’) to these second sort, who will be turning around in their seats to talk to you. This type will also probably try and ask you to go to a discotheque with them. It is now about 9.30am.

At this point your office will start emailing you to tell you about all the editors who are complaining that they do not have their invitations/do not like their seats. Use the trip into town to get busy with this or feel the near-biblical wrath of both your client and the editor at some not-too distant point. You will also now start cheerily emailing and texting your way through an enormous list of editors – just to check they are coming/have their tickets/know you are on their case. Some people might think this is stalking – really it’s more like preventative insurance against getting sacked the minute you meet your client and they start interrogating you about who is coming in a way that would have made Himmler proud

3. Off to your hotel? Ha haha hahahhahahaha. Don’t be silly, you need to go straight to headquarters for the international meeting of all the PRs from around the world. Arrive at your client, find them closeted with the other countries PRs. It is a fact that however you try to reduce times on your trip, you will always be the last one into this meeting. Put your suitcase in the corner and try to look professional and worth your fee. Remember to say noteworthy things about the important editors you have had texts from in the car from the airport, whilst kissing your clients hello.

4. You will then enter the Endless Meeting, during which you will simultaneously try to look interested at the numerous statistics about page space and comparisons with money spent on PR and money spent on ads that your client will be explaining, and deal with several million more emails and text messages about show tickets and seating plans. Do a bit more email and text stalking. All the other countries PRs will be doing this too, occasionally having to leave the room to deal with a particularly shouty fashion assistant (presumably standing next to their editor, whose seating allocation they will be calling to complain about but who is waaaay too grand to speak to the PR themselves).

PART TWO TOMORROW!

Dasha Khukova to edit POP

Have just woken up unfeasibly early to a clutch of emails from colleagues & friends in London & Milan, all alerting me to art & fashion dilettante Dasha Zhukova's appointment as editor in Chief at POP. All I could find in my extensive vocabulary to reply was Sweet Mother of God.

With Ms Grand's departure for LOVE it was obvious that just appointing one of London's pool of editors was never going to work. A statement needed to be made so that POP would continue to make headlines, justify its hefty £5 cover price and, most important, sell copies.

With her Russian oligarch father (Alexander Zhukov) behind her, Zhukova has already cut a swathe through the contemporary art world. I'm wondering how much the new POP will veer towards art from fashion under her direction. Traditionally art magazines have had tiny circulations, however prestigious and beautifully designed: the readership and advertising just isn't there. So, Zhukova's challenge will undoubtedly be to mesh her arts biased coverage with lucrative fashion advertising, whilst keeping & adding readers. Tricky.

However, I've worked on a couple of magazines that have had an E-i-C who knows bugger all about magazines and they are scary places. The underpaid and overworked proper staff end up taking up all the slack, whilst the E-i-C swans around looking delicious, spends all her time out of the office and, when she is there, has editorial flights of fancy that cannot possibly be met on existing editorial budgets.

So, one has to presume Zhukova is taking a fiscal stake in the venture, and will be adding some of her oligarch father's money to the editorial budget. British Grazia reports that POP will be launching a new website, a new London office, an installation space in Berlin and a partnership with The Saatchi Gallery in London. In the current fiscal climate at best that is brave, at worst suicidal.

Milan Fashion Week: The Inside track

Think fashion shows are all relentless glamour and fun? Think again my friends. Relentless they certainly are, but fun is in short supply at the top.

Milan Fashion Week kicks off today, and to celebrate I went through my archive to bring you the Milan shows from the perspective of a senior editor at a national glossy magazine.

Part One: The background
Part Two: How it works
Part Three: Getting around
Part Four: What we actually do
Part Five: Where we stay & eat, & who attends
Part Six: The horror of the Milan shows - & why we love them.

The Lenten Fast: Day One

Breakfast: 1 tbsp basmati rice. One 2 inch rectangle tofu & chili paste. 6 spears steamed asparagus. Soy sauce.
(That’s all there was in the fridge. Eat or starve.)

Diet resolution no.1: Always make sure you go shopping the day before you start a healthy eating regimen.

Actual weight: 145lbs or ten stone 5lbs or 66kg
Goal weight: 135lbs or nine stone 9lbs or 61kg

At 5'6" tall, I think this is a realistic goal weight. When I was 16, I weighed 55kg or 121 lbs. I played sport four times a week and looked like a toothpick. At my age I certainly don't aspire to the body of an adolescent, I want to look like a woman with curves. Just not as many as I have right now: my chest is the bane of my life & if I can shrink it, well, hurrah.

Next update in a week.

Lenten Fast. Otherwise known as Get Fit for California

My primary indulgence, the one I think about every single day, is food. I love cooking & eating. It’s my passion, my greatest pleasure, so my Lenten penance is to cut out some of the foods that I adore the most. I don’t really have a sweet tooth, but I love fried food and I adore Mexican cooking – which isn’t exactly known for its health benefits, so this Lent, (which starts today, Ash Wednesday), they are forbidden. The side effect: I am going to get healthy and lose some of my avoirdupois before I head to California at the beginning of April.

I will be following a low GI (glycaemic index) plan as well as co-opting a few other nutrition tricks. This means that I can eat some carbs, but they have to be good ones (generally not the white or over-processed ones as these convert into sugar more rapidly, affecting our blood glucose levels, & increasing hunger pangs). Low GI carbs don’t cause these sugar rushes and reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

I’m apple-shaped, meaning I store fat around my middle, increasing substantially my exposure to these diseases, compared to women who store fat around their bottoms and hips (the traditional pear shape), and so this diet is aimed at shifting some of this dangerous fat for health as well as vanity reasons.

My plan is this: minimal carbs, (mainly mid GI basmati rice & no alcohol, potatoes, sugar, biscuits/cookies, cakes or doughnuts). A lot of protein (beans, whole eggs, tofu, a little cheese), soup, low fat yoghurt for calcium, and fruit & vegetables in such abundance that I may turn green. It’s been proved that hot liquids increase satiety or fullness, so I’m going to be adding vegetable stock based sauces to all cooked vegetables too. There will be a lot of chewing involved: not only this better for my digestion, but al dente & chunky vegetables are lower GI, as the more processed a food (whether pureed, mashed or over cooked), the quicker it breaks down into sugar in your bloodstream.

I’m not going to be calorie counting, but I will be keeping an eye on portion size. Doing Weightwatchers successfully a few years ago shows me just how small a sensible portion of food really is. No protein portions larger than a pack of playing cards, only a few tablespoons of rice, and as many vegetables as I can eat.

Fortunately my preference is for healthy foods – I never, ever buy processed ingredients, preferring to cook everything from scratch (bar baked beans obviously), I don’t drink sodas & fizzy drinks or that much alcohol, eat crisps, buy crap very often, or eat that unhealthily at home. My problems are with portion size, butter (oh god, butter I love you), take out & restaurants where I always eat exactly what I want, when I want (if you don't cook it, it doesn't count has always been my rule), & rewarding myself with snacks like doughnuts when I am feeling down.

NO more.

The Last Supper

Ah. Shake Shack. Pretty high up on my last list of great New York eating places, this stand-alone, low key hut from restaurateur Danny Meyer (Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, The Modern), is situated in Madison Square Park & surrounded by skyscrapers.

All year round it serves burgers in greaseproof paper bags, hot dogs, trays of fries & ice cream sundaes in soda cups. And a Pooch-Ini, of course (vanilla ice-cream, peanut butter & dog biscuits). That's it. All immaculately sourced, perfectly composed in their simplicity and delicious beyond words.


So, of course, that's where I headed tonight in minus temperatures to order my last calorie-laden to-go bag of supper before I start my Lenten fast tomorrow.

The Shroom Burger is a deep fried and breaded portabello mushroom filled with an inch of molten muenster & cheddar cheeses, enclosed with tomato & lettuce in the freshest, softest griddled potato bun. (The first time I bit into one I thought I was getting a bog standard vegeburger. Upon hitting the crispy, mushroom-y, cheesy heaven I actually groaned aloud in pleasure.)

French fries are crinkle cut for extra fluffy insides & perfectly crispy exteriors. I may also have added the ludicrous Shack Attack to my order: dense frozen chocolate custard blended with Valhrona chocolate pieces, fudge chunks, truffle cookie dough and chocolate sprinkles. There are no words.

Lent: here I come in style.

The only drawback to Shake Shack is the wait outside for your hand-held order buzzer to start vibrating when your food is ready to go. In midwinter it takes about five minutes, plenty long enough to stop feeling your toes. In summer it takes so long (at least thirty minutes) to queue & to order that you are drenched in sweat by the time your food comes.
Shake Shack - with no queues. A sight so rare it had to be recorded.

(Click on images to enlarge)

My dating life. Your opinions, please

My oh so charming companion of Friday night has SMS’d asking to see me again this week. I usually never do this, working on the theory that if I don’t fancy them and am pretty sure I don’t like them, then what would be the point?

However.

Continually unattracted to the men I meet, I write off every single first date I go on. My mother keeps banging on at me about always going on a second date if asked.("Darling they might have nice friends, they may just have been really nervous or maybe they are good work contacts".) And maybe she has a point. Perhaps I should just go on second dates, if asked, as a general policy, instead of always skating briefly across the surface of people's lives.

On the flip side, I hate the idea of leading on anyone who is vulnerable. I wouldn't want it done to me.

But are second dates, rather than the initial blind meeting, where the real decisions to move forward are made? And so therefore no one would be that annoyed if I then decided they weren't a runner? Growing up in a country where dating doesn't really exist means this whole game is still pretty confusing to me.

Therefore, although I’m convinced of his complete unsuitability, I am kind of tempted to meet him again to initiate a new policy of always going on second dates.

What do you think?

Friday Night Dating

I do date here. Not with any real hope of it leading to anything but because if I don’t it seems like a cop out. And I rather like the ritual of dressing up – and you really can dress up here & look totally congruous, as opposed to London, where if I turned up to the Lansdowne or the Engineer in a cocktail frock, my date would run a mile.

This brings me to Friday night’s date. Blind, of course, as I am still signed up to my on-line dating service. I arranged to meet him at Soho House. Really, truly, comprehensively lazy of me: it’s a mere two blocks from my front door. Thing is the date called, catching me on the hop and, as I’ve just moved to this bit of town, I can never think of bars in which to meet. I just blurted SH out as a last resort.

He had only had a couple of pictures posted, and his main profile picture was him in Wayfarers, a leather cowboy hat and a gingham shirt. He was 38, had dark auburn hair, stubble and reminded me a bit of Damien Hirst (in a good way). His emails were quite funny, he knew England well and there was enough to risk a drink.

When I arrived I couldn’t find him.

There was however a middle aged man with stringy wavy pale ginger hair, a crap suit and a skew-whiff tie loosely knotted around his neck in the manner of a sales manager after a few after-work drinks. Yup, that was my date. He was so far from what I was expecting that I just plumped myself down, flustered. I’ve been on a lot of blind dates and he is the first on either side of the Atlantic that has been so markedly different from his images.

In my head I was meeting a downtown type (from his photos, & because his profile said that’s where he liked to hang). In reality he was an Uptown type who liked slumming it Downtown. Not the same thing At All. He wasn’t unpleasant, just rather brayingly entitled, reeking of trust fund-ery*, and it grated.

As I sat, I noticed he had both a large glass of red wine and what I thought was a glass of water in front of him. It turned out to be vodka. In under an hour he put away two double vodkas and the wine. Even by lax English drinking standards, I think that’s excessive. By American standards that makes him an alcoholic.

I was supposed to be meeting JK there at 745 for supper before the movies but I could tell that he was the type who would just end up trying to join us, and I’m too English/repressed to successfuly wriggle out of that. So I started to get my stuff together, expecting him to call for the check. He just sat and sat. As he was quite trad, I presumed he was waiting for me to leave, so he could call for the check and then leave himself.

I said goodbye, planning to go to the loo, and then sneak back in again. Peeking through the glass wall ten minutes later, I was horrified to see him that he had moved seats to face the room, was ordering more drinks and settling in for the night. What a feckin cheek: it’s a private member’s club – as my guest he must have known he was expected to leave with me, but he was so bloody entitled he just decided to stay, spread out on the banquette like the King of the World whilst he had the opportunity. Sabotaging my evening. Grr.

Shan’t be seeing him again.

*I'm not engaged in hunting down a meal ticket, now or for life, so this is not a plus in my book.

Mistress of efficiency - when I get around to it

Procrastination, as you know, is a trait I wish I didn't have. After I finished styling Francoise Olivas’ show for NYFW on Tuesday evening, I hibernated indoors until Friday lunchtime when I had a concerted energy rush so strong I practically leapt from my fifth floor apartment to the street below. (I'd hoped I'd get going on Thursday but it didn't happen.)

I hot footed it to the East Village from my new place in the West to tie up the loose ends of my life over there, fuelling up at Crif Dogs on the way with a veggie hotdog, lashings of ketchup and a portion of Tater Tots so large I thought my tum would explode.

In a few hours I whirled around the Village, depositing cheques, mailing parcels, & buying groceries, lugged random bags of detritus, portfolios & huge fashion tomes down four flights of seemingly vertical stairs, (I dream of living in an elevator building), & hopped the free shuttle service to my Chelsea storage unit from my old East Village apartment to take it all away.

After cramming all my junk into the container (bottom against straining metal door as I tried to padlock it), I sprinted (as well as you can in MBT trainers) back home from Chelsea to fling frocks around & get dressed in ten minutes for a pre-dinner drink at Soho House with a date, followed by delicious Thai bento boxes with JK at mirror balled & disco'd up Pad Thai (actually much better than the reviews) on 8th Ave and a showing of Frost/Nixon (excellent, highly recommend) on 42nd Street. Home by 1230am.

Let no one say I can’t get things done when I put my mind to it.

2007 and all that

2007 was a bonkers year for me. Stuck in the depths of the never-ending winter here, I've decided to skip down memory lane and present my (very) edited highlights.

I started blogging from Manhattan in March 2007. London. New York... Plus ca change...But some things are different
It wasn't all fashion parties. There were book launches too. And supper at Elaine's. And gigs
I bought my first NY bike. And promptly fell off it. Ouch.
I flew home for a wedding.
As it got hotter, working from home turned into sunbathing here, & I changed my wardrobe. And goodness, I seemed to have done a lot of partying.
I discovered blogging memes
Had my first date with a New Yorker, and discovered that what I wear passes many people by.
Fed my inner geek, and realised that I was staying in Manhattan permanently.
Started to discover that some people do think differently over here, and began to work out this dating thing
Played Sartorialist at Lollapalooza in Chicago with lovely L, & experienced my first gifting suite
Learned to wear wellies in Manhattan, & flashed my knickers in a BBCTV studio.
Spent September attempting to dispel a few myths about fashion people, went on location here, and played non-bridesmaid for Miss P.
Dating went from bad to worse & I discovered that going out here is not like Sex & the City.
Kissed a boy. Turned into a stalker, and gave up on dating.
My birthday party was utterly bloody brilliant and I ate my weight the next week before celebrating Christmas early by painting Manhattan red .
I returned to London for an operation, and completed my guide to Manhattan restaurants.

And finished the year, conveniently, by writing what would be my favourite blog post so far, reminiscing about my eccentric grandmother.

2007 was a good year & I rounded it up here.

Thank you for your support

Blogging is a labour of love: it doesn’t pay and it requires daily commitment. The rewards are the vibrant community that you join, the people that you meet on-line, the (often arcane) knowledge that you gain – and, of course, the opportunity to say whatever one chooses without let or hindrance – otherwise known as editors in my world.

Anything else is unexpected, so being included in The Sunday Times Guide to the 100 Best Blogs yesterday really was the cherry perched high on my iced blogging cupcake.

So I’m saying thank you: to everyone on both sides of the Atlantic who has supported me & my blog over the past year or so, to the exceptional PRs & publicists who understand that the blogosphere can be a friend not an enemy, providing a different but often equally valid voice amongst the media clamour*, to my friends who put up with me using our activities as blog fodder and, above all to my readers. Without readers’ comments and interaction, blogs wither and die.

Thank you for keeping me going.

* I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again: Still astonished by just how few fashion PRs & publicists engage with the online world, (& not just blogs). 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.

Oscars Red Carpet - initial thoughts...

Apart from the frocks, the thing that has amused me most so far about this year’s Oscars red carpet is how the actresses were holding themselves. With so many strapless dresses and so many reassuringly untoned upper arms, nearly all the women adopted a special bent elbow, arms held away from the body red carpet pose, often with hands clasped, in order to add muscle tone. They looked slightly strange, as though they were about to break into song.

Main culprits included Amy Adams (appeared to be on the cusp of doing an Enchanted number for the duration of her Tim Gunn interview), Anne Hathaway, Angelina and Meryl (who really didn’t need to worry, since she was wearing an eminently practical sleeved number.)

The Sunday Times Guide to the 100 Best Blogs

Well, whaddya know? The London Sunday Times has posted the second part of its Top 100 Blogs in the World. And I am in it! And sod not being blasé. I am thrilled. For a blog this tiny to be included with all those heavyweights is, to me, extraordinarily gratifying.

Equally thrilling is that three of my great blog-friends are on the list. Belgian Waffling, Mrs Trefusis & I spend way too much time every day Twittering at each other*, and I love that Wee Birdy, who explores London with such enthusiasm, & who has been so supportive of this blog, is included too.

Extract from the piece.
Libertylondongirl.blogspot.com
Rather like having your own — real — version of The Devil Wears Prada as a blog. An anonymous twentysomething Brit working as the fashion director of a New York-based glossy gives the lowdown on what her glamorous life is really like. Both self-deprecating and outspoken, it’s a tonic if you suspect Sex and the City is all a big lie.

NB: I actually resigned from my job in December but hey, still true-ish
belgianwaffling.blogspot.com
Written by “Jaywalker”, who describes herself as a Eurozombie, slattern and unfit mother of two sons, this is a drily witty peek into the home life of a 34-year-old Brit trying to make sense of life in Brussels with her French “life partner”, CFO (who is, yes, a chief financial officer and tortoise-lover).

mrstrefusis.blogspot.com
Mrs Trefusis Takes a Taxi (“because she eschews sensible shoes”) is by a London woman with a passion for modish footwear and Mr Trefusis (Manolo-Man). Urbane thoughts from one whose brow is considerably higher than her subject matter suggests.

www.weebirdy.com
Sometimes it takes outsider eyes to refocus your surroundings for you. Here is a native of Sydney whose blog registers all things good/unknown about her new home, London. Wee Birdy pokes around the back streets of the city for the best shops and sights, so you don’t have to.

*(sign up for our Twitter feeds on the right)

I LOVE NEW YORK

It’s nearly two years since I moved to New York. My anniversary is 05 March – if you discount that my first sublet here actually started at the beginning of February. It was so cold (-20C) that the moment NYFW had finished, JD & I hopped it back over the Atlantic, her to prep for a shoot in LA and me to prep for a campaign in South Africa.

So, having neatly avoided the worst of the winter weather, we re-appeared in March just as spring hit New York. Just for three months, I said, packing a single case & firmly believing I would be back in London for the summer. Thing is, I fell hard for America and when I came back to London for a wedding six weeks later, I found a long-term tenant for my Hampstead flat and I moved my life pretty much for good to New York.

And here I am, four apartments later, two years older and, generally, happier than I’ve ever been. Sure I get homesick, but I don’t think I could ever tire of living in the middle of this city. After eight years of living in a residential part of North London, needing to get in a car, bus or on a bike to go to a supermarket or the West End, living within walking distance of anything I could every want to do , buy or experience is, for me, extraordinary.

Procrastination

Today is resolution day. I read my beloved Belgian Waffling’s blog entry this morning about her lassitude when it comes to life organization. It didn’t just strike a chord, it hit a resounding bloody row of timpani. And, reading her comments, I found it oddly reassuring that it isn't just me that has a problem with facing up to the dull quotidian tasks.

Procrastination, sticking of head in the teapot dormouse style, is my besetting sin. I am incapable of facing up to the things I have to do, be it sorting my finances, paying bills, pitching stories, posting my eBay purchases, depositing cheques, filing my taxes, doing laundry and the other hundred and one things on my lists. Half the time it’s not that I am actively ignoring what I have to do, these tasks just seem to get wiped from my brain.

It drives my little sister crazy that I can promise to do something one day and, by the next, it will just slip off into the ether to be forgotten about for a few weeks, maybe months.

Often I ignore the big tasks I have to face because I have so many small ones to do first that I can’t decide which to tackle first – and then I end up doing none of them. And I get irrationally scared of facing up to things, of dealing with official people too.

Anyway, today I’ve decided this has to change. I have two cheques to deposit, my stuff to move from the East Village place still, ten eBay packages to mail, three magazines to invoice and a slew of birthday and get well soon cards to send. Let’s see if I can accomplish this today. Then maybe I can get around to pitching the dozen or so stories I have waiting to go.

Stylist's Prop Kit

I really hate shopping. For clothes, that is. Shopping for books. Shopping for food. Shopping for kitchen supplies. Now that's fun.

Most fun of all is shopping for organising stuff. I've already described The Container Store as crack for the thirty-something female, but Manhattan Wardrobe Supply is even better. They sell everything stylists, make-up artists, costume designers & dressers need to do their jobs.

In my case I was replacing the few bits and bobs from my stylist's prop kit that I would need backstage at F's Fashion Week show last night, as mine is back in London where most of my styling work is based. (In New York I mainly write or edit for magazines.)

A prop kit is essentially all the bits & pieces we need to make a shoot work. Tit tape, gaffer tape, fishing wire, cosmetic stain remover, dress shields, chicken fillets (silicone breast enhancers) in a couple of different skin tones, nipple petals, shoe inserts of every kind, shoe horn, seam rippers, thread nippers, sewing kit, scissors, tape measure, lint rollers, Static Guard, Wrinkle Free spray, first aid kit, binder & bulldog clips, lots of underwear in different sizes and skin tones - these are the absolute basics.

I also have hand warmers for freezing cold outdoor shoots, a large portable steamer, dozens of lightweight suit carriers, a folding salesman's rolling rack, some very large suitcases and a mini hand-held steamer. And a sewing machine for costume design jobs.

I barely scraped the tip off the iceberg yesterday at the supply store but at least I have my bare necessities until I go back to England and dig out my kit. Although it was hard restraining myself as the store has everything you could possibly need for styling & wardrobe work. And it's a lot, lot cheaper: my dispenser of 30 feet of tit tape was $5.99 compared to $10 or so for a few strips in stores like Victoria's Secret.