Bicycles are not always the answer

Oh cobblers. It was dark & I was tired & hungry when I left St Vincent's, so I hopped into a yellow cab back to the East Village, leaving picking up my bike until tomorrow. (It's still chained to a lamp post in Soho). There is a massive storm warning for tomorrow, with up to four inches of snow expected. Sigh. That's going to be fun.

Picture added afterwards: it really did snow!

Image: Taken from my bedroom window on my cameraphone - pls excuse the quality

We must do lunch, darling

I spent the day with an old colleague, a friend from Vogue House. We met when we were very young, willowy blondes, rushing around in black twinsets, pencil skirts & high heels, tending with the fierce dedication of youth to the important needs of the Very Important Men whom we assisted. Now she is something Very Important at a Very Important magazine and I, well, I write.

Today didn’t go quite as we had planned. Lunch was planned for 1pm at Mercer Kitchen in Soho. I chained up my bike around the corner from the restaurant, stumbling slightly over the cobbles in my heels as I stepped up to the entrance.

Seated on a rather nice corner banquette, facing into the room, I could see the truncated legs of other diners through the banisters as they came down the two flights of stairs into the basement room.

I thought I had spotted X’s glamorous legs when they suddenly disappeared; five seconds later there was a stupendous crash. The bottom of the stairs was hidden from view by staff, and I wasn’t sure what had happened. The whole restaurant was discreetly trying to look, but when no one appeared to get up, I became worried and got up to look, incurring disapproving glances from the next table who thought I was rubber necking.

I found X crouched on the floor, by a pool of blood, spitting out bits of teeth. The stairs had no treads and she had slipped down the second flight, falling head first and breaking her fall with her chin. Management, with prospective lawsuits swirling around their heads, called the EMTs, tended to her wounds and filled out forms.

The charming, over worked EMTs strapped us into a St Vincent’s ambulance, and took us to the ER. I now know for sure that American accident & emergency departments are not staffed by George Clooney and his ilk.

We spent all afternoon there. I was crazy with worry, but adopted a slightly scatty, babbling air, to try to cover up the extent of my concern.When they put X in a neck brace I started to get really worried. Fortunately her CAT scan showed a jaw fracture but no spinal injuries. She’s now been injected, prodded, sewn up, IV’d and examined, and I was relieved by our lovely friend O, who sat with her whilst the IV antibiotics & painkillers did their job. I had to eat. She’s been discharged and is, I hope, going to heal soon.

In a restaurant famous for its celeb clientele, I bet that was the most dramatic entrance they’ve ever seen.

Fraternal love

Ten reasons why I love & worship my little sister:

1. She lets me sleep on her sofa when I come back to London. even though I am super messy and it drives her bonkers
2. Animals love her, and she brings out the best in them
3. She lent me the money for my plane ticket when my credit card screwed up
4. She’s not very well, but she’s the bravest person I’ve ever met
5. She colour codes her sweater and T shirt shelves, just like Benetton
6. She made me pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, just before I got on my plane
7. She’s incredibly loyal, supportive, enormously kind, thoughtful & generous
8. She loves Chinese takeaway almost as much as I do
9. She tells me when my skirts are too short or my outfit sucks – I trust her taste implicitly
10. She’s trained the babydog to roll over on our feet for tummy tickles

But the most important reason of all is because she’s my best-est friend, not just my sister.

Gramercy Park

Oh God it is soooo cold today. I looked out of the window, saw bright sunshine and assumed it was another warm-ish spring day. Nope. Got that one wrong.

I was running a little late for an appointment with the PR for The Gramercy Park Hotel, so I didn't have time to run back (Run? Who am I kidding? Crawl) up the four flights of stairs to get my ear muffs & a sweater once I was outdoors, realising that a silk cami, lightweight frock and coat weren't really going to keep me that warm on a bike.

By the time I'd got to Gramercy Park and was chaining up my wheels, I thought my ears might drop off from cold. Still, I whipped on my heels and tottered into the lovely warm hotel, past the ever present paparazzi (who ignored me, as usual). I was just on a reconaissance mission, but I swear if I had been reviewing it today, it would have got ten out of ten based purely on its central heating and open fires. (Actually it does get 10/10 for its fabulous and HUGE rooms, attention to detail, the the sexy bar and the exceedingly hot staff)

As I was unchaining the bike after our meeting, and changing from my foxy footwear (navy patent platform Mary Janes), into grey studded flats, the cutest guy stopped and said, "Hey cool transition. You look great". Ah. The power of the unsolicited compliment.

He carried on, and I whizzed past him at the next set of lights, narrowly missing a truck. That would have been seriously uncool, (transitioning from hot chick to strawberry jam).

Target

One of my most intelligent readers, Suzanna Mars, commented on here earlier today that, "Blogging still hasn't quite come out from under the mantle of perceived amateurism. It also isn't largely understood and in many instances is seen as suspicious (as well as miasmatic)."

Her comment came back to me when I read a New York Times article which concerned a Target's PR's refusal to engage with a query from a blogger, and included this gem:

“Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets.”

I do find this utterly extraordinary on many, many counts. This means that in one fell swoop Target are refusing a dialogue with the internet in all its forms: streaming, blogs, on-line versions of print magazines, forums, on-line radio & TV stations. Do they have any idea of the reach, both potential and actual of the 'non-traditional media' audience?

In Target's case I find it more extraordinary in that their key shopping audience, the mother & housewife tends to be very engaged with the internet, both on terms of on-line retail and through blogging & forums.

If there is a more short-sighted example of corporate policy extant then I have yet to come across it.

blog.mode:addressing fashion

It was a Bank Holiday here in Manhattan (President's Day. No? Me neither.) yesterday, so I nipped up to the UES to visit The Metropolitan Museum's blog.mode:addressing fashion exhibition at The Costume Insitute.

It was not what I expected. It's certainly not an exhibit that has anything whatsoever to do with fashion blogging, rather a chronological display of some iconic pieces from the archives.

The darkened galleries have some truly exquisite pieces on display, from two 18thC panniered silk dresses to a Madame Gres goddess dress, through Galliano's deconstructed dress for Dior and a Theyskens frilled confection for Nina Ricci. Beautifully curated, the notes included direct quotes from some of the designers.

There is no open access standing collection at The Costume Institute as there is at London's V&A museum, so this is a rare chance to see a very small sample of what is held by The Met. This in itself would have sufficed as a reason to open up the galleries to the public but, in an attempt to appear all post-modern, they have centred the show around the idea of visitor comment, installing a bank of computers so that visitors can engage in a debate upon the merits of individual items in the show, with a new image posted daily. The blog is here.

Surely museums should be doing this anyway, regardless of the exhibit? Using this as the focal point of the show seems like a pretty spurious reason for getting out some glorious, but unconnected pieces from the archives.

I was also unamused to discover that no merchandising had been produced in conjunction with the show, which does rather prove my point.

There are currently over 80 million blogs in existence, and quite a few discuss fashion. You'd have thought that someone might have gone, hmm, I bet plenty of those fashion bloggers would like a poster of the show's publicity shot?

But no.

An American museum missing out on a revenue opportunity? That's news in itself.

More urban cycling

Thank God the cold snap seems to have finished, and I can go back to just three layers under my coat, rather than five. I even managed to venture out on my bicycle yesterday: admittedly it was only as far as Blockbuster for Bones DVDs (my new obsession) but, still, it felt like a valid effort.

I never thought that I'd be a Manhattan cyclist, but I've taken to it like a duck to water, relishing the speed & ease with which I can get around the city. I am, however, on bike no 4, owing to their propensity for getting nicked from the lampposts to which they are chained. At $100 a pop it's not a tragedy, but what I do mind is that the locks that they saw through cost the same as the bloody bike.

I did learn a valuable lesson on Saturday regarding bike maintenance. I got on the bike to whiz down to Prada and within a block was huffing & puffing like a grampus. The bike felt heavy, my heart was pumping and my lungs were screaming. I was aghast at my unfitness.

Then I looked down: my front tyre was flat. I felt such a girly idiot. $5 later and the bike shop had reinflated both tyres and raised my seat. The difference! And I got the pyschological boost of discovering that I am not quite as unfit as I had thought.

Iconic British footwear brand to fold

So it seems like the end of an era: Dolcis, the British High Street shoe shop, which can trace its history back to a barrow trader in the 1860s, is to disappear from the High Street.

The news isn't surprising: the brand went into administration last month, and ninety stores closed immediately. Footwear company Stylo, which operates the Shellys and Barratts brands, has aquired Dolcis. They intend to run the stores for three months, after which ten will be rebranded as Barratts and the remaining 85 will close.

Dolcis is another casualty of the price squeeze in the middle market: fellow High Street store Ravel folded last year. With the advent of low priced, highly fashionable shoe ranges at Primark and New Look, which shift milllions of pairs a year, the market for shoes of similar quality but at prices 25 % higher was almost totally eroded.

It hasn't helped that the above clothing stores, along with most of the Arcadia Group (Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Principles), plus Zara, Mango etc all now sell shoes alongside their other retail offers, thereby reducing the need to visit separate shoe shops.

Fifteen years ago, this wasn't the case. Dolcis & Ravel were perceived as fashionable, part of the very limited shoe choice on the High Street but, as our access to fashion has become increasingly democratised, so our desire to buy more fashionable and cheaper footwear has increased. Dolcis was left flailing in the wake of a huge industry change, with no brand identity and an aging customer.

Image: Dolcis advert 1931. Available to buy from Prints-online.com

Heatherette to get into bed with Mac

MAC have never run shy in their collaborations with musicians, designers, celebrities and models. The latest additions to the stable are the Heatherette team, Trevor Rains and Richie Rich, whose new, hot pink packaged, limited edition range (unsurprisingly called Heatherette) launches in April.

Inspired by life in a big city, it offers two looks: Good Girl By Day - Shine and Rise and Bad Girl by Night - Sparkle like a Superstar on Page Six, and includes lipstick, lipglass, eye shadow, dual-edge eye pencil, glitter, pigment, beauty powder, nail lacquer, and false lashes.

Personally, whilst I'm not averse to Sparking Like A Superstar, I can certainly think of classier places to do it than on Page Six.*

*The New York Post's salacious, and widely read, gossip column

Cooking Indian food in Manhattan

I live in Manhattan, where single people neither cook, nor is there an expectation that they will do so. I find this strange as I cook a proper meal at least once if not twice a day in London. I brought my knives over with me, but discovered that the kitchens are so tiny here that it’s usually just simpler to eat out or order take out. (It’s not just Carrie Bradshaw who keeps her cashmere sweaters in the oven, in her (abnormally large) apartment)

Thing is, after several months here, I’m fed up with eating sub-standard takeaways (& they are generally extremely bad), or with spending most of my income in restaurants. (Originally I was excited at just how cheap it was to eat out here and it is, but do that every day and it soon mounts up.)

So, I girded my loins and decided it was time to cook for my friends, to bring a little bit of London to New York. As BA craves Indian food, like all English expats, and Americans J & F love spicy food, curry seemed good. I biked up to the Union Square Greenmarket, and nearly killed myself on the way home, wobbling down 2nd with my vegetable-filled calico shopping bags hanging off the handlebars.

I don’t use cookbooks, (they're for reading in bed), preferring to cook from memory, adapting recipes in my head to suit the season and the contents of my cupboards. I tied on an apron over my tailored black wool short shorts, kicked off my 4" patent Mary Janes, sharpened my Globals and set to work.

I poached mushrooms in fried onion-enriched coconut milk with coriander, made a chickpea curry, using mashed potato (it thickens the sauce) and tomato puree with garam masala paste, and composed my favourite spinach curry soup. thickening it with coconut cream to make it less soupy. Finally I stir fried chiffonaded curly kale in a very hot wok with chilli oil for a couple of seconds, melted butter to pour over warmed through naan breads and made raita.

Pudding was plum studded cupcakes (I made up the batter in the autumn & froze it), baked in the toaster oven, with vodka cocktails with mango or blueberry purees. (We were going dancing afterwards).

I'm glad I made the effort, as the girls arrived with Ketel One, pink & yellow roses and dressed to the nines. We lit tea lights, arranged the flowers, and ate the lot. Who says fashion girls don't eat?

Who shops at Prada?

Standing in the middle of the temple to retail that is Rem Koolhas’ Prada flagship store in Manhattan, I was struck yet again by the dichotomy between the brand image that Prada would like to present, and the consumers who actually keep the label afloat.

I was there to return a pair of shoes with a broken heel and, as I waited for ten minutes or so for the problem to be dealt with, I propped myself against a pillar and watched the shoppers milling about the store.

It was evident that nobody was interested in the women’s’ clothes, and that shoes, sunglasses and small leather goods were the biggest sellers. Most striking of all were the customers, who were dressed down with their designer label bags and sunnies clashing against Ugg boots, tracksuit bottoms, down jackets and parkas.

Of course this was the Soho store on Broadway, which is always going to attract rubber necking tourists but, even taking this into consideration, I didn’t spot a single customer who looked like they had an interest in Prada beyond the status symbols it could offer.

There's nothing like a good costume drama...

Oh the bliss! I flicked on the telly just now and was gobsmacked to see Jennifer Ehle in full Regency fig as Elizabeth Bennett in the BBC's classic version of Pride & Prejudice. Even better, it was as they arrived at Pemberley and Mr Darcy (Colin Firth) appeared dripping wet, burning up the screen.

Be still my beating heart.

(Turns out it's Jane Austen season on PBS. That's my evenings sorted then. It's the Andrew Davies Sense & Sensibility next.)

Overheard on the street

Popping out this evening for essential supplies (papers & chocolate), I couldn't be bothered to change out of my leggings and T shirt. I shrugged on my parka and, with my bottle-end glasses, no make up, my long blonde lhair piled inside a woolly hat and my scarf pulled up to my nose, I looked super scruffy and totally unrecognisable. However I obviously took it a bit far because, as I passed the bar on my corner, two boys began speculating about which actress was incognito beneath my disguise.

Happy Valentine's Day suckers

Rather too much fun

Today I am not well. Unfortunately this is because I have a hangover, so I deserve no sympathy, flowers or chicken soup. This is what happens when one doesn’t drink for two months: two Tsing Tao & a couple of cocktails over the course an evening and I am royally plastered.

I am writing this from my bed, as prone as one can be & still type. John Humphries is burbling away on the Today programme in the background (you can take the girl out of England…), there is a cup of steaming Earl Grey and I am about to heat up last night’s Chinese doggy bag.

The cause of my ills is threefold. Pretty Miss J was celebrating her birthday (again) at Tapeo 29, a great tapas bar on the Lower East Side, where I had just time for a large glass of a very good Tempranillo before marching through the LES, & down the Bowery to Chinatown for supper with lovely Lola.

The dressing up fairy had dictated that I wore my black washed silk Geren Ford mini dress with high heeled black patent & leather ankle boots which ensured good calf muscle exercise but very sore feet by the time I arrived to find poor L, my flatmate, sitting disconsolate and alone in HSF, the restaurant we were supposed to be eating in. We hopped it sharpish - way too odd being the only customers in a brightly lit dining hall, and went round the corner for Shanghainese dumplings and scallion pancakes instead.

After those we ordered so much food for the five of us that it barely fitted on the Lazy Susan, (squeaky fresh bok choy with lots of garlic, crispy duck, spring rolls, tofu and black mushrooms, sesame beef and more, more) so we turned up at Death & Co in the East Village, my favourite bar in Manhattan, with a rather large placcy bag of leftovers. Glamorous, me.

They make serious, serious cocktails here. No vodka on the premises. Ice in huge lumps hacked off with an ice pick so your drink stays properly cold and not too diluted. No carbonated muck. Just very strong, very good, slipping under the table cocktails. I recommend the Fresa Brava: jalapeno-infused Herradura Silver tequila, yellow Chartreuse, lemon juice, strawberry. It kicks like a mule.

I think I might have a little sleep now.

Celebrity spawn

Christ Giles gets my goat. He continues to show in a space too small to fit in the majority of the press, yet fills his front row with fashion irrelevancies. Last season it was David Walliams, Margo Stilley & Savannah Miller, this year it was Lily Allen, Bee Shaffer, Francesca Versace and Kimberley Stewart. And what do they all have in common? They are the spawn of famous people. And let’s fine that down: people who famous for having a career of several decades, not several seconds.

Today’s published sharply falling ABCs (magazine circulation figures) are being put partly down to the public’s dwindling interest in D-list celebs. Please, please let that be true.

Slamming

I don’t normally use this blog to flag events, (Do I look like Time Out?), but London’s Book Slam, hosted by the ebullient Mr Patrick Neate, in my ever so humble (wring hands) opinion, is probably the best literary night in the world (hyperbole? Me, never). I first pottered along to Cherry Jam some years ago when my fabulous friend Lana Citron was reading from her new novel, and stayed to be shock & awed by Patrick Neate’s poetry, some very good folk music and more readings.

Now it’s become so popular it’s moved from Cherry Jam to a nightclub, Neighbourhood, off Portobello, and has got all shiny and grown up with a swishy looking website, an oh-so-popular podcast and literary & musical names to make you swoon, (Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers, Adele, Nick Hornby, & Kate Nash amongst others.)

Next Thursday, the 28th February

This month they will be celebrating the advent of an eerily early spring in the company of cultural correspondents including (in Patrick Neate's own words): -
JULIAN GOUGH, author of the hilarious and plain brilliant 'Jude: Level 1' and winner of the National Short Story Prize, no less. He's flying in from Berlin.
ZUBZ, one of African hip hop's most innovative wordsmiths, jetting in from Jo'burg.
JAMES YUILL, a singer-songwriter at the forefront of new folk. He sings, he writes songs, and he rights wrongs. He'll taxi it cross town.
SALENA GODDEN,punk princess, poetess and high priestess of exorcising excess. She's also the author of the forthcoming 'Springfield Road' and she may be on rollerskates.
Plus, back from a bout at her majesty's leisure (he's a taster), DJ ILS.

New Woman: on the verge...

Poor New Woman. First they tired to rebrand it by calling it NW, so no one recognised it on newsstand, and now publication has been suspended for a month-long consultation process, following Bauer's long rumoured purchase of Emap's UK Consumer Media section, (which also includes Heat, FHM, and its commercial radio stations.)

Topshop gladiator sandal

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

Hayelp!

Can anyone help me by telling me the names of some of those websites that let you put together entire top to toe looks by pulling pictures of individual pieces from lots of different fashion websites?

Behind the scenes at British Vague

This is a genius piece by interview doyenne Lynn Barber of The Observer about the mechanics of British Vogue. (To gain maximum enjoyment, you need to know that Ms Barber is the other side of fifty, larger than a Voguette, grey and completely uninterested in fashion. She is also probably the best feature interviewer in the UK.)

Make My Day

I still find it hard to get my head around the fact that people other than my cheerleading family & friends read this blog. I know I'm a writer in the real world, but there I'm being commissioned to write pieces that editors know (hope) will be readable. My meanderings here are something else...SO to discover that this blog has been voted Best Fashion Insider's Blog at the 2008 Fashion Bloggers Awards was wonderful. To be nominated and voted for by my peers makes the FBAs even more special. Thank you!

So when, in addition, darling Nonsense on Stilettos and IndigoAlison gave me a Blogs That Make My Day Award I came over a bit Gwyneth at the Oscars.

So sod it, I'm not going to try to be clever or esoteric about this. I'm just going to tag the people I speak to the most(in the real & online worlds), because (brush away tear), blogging is about the community, and you do all Make My Day:

Their Majesties, Queen Michelle & Queen Marie of Kingdom of Style (esp for this post)
Clever girls Susannah at Le Style Sauvage and Riz at Mode et Utopie
Fellow anonymous industry insiders Disney Roller Girl and Mrs Fashion
Probably the best fashion blog out there, Susie at Style Bubble
The erudite & always charming James Scott Linville at The Main Point
and last but not least, Down by the Hipster for being so thoroughly useful

Bobo

I was supposed to be guest-listed for Mansion on Saturday, Manhattan’s new swishy super-club, which has opened on the site of Crobar. Unfortunately my jetlag got the better of me and by midnight I was practically face down in my supper.

I had pottered off to a post Fashion Week birthday supper at Bobo in the West Village. Bobo was briefly hip for a few weeks when it opened last autumn – until people actually tasted the food. With a new chef (make that two: Rick Jakobson & Jared Stafford-Hill) taking over five weeks ago, it’s upped the ante considerably. (There’s not a just a new menu, but a new front of house team too, including the very good Andy Vaughan as GM, newly arrived from Soho House.)

Hidden away on a junction in the West Village, with no signage - and no indication it's a restaurant, Bobo's two floors are shabby chic, lit by candles and seemingly populated by very beautiful, underfed people. (The restaurant has become a firm fashion world favourite, & is currently recovering from hosting Vera Wang’s Lavender label show and umpteen fashion house dinners during NYFW).

Where the old chef, Ducasse alum Nicolas Cantrel’s menu was supposedly Pan-European but read more as American Modern/schizophrenic before, the new carte shows considerable restraint and reads well, with a strong emphasis on seasonality and, frankly, deliciousness. Although our charming waitress said the restaurant was French, it doesn’t read much like any French menu I’ve seen in Paris of late, with more in common with London restaurants like Hereford Road right now.

Having seen the piles of salsify at the Greenmarket that morning, it was especially pleasing to see it here in abundance, especially in a delicate, but sharply dressed salad of winter vegetables. Plump and fluffy ricotta ravioli were well paired with trompette des morts and little pieces of cauliflower, whilst a simple plate of jamon de serrano showed that great ingredients don’t always need bells and whistles. I was eating with girls, so pudding was one textbook creamy and cool semi-freddo with hazelnut macaroon and coffee (I think – I was practically asleep by then), six spoons and a birthday candle.

I’m going back again when I’m not so bludgeoned with tiredness that I can't actually eat a sensible meal. I want to go through the interesting wine list properly, which seems to indicate a sure hand in the cellar on first read. It’s just a shame that so many fashion people eat there: food like this deserves some proper trenchermen.

Brrrr

I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who wore a knee length fur coat, but it’s so bloody cold, that right now it’s the only thing stopping me from contracting incipient hypothermia. All my other coats are somewhat truncated, and it was wear the fur or get frostbitten knees.

The weather in this city really is schizophrenic: it was 60F on Wednesday, and now weather.com says that it is -8C , feels like -17C. I’m finding this hard to comprehend. I mean, that’s seriously COLD (for a girl from London). And I have promised to go to Williamsburg today for a tour around the neighbourhood with my designer friend F, for a piece I'm planning to write. My usual working MO is to stay indoors all day: how could I have been so short-sighted as to arrange to go out on the coldest day of the year so far?

Boots - a hipster paradise?

New York's Page Six magazine* described Boots as 'the hip UK chain store' today. Boots may be many things, to many people, but the word to describe Britain's largest chemist/drugstore, known for dispensing old ladies' pile medication, prescribing hearing aids, and selling support stockings alongside Ruby & Millie cosmetics and Chanel scent is eclectic. Not hip.

*the USofA's homegrown version of The Sunday Times Style mag

A life in my wardrobe

I am a woman of habit: when I find a dish I like to eat, I make it every day for a week. With outfits, the same. Since I have arrived back in America I have worn a navy washed silk Geren Ford blousy mini dress over grey tights , heavy grey knitted wool over the knee socks and chestnut brown round toe stack heeled boots with gold zippers. When I go out I wear a sand mini trench by Nicholas K over it all, with a brown satchel strapped across my body.

These clothes are not black, these clothes are not soignée. They are young in spirit, and they feel like me and my life in Manhattan. Hanging in my wardrobe, though, is a visible reproach, a reminder that there is another life of sophisticated dates, dinners and dancing with which I no longer engage.

There are rows of black clothing: elegant, complicated, expensive pieces for a life I no longer lead.

There is a rail of pencil skirts in butter soft leather, fishtailed taffeta, broderie anglaise, tweed, even rubber. An evening dress of floor sweeping chiffon hangs next to an abbreviated taffeta tunic, a pailette covered shift brushes up to a beribboned velvet cape. Evening bags in satin, feathers, brocade are lined up on the shelf, next to sequinned hats, and plumey fascinators. Thirty, forty pairs of heels stand to attention, shoes trees in, polished and waiting. There are no flats.

I work in fashion. It is a given that I use my clothes as a language to signify to others my status, my aspirations, my personality. But I work from home now. My Vogue House days are behind me. I don’t need these clothes any more. In part I have bought, and continue to buy for the woman that I used to be, the women with whom I used to work.

And now the pieces hang, unworn. Unless one is Dita von Teese, a pencil skirt in the evening is difficult to pull off; likewise I am unlikely to go dancing now in a floor length dress. A Chanel tweed skirt is not ideal on a bicycle, and if I turned up at a gig in a silk voile cocktail dress I'd feel out of place. Still, these pieces crossed the Atlantic with me; to have left them behind would have been to admit that my life has changed, that I am different now.

Comfort eating in Queens

After a morning dealing with my backed up post, I foraged desperately in the kitchen for lunch. But as month old yoghurt and a couple of butternut squashes weren’t looking that appealing, I hopped to Queens on the V train, drawn by the siren call of inexpensive Indian food. (I’m fed up with paying Manhattan prices for my grocery shopping: real estate prices here mean that everything pretty much seems to double on this side of the East River.)

Unlike in London, where council housing was built on bomb sites and on the foundations of Victorian housing stock throughout the inner city in the aftermath of the Second World War and the '60s slum clearances, (next to Harrods as well as in Dalston), Manhattan’s accommodation doesn't have an ethnically diverse occupancy. (In London I have Somali, Bangladeshi, Indian, Chinese and Ghanaian familes on my street, and my local supermarket stocks food from all these countries.)

In the past thirty years, or so, recent immigrants from Asia & Central America have eschewed Manhattan, preferring to settle in the other, more affordable four boroughs in their own ethnic areas. Chinatown remains the last bastion of ethnic culture on Manhattan, yet even here rents are being squeezed. From the top of Central Park down, Manhattan can feel curiously, disconcertingly, white compared to London.

Walking through Jackson Heights, I see one other blonde in the two hours I am there. The area is split between Hispanics and Indians, with banks the only representatives of big brand America. There are gold jewellery shops, Asian supermarkets, sari & kurta boutiques, Mexican food carts and Indian beauty shops. Sometimes I feel distinctly out of place, as though I am a tourist in someone else’s culture. But that's not to say I feel unsafe here. Quite the contrary. This is one of my favourite places in New York.

I head to 74th Street to Patel’s Grocery Store, and immediately am back in my comfort zone. I could be in any local supermarket in London here and it feels more familiar than Whole Foods with its anally retentive organic crunchiness. Loading up with paneer, coconut milk, masoor dahl, basmati, chana, amchoor, haldi, jeera, I sneak some imported-from-the-UK Patak’s pastes in too for lazy moments, and then chat with a old lady from Gujarat about the freshness of the coriander whilst she picks me out a bunch.

Being surrounded by food inevitably makes me ravenously hungry and I slip next door to The Jackson Diner for chili-spiked saag paneer, dahl makhani, raitha and sensational fluffy, butter drenched garlic naan. I read my guilty airport copy of Hello, feeling thoroughly English and completely at home. It’s food that links us to places, far more than geography.

I am back home in the East Village just three hours after I have left. It does me good to be reminded that New York isn’t just yellow cabs, the Empire State Building and shopping.

It's not just Kate Moss...

Page Six.com reports today that Kirsten Dunst, the current face of Miu Miu, has checked into rehab at the Cirque Lodge in Utah, most recently home temporarily to Lindsay Lohan. She’ll be joining the new face of Calvin Klein, Eva Mendes, who checked in just last week.

NYFW parties

So having slept all afternoon like a hibernating dormouse in a nest of cashmere shawls on my bed, I spent a glorious hour dancing between the bedroom & bathroom having an almighty primping session, the likes of which I haven’t indulged in since my birthday at the beginning of December. I'm not really engaging with NYFW, as I'm still not wholly well, & fashion weeks are a recipe for illness (you are continually hungry, tired & sore of foot)so only going to events where I personally know the PR, or designers.

I wore this dress with my black suede and patent ankle boots, and 120 denier black Wolfords. And felt mighty glad of it when I arrived at Aziz, a Moroccan lounge in Midtown, for the Nanette Lepore after-show party. I always forget how badly the majority of fashion people dress, especially in New York. Waaaay too many sequins for my liking and everyone in dull colours. I may have looked like a rainbow threw up on my dress, but at least I was making a nod to current trends. I’m so used to London where people really do follow fashion in a quirky & individual way that it’s easy to forget that it just doesn’t filter down so quickly in America.

Fashion week parties like this are always fun. They aren’t full of celebs and models; they’re more of a way to reward the hard working teams who put the shows together, so they are always most amusing with lots of hair letting down. We drank delicious Belvedere white cosmos and did some dancing. The party ended at midnight (as fashion parties always do – the venue is happy to host parties in the 8pm-12am period, but then they kick everyone out for the paying customers).

I actually sloped off earlier to head downtown to what is supposedly Manhattan’s most luxurious, newest and hottest lounge/club/whatever, 1OAK (stands for One of a Kind). (More of this later.)

The wonderful English men’s shoemaker Oliver Sweeney is intent on taking America (and rightly so), and to that end was throwing an exclusive Fashion Week cocktail party there (until midnight!) along with a young English bespoke tailor.

Who just about nixed his chances of being included in the feature I am writing on English tailors in America for a Very Large newspaper with his stunningly rude behaviour last night. The truly lovely Oliver Sweeney PR took me over to meet him, and we talked about his business and Savile Row. Then the owner of 1OAK came over with some badly dressed, but important guy, introduced him, ignoring me (even though we had already met), and then the three men drew together, with the tailor literally turning his back on me: he & I had been mid conversation and I was just frozen out, & left standing there outside their circle like a muppet. I waited a few minutes to see if he was going to turn back to sign off our conversation, but no.

I was so angry that I left the party. I had trekked down to Meatpacking from Midtown for his American launch and, frankly, journalist or no, expect some politesse. Not impressed sir. You’d better learn some manners if you want to grow your business.

Back in the US(S)A

i'm jetlagged, hungry, not yet unpacked, but very happy to be home. I got in at 11.30last night, but didn't hit my bed 'till 2am, as the combination of customs, a tortuous wait for baggage and an exruciating ride home took forever. My fault tho - owing to my new found notions of thrift, I decided to book myself on the door to door shuttle van ($24), rather than taking a cab ($70), which meant the journey took an hour instead of thirty-five minutes. Still, it's not like I was in a hurry.

Yesterday really was the day for decrying being a single traveller: humping my 100lbs of luggage onto the check-in scales as my trolley tried to escape in the opposite direction, being asked (in all seriousness) by the customs guy where my husband was (I replied - that'll be the imaginary one then), and then having to scrimp on a cab as I was alone. Sigh.

Added to which, I live in a fourth floor walk-up, and it took me another 20 minutes to lug my three bags up the stairs, as I cldn't bear to wake poor L from his beauty sleep at 1.20am. (He had offered, bless him.) Gah.

But regardless of all that, I am thrilled to be home, even if I have been asleep all afternoon rather than working/organising my life. ( I have four HUGE piles of post to open for a start.)

Now I really need to go unpack, so I can find something suitably fash-on to wear tonight to some NYFW parties this evening. And where did I put those fake eyelashes?

It's a whole different world out there on-line...

Today I’m feeling…confused. And not feeling the love for the corporate on-line world that is trying to infitrate the blogosphere. Received an email from some random guy at askmen (huge, nothing special, testosterone-filled, on-line mag) offering to trade links with my tiny fashion blog. Odd.

They also wanted me to link to a news-y piece they were running, pegging Catherine McNeill as the upcoming model to watch. Apart from the fact that I ran a similar piece on Miss McNeill nearly a year on ago this blog (just before Testino put her under contract), why does a mid-market on-line magazine, aimed at men, with overtly male-friendly, women as objects, content, think I’d be interested in sending my readers to read an uninformed piece of page filler? My intelligent & informed bloggers are hardly going to consider them as an expert source of opinion, especially when it's not her work in the fashion industry that they are interested in...

(They didn’t help their cause when, following my jokey reply, pointing out they were a bit slow off the mark on the news front, and attaching a link to my own year-old story, the guy replied all miffed, saying:
" Yes well im sending you our feature page on Catherine McNeil with the possibility of a link exchange, no need for unnecessary insults"

Right. That's obviously what I was doing. Personally insulting him. Obviously.

Surely it must have occurred to him that if (ethical) bloggers are going to link to features they need to be pertinent, interesting, relevant AND up to date?

(And now here's a proper insult for him: Dimwit.)

Fashion Blog Awards

I'm continually amazed at how much work people put into the blog community. Props of the day to Jen @ Maholo Fashion, who is running this year's Fashion Blogger Awards. The list of blogs nominated, and those you can vote on, makes for fascinating reading. It's also a little daunting to realise just how many splendid fashion blogs exist. So, if you read me regularly, I am super grateful, now I see how many of us there are out there! LLG xx

Ps Thank you everyone for nominating me for Best Fashion Insider's blog! Wow! I'm dead chuffed. And I'm in great company too.

The Jaeger Morgan bag

Oh I am in two minds. I've had this Jaeger £100 voucher, (we were given them at a press day), kicking around for well over a year now, and I still haven't found anything I actually really want to buy. The collection seems to never quite hit the nail on the head, and most of the okay-ish pieces are about £250, and I'm certainly not spending £150 on something I'm not that bothered about. If I don't use the voucher, I'll inevitably lose it so I was thinking that maybe I'd buy this bag which is knocked down to £99 in the sale.

I've already got my black Janet Collin Vivienne bag which is huge, so a smaller black bag could be useful for when I'm not carting my life around with me. Plus it's got no branding or logos on it, which is a very good thing. Hmmmmm. Of course, the real reason why I'm umming over this is in case something amazing appears down the line. But I've checked out the SS lookbook and I see nothing there...

Intermission for a grump

The sheer volume of releases and new product info that lands in my inbox each day is daunting. I do read everything I get sent, but unless the sender has specifically asked for a response or for my advice, I just do not have the time to individually respond.

Which is why I do wish people wouldn’t stalk me for a response: it’s pointless and aggravating. If the product is good enough, I’ll write about it or shoot it eventually, either in the real world or here on my blog. I'm also not fond of releases that have a whiff of hubris about them: if the product is good enough, let it speak for itself.

Thank you. Grump over.

Shoreditch House

It's been strange being back in London, but not really feeling well enough to do much more than eat my way through a Creme Egg mountain and play with the hound. I've seen relatively few friends, confining myself to the odd supper or lunch in people's homes, with just a couple of outings.

Last week I hopped across town to Soho House's East London outpost, Shoreditch House, for a drink with a friend of a friend. He writes the tell-all, very funny and faintly obnoxious anonymous Cityboy column in The London Paper. I got to hang out with the charming, urbane and generous man behind the construct, rather than Cityboy. Thank God.

SH was crawling with, ahem, celebrities, although I use the word lightly, given that we are talking about Daisy Lowe, Mika and the cast of Shameless. Ms Lowe, in a mini crini and thigh high socks, was being filmed for some BBC documentary at a PR supper in the private dining room.

Cityboy pottered off into the night, & I went onto dinner in SH's Kitchen Dining Room with an old schoolfriend, where we were served some of the worst restaurant food I have eaten in London in years: gluey cauliflower soup (minus the listed truffles), soggy pizza, over cooked broccoli and uncrispy school dinner roast potatoes. The menu was curiously absent of anything that sounded delicious for either carnivores or vegetarians. I thought the whole thing shameful. And expensive.

We perked up when my NY ex-flatmate, the glam stylist Miss JD, appeared as if by magic at our table, fresh from the meal with Miss Lowe. A lovely surprise. And then we bumped into fashion photographer Chloe Mallett whom I shot with last Autumn. A quadruple friends bonus of an evening, which sent me off home with a welcome skip in my step because, if I had flogged across London purely to eat that rubbish* food, I would have been stomping home (via the chippie).

*High class reviewing term

I'm going back to New York

La la la - I'm going home on Tuesday. Much as I like being in London to see all my friends and family, eat proper Indian food, annoy my sister & play with the dog, I do feel that Manhattan is where I need to be right now. I've been away since 16 December and I've been so sick (two eye ulcers. Two!) & broke that it's been hard to enjoy myself over here. Not least, 75% of my wardrobe and possessions are in New York.

There was a slight excitement yesterday when I was asked if I was interested in presenting & producing a series of daily reports from London Fashion Week for a global TV station which I've worked for before. I postponed booking my flight, organised somewhere to stay, & started to negotiate my fee with the station. Then the stupid cow of a producer changed her mind and cancelled me this afternoon. And now my plane ticket has gone up by £60. I could kill her.

Still, at least I get to go home in FIVE DAYS. I am rather excited.

TYRA BANKS IN NEW FASHION REALITY SHOW

WGSN reports that talk show host and former supermodel Tyra Banks is set to present a new reality TV show that's out to find a fashion magazine editor.

IMDB reveals that the show is being dubbed "The Apprentice meets The Devil Wears Prada. Producer Ken Mok says: "It is a competition show about aspiring assistants looking to become assistant editors at a fashion magazine."

Bosses are said to be looking for a magazine to participate with the series, which is set to air on US network, CW, this spring.

Now I know how professional musicians feel about Pop & American Idol.

The power of a brand name

I popped into Hampstead Gap last week for a quick poke around the sale (I love me a Gap sale), and found not just a pair of tailored black flannel short shorts for £2.99(£2.99!), but a big pile of Pierre Hardy Mary Jane style pointy toe flatties. When Pierre Hardy's shoes for The Gap launched in London, I was in Manhattan, and my beloved editor friend E purchased me a pair of the black patent platform heels and posted them to me back in New York.

I had fully expected all three styles in the Pierre range to have sold out by the time I returned to England in December, and certainly the black heels had been snapped up immediately, but thw two tone shoes and the Mary Janes were still kicking around in store.

A chat with the Hampstead manager revealed that they aren't being marketed as Pierre Hardy shoes, and so no one was buying them. Same story in Camden Gap. The manager's theory? If they stuck a big Pierre Hardy sign above them, they'd fly out of the store...

Market: A new British restaurant opens in Camden, London

It’s easy enough to make a grand entrance at Market, a new-ish restaurant in the gastro-wasteland of Camden. Simply push aside the heavy curtain and fall down the hidden step into the dining room as did I and several following customers through the course of the evening.

Fortunately the low key restaurant, with its metal topped tables and salvaged wooden school chairs (watch out for the authentic vicious Wolford-snagging splinters) has attracted a clientele who are far too busy nose down in their troughs of glorious food to take much notice of flailing guests.

Replacing a long-time Chinese restaurant on Parkway, Market couldn’t be more different in approach, with its emphasis on seasonally driven produce and daily changing menu. It’s part of a new wave of London restaurants that ape brasseries with their relaxed local vibe but serve resolutely British food: mackerel paté, pollack, pork cheeks, oysters, offal.

T & I loved our main courses: deeply flavoured beef stew & root mash for her and red curry for me (rather less curry and more fragrant coconut milk with boiled courgettes, coriander sprouts & peanuts), with a side dish of, and here's something I never thought I'd say in a review, stunning January King cabbage, although we weren’t such great fans of the somewhat hectoring owner/server who seems to have froideur as her default mode.

We finished with an ice cream which may be the best I’ve ever eaten, with delicate rosemary notes, served in an old school Duralex glass with rhubarb compote, and a textbook warm bitter chocolate cake before gloating over our very un-London like bill of £48 which included a glass of wine, bottle of fizzy water & service.

What Jane Did Next

We knew Jane Shepherdson had something up her sleeve after she left her job as brand director at Topshop. You don't become arguably the most influential woman in British retail and then leave to spend more time with your cats/children/lover.*

But who knew she'd be getting in bed with Baugar? It was announced today that she has finalised a deal with investment company Baugur to purchase Whistles with immediate effect. Jane becomes CEO of the retailer and is joined by Finance Director Keith Wilks and Marketing Director Jo Farrelly, both of whom worked with Jane at Topshop.

As a result of the management buy-in, Whistles will be separated from its former owner Mosaic Fashions through a newly-created company owned in part by Jane and her team. Commenting on the development of the brand Jane said, "We see a great opportunity to create something unique for the woman who loves great design, isn't scared of a little edginess and who wants to reference but not slavishly follow trends."

I adore Whistles. Not for its own label safe knits & trademark pretty tops, but for its clever buy of labels like Antik Batik & Michael Stars. (And I love its bargain sales too.)

But my love of Whistles goes way, way back. My very first black tie outfit came from Whistles in Oxford. When I was 16, my contemporaries all seemed to sport taffeta evening dresses with sweetheart necklines and poofy skirts (this was in 1988 before fashion had filtered down to teenagers) and, if you were really cool, you wore black DM lace ups or eight hole boots with your dress. Laura Ashley and Monsoon were popular, or else girls made their dresses in the Textiles classroom after school.

Me, I wore a curvy nipped in waist, black double breasted wool evening jacket with a low square neckline and long sleeves, matched with a staggeringly trendy (at the time)Ghost anthracite, dropped waist, full circle knee length skirt in Ghost's trademark wrinkled viscose. No one 'got' my outfit, but I loved it -and I loved my mother more for buying it for me from her meagre salary. I remember that the jacket cost £125 - an absolute fortune back then, and the skirt was £85. I still have both pieces, but the skirt no longer works now that I have hips, and the jacket strains over my bust. I've wrapped them both in tissue paper, and stored them in my parent's attic.

*delete as applicable

Mango sponsor Jean Pierre Braganza

I'm quite keen on Mango at the moment, following the announcement of an intelligent spot of sponsorship directed towards two young British designers. After having sponsored Osman Yousefzada's LFW show last season, (& whilst continuing to support Osman), they will also be sponsoring Jean Pierre Braganza.Braganza's signature sharp tailoring and deconstructed shapes can be seen at his show at the Mango flagship store on London's Oxford Street on Sunday, February 10. The utterly briiliant Osman Yousefzada, whose show also takes place at the store on the same day, debuts his collection of Little Black Dresses in 220 Mango stores worldwide from March.

Photo: Jean Pierre Braganza SS08. Vogue.com

Moet fashion bus for London Fashion Week

When I read that Moët was introducing a tour bus this February to transport editors around the east end of London to the series of fashion week shows known as The Block, I thought, what a great idea. Especially the bit that read, “Guests will be greeted with champagne.”

Then the release went on to list the designers whose shows would be included: House of Holland, Fashion East, which includes Louise Gray, Noki and David David, Roksanda Ilincic and Gareth Pugh. And I thought hmm, but isn’t Giles showing there too, and on the same day?

And then I remembered: Giles doesn’t like, indrawn breath, fashion assistants, and scabrous people who might actually not have drivers or the wherewithal to take cabs, to attend his shows. Senior editors & important buyers only darling.

Whilst I understand that designers like to show in spaces that work with their collections, that are often rather small, I also think that if you are going to be part of the official LFW schedule then you shouldn’t treat the junior editors, assistants and foreign press with such derision. Especially when London has so few big names showing.

And especially when his front row last season had David bloody Walliams, Margot Stilley and Savannah Miller perched on it. Any moral high ground gained was lost the moment he let those completely fashion-irrelevant attendees in.

Lucinda Chambers & Jaeger

There's been a rumour floating around over the weekend that Lucinda Chambers, fashion director of British Vogue, is the new creative director of Jaeger. A Condé Nast spokeswoman hadn't heard this, Lucinda Chambers says it's not true, and the Jaeger press office flatly denied it to a friend. However, as we all know, just because someone denies something, it doesn't mean that it won't happen one day...

This rumour comes on the heels of the announcement of Jaeger chairman Harold Tillman's appointment as chairman of the British Fashion Council.

It'll be interesting to see how Jaeger's Belinda Earl is planning to give the company the shot in the arm it so badly needs. Whilst editorial coverage of the Jaeger London line has been good, and the SS08 collection looks interesting, if a little schizophrenic, the Regent Street flagship store is currently packed with heavily discounted sale rails, and knocked down handbags.

On my visit this week, the store was not attracting the key 25-25 fashion market, but was filled with Jaeger's ex-core customer: confused looking Middle England housewives and grey haired grannies, desperately seeking in vain the comfortable Jaeger pieces they had been buying for the previous twenty years.

If Jaeger's continuing rebranding fails, it won't be for want of trying. If the Chambers rumours turn out to be true, with the BFC & British Vogue in his pocket, Tillman would just about have the British fashion industry all sewn up. Certainly shows would show what throwing money at a project could achieve.

Photo: Jaeger London SS08. www.jaeger.co.uk
(Very dodgy look book styling - she looks like she has a pot belly.)

Allen & Delancey: Restaurant review

I wrote this review for a publication back in November but, owing to matters beyond my control, it got pushed. This is a more personal version than wld have been printed.
__________

It’s late November, it’s cold, it’s windy, I’m wearing vertiginous heels, and there’s a pan handler eyeing me thoughtfully from his doorway perch on a deserted corner of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The sole reason I’m down here on a grim Monday night is that Allen & Delancey is the new gig of Gordon Ramsey-empire exile Neil Ferguson.

He was famously ejected from the Ramsey ego project at The London NYC Hotel in Manhattan by the irascible Gordon after a series of lukewarm reviews, but there were rumblings that he had been hard done by. Certainly his skill as a chef has never been in question: more his judgement of the requirements of the Manhattan fine dining scene.

I'm having problems finding Allen & Delancey, until I spot the discreet lettering at the bottom of the curtained window, and then see my parents looking lost, and eminently muggable, on the opposite side of the dual carriageway, their cab driver having failed to locate it.

My glamorous mother doesn’t do what she perceives as slumming, not ever. Even getting her down to my East Village apartment from her rococo Midtown hotel is a stretch. If I want to know if Ferguson’s culinary reach and reputation is going to extend up beyond 14th street then my mother's experience will provide the perfect litmus test.

Things don’t start well after her first trip to the bathroom. “It smells of wee, and it’s so dark in there I couldn’t see to reapply my lipstick”. Great. We are apparently to have a bi-level dining experience: Michelin worthy, we hope, in the dining room, and LES dive bar in the loos.

An elegant and dimly lit, narrow bar leads to the windowless two roomed dining room proper, with the prettiest flowers I’ve seen in a restaurant either side of the Atlantic: old fashioned, blowsy roses. The calm and cool jewel box of a dining room at the Royal London has given way to the warmth of bare brick walls, adorned with shelves of sub-pub tat, dodgy paintings and exceptionally comfy banquettes. It’s a clever room with no bad tables, and a sense of occasion about it, even given the downbeat decoration.

It’s just a shame that it’s so dark we can barely read the menus. We grab the church candle from the shelf behind us to illuminate our table, but it barely penetrates the Stygian gloom. Someone seems to have forgotten that the enjoyment of good food requires all five senses: whilst I love The Smiths, the music is way too loud: we have to stretch to hear each other.

Although the barman didn't know how to make an Old Fashioned, the wine list is compact but beguiling, with clever choices including a delicious Gruner Veltliner by the glass. We waver over a very well-priced $100 Amarone, but settle on a $66 Ayres Pinot Noir from Oregon. Ten out of ten for offering tap or bottled water, but we are less impressed to discover that the sparking water is the overly fizzy imported Hildon Water.

Eating in restaurants is tricky as a vegetarian. As a fully paid up member of the awkward squad, (no to fish or meat, yes to dairy & eggs) my diet is a source of derision to many chefs. I certainly know that I am unwelcome in Bourdain’s Les Halles and, although I like and admire Fergus Henderson enormously, I’m not beating a path to St John.

If I check out the carte on-line and there is no vegetarian option then I always ring in advance. At Allen & Delancey I am assured that vegetarianism is no bar to entry: speak up, and “Chef will prepare you something off menu. It’s really no problem at all for both courses.”

I am expecting something quite special now. Not least because before he took the Ramsey shilling, Ferguson did a stage at Alain Passard’s thoroughly amazing L’Arpège in Paris, which has brought the humblest of vegetables to the forefront of modern French cooking, earning three Michelin stars in the process.

Sea scallops, celery root cream, braised cipollini onions, verjus and Raviolo of sweetbreads, bolognese, parslied carrots, savoy cabbage arrive. My parents start to look longingly at their cooling plates, as my place remains empty. I call over the waiter who looks bemused: she hasn’t ordered me a first course, explaining that the vegetable plate is ‘very large’. I look at her like she is insane: maybe she is. But hell, I’m English: I eat my way through menus, vegetarianism not withstanding.

The parents are happily troughing away, liking the contrasts of consistency and taste that chime together on their plates. I eventually get leeks vinaigrette with truffled fingerling potatoes, minus the listed proscuitto garnish. It is good, the baby leeks providing a textural balance to the smooth potatoes, whilst the dressing is just the right side of sharp. Unfortunately, the lack of lighting is such that I actually fail to spot the truffle puree at the side of the plate until I have eaten everything else. I call for more of the delicious warm bread, swish it around the plate, and lick my fingers. Although I had to fight to get fed, it’s an admirable start.

And then, after a lengthy wait (bear in mind it’s a quiet-ish Monday night), our entrees are plonked down. I get a vegetable medley: someone in the kitchen has had fun in the various stations, raking over the mise en place, picking out the vegetable garnishes and cobbling them together over an excellent smear of cauliflower purée.

Peering through the crepuscular murk, I start the name game: I spot trompette des mortes and some fat porcini; a tatty sliver of preserved lemon lurks alongside an olive, an artichoke heart, a piece of parsnip, and a little squash. There are some more of those fingerling potatoes, carrots, and rather too many onions, - pearl and cipollini are my best guess – but it’s just too dark for a serious identification parade.

There isn’t a cohesive note on the plate. (Maybe he should be taking a note from Rowley Leigh’s new Café des Anglais in London whose vegetable plate is a thoughtful selection of roast beets, squash, onions, radicchio di Treviso and a little polenta cake, dribbled with sauce vierge.)

It is also not ‘very large’ but rather small, and I polish it off in a few minutes. Still hungry, I remonstrate with the waiter who hops it to the kitchen and returns with an offer of ‘Chef’s risotto’.

Whilst I wait, the parents engage variously with their main courses: slow roasted pork belly, pickled pear, parsnips, fenugreek syrup for my mother and Beef, cabbage, onions for my father, which he ordered purely because it sounded so unprepossessing. What arrives is a roundel of aged beef; a savoy cabbage parcel contains chopped beef shoulder, and a cabbage wrapped onion. He makes small groaning noises which are slightly disconcerting coming from a parent, but apparently indicate extreme appreciation. The beef is cooked perfectly and, what sounded like heavy peasant food, is actually refined and hearty all at the same time.

The autumnal risotto is sensational, similar to one I had back in March at the Royal London Bar, and certainly one of the best I have eaten. There are various schools of thought where risotto is concerned: some prefer it in the Venetian manner, all’onda, or wavy, where the dish is slightly soupy, rippling when you attack it with a spoon.

This is a stiffer version, with a perfect bite and the lack of soupiness works well with the vegetables. It is studded with chunks of butternut squash, topped with sautéed chestnuts and hen of the woods mushrooms, with a creamy truffled foam around the edges. I try to ask the server about the foam’s composition; she nods and says truffles. I give up, and bury my head in my plate, stopping only to emit small squeaks of pleasure as I shovel it in. I stupidly press some of the delicious mushrooms on my parents. We fall silent in homage. I wonder if anyone will notice if I lick my plate clean.

Just as we have perked up considerably, buoyed by the Pinot and the thoroughly excellent first two courses, our puddings arrive. The menu had read well, with an unusual (for a Manhattan carte), and welcome emphasis on fruit, but the orange plate is a heavy mess: a million miles from the implied elegant assembly.

The one tiny tangerine segment is flavourless, with no evidence of the promised caramelisation. The clementine has been peeled, sawn in half and presented as a charmless hunk of tasteless fruit, the ice cream has crystals in it, and the two sliced chunks of financier, (an almond flour, ingot shaped cake) although with the traditional crisp crust, are too dry and crumbly to work with the fruit. Maybe a self-contained Madeleine with its lemon hint would have worked better. Paradoxically, the element requiring the most skill, the orange blossom sabayon, is immaculate: delicately scented, and moreish.

My mother’s sautéed fall fruits, hibiscus, Catalan cream, saffron pistils has several large chunks of unpeeled apple and pear with shards of core left in. We take turns in nicking bits from my father’s choice, whilst he tries to stab our fingers with his fork. It's a clever take on apple pie a la mode: a whole Gala apple wrapped in excellent puff pastry with a caramel sauce and rum & raison ice cream on the side: Scrumptious.

Service is charming, chatty and well-meaning - but stuck at café level. The smooth service that usually comes with food of this standard is notably absent here: the busboys don’t know who is eating which plate of food, we have to request fresh glasses for our second bottle of wine, and there are long delays. Empty glasses and side plates are left lurking on the table.

If Ferguson has pretensions to make Allen & Delancey a ‘top dining destination’ then he needs to ratchet up the quality of the elements surrounding his food. A firm hand front of house would make all the difference. At the moment this truly inspired cooking deserves much, much more.

In the interests of full disclosure I should note that my risotto was comped as were the puddings, a very generous gesture.

Harold Tillman appointed as Chairman BFC

Harold Tillman has been appointed as the new chairman of the BFC (British Fashion Council). I'm not sure I approve: Sir Stuart Rose (M&S) was one thing, but Tillman owns Jaeger which seems to me to hint at a conflict of interest. Mind you, the post is no sinecure, and it's paid risibly, so who else would take it on, bar a rich man in retail's inner circle?

Fakery

I'm a huge aficianado of fake eyelashes. I love the way they give my eyes an almond shaped sexiness, helping them look huge in photographs. I'm a dab hand at putting them on, and recommend Eylure's style 101 lashes for a look so natural that no one can spot them. You also need a steady hand, clear glue in a proper tube (not the ickle glass phials that come with lashes), and those small travel size tweezers that let you get in close when you are positioning them.

Unfortunately they should only really be worn by women who are meticulous about their appearance, and who are fond of taking furtive peeps in their hand looking-glasses*. Whilst I will spend maybe fifteen minutes applying slap, once I'm out of the house I rarely check my face in a mirror.

This is a mistake. Twice now a strip of fake lashes has parted company with my eyelid in a public place, and I have failed to notice. The first time I had cycled madly down Greenwich Avenue to Employees Only (a proper old-school cocktail haunt) for a blind date. I chained up my wheels round the corner, whipped my heels out of the bike basket, applied some lipstick blind, and sauntered gracefully over to my date who was leaning against a tree outside the entrance. We shook hands. He then stared at me, hard. Great, I thought. He's overcome by my flushed cheeks and radiant beauty. But no. One of my false lashes was hanging by a fibre from the corner of my eye.

But at least he told me.

Second time I was fooling around, fully dressed, in bed with a preppy New Yorker. After a while, I de-suctioned myself, as I felt something brush against my cheek. Yup. My lash was dangling from my eyelid again. Oh yes, preppy banker said, that's been like that for a while.

Gah.

* Apologies to Nancy Mitford

Best Costume Design Oscar Nominations

Across the Universe Albert Wolsky
Atonement Jacqueline Durran
Elizabeth: The Golden Age Alexandra Byrne
La Vie en Rose” Marit Allen
Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Colleen Atwood

For this dress alone, the perfect example of how a costume can work seamlessly with a script, I hope Jacqueline Durran wins for Atonement.

Heath Ledger

In the midst of life we are in death.
Requiescat in pace

Giorgio Armani Privé show this evening

It's a sign of the times that when a fashion house shows a new collection, the first act of the in-house press office is to email journalists images of the celebrity attendees in hope of making the next day's papers. Forget the clothes, or the models in the clothes. Those pictures are no longer enough to sell newspapers. Mr Armani showed his Privé Collection as part of the Paris Couture this evening, with a celeb filled front row to ensure him some press coverage. Armani stalwarts Claudia Cardinale & Sophia Lauren were joined by Hilary Swank, Ellen Pompeo and Dita von Teese. Given that the Golden Globes were cancelled, and award season has been somewhat muted so far due to the writers' strike, I would have expected a higher celeb count. So often, Armani's ladies look somewhat trussed up in over elaborate, over embroidered, over brocaded numbers, which are often far too old for them (Katie Holmes springs to mind), but when these pictures from the Armani press office in Milan tipped up in my inbox this evening, I was struck by the relative elegance & simplicity of the outfits. I think I am going to pin up this picture of Mss Loren & Cardinale as an expemplar of soignée aging. Bellissima. (Britney et al take note.)

Photos: Courtesy of Armani Press Office, Milano

Socialising

To Ken High Street for fashion photographer Matthew Eades’ birthday drinks. It’s a good thing I like him, (as opposed to just liking his excellent work) as it took three buses to get there in the absence of working trains on the District & Circle Line. One & a half hours in the pub, over three hours to get there & back from Kentish Town. I miss the very small island of Manhattan.

Sales joy

I have scored big time in the sales this month. These pretty studded nubuck flats from Office, with a fantastic, winter busting hidden rubber sole, cost just £5 from £29, and I have them in black too. They are perfect for scrunching up in the bottom of my handbag for changing into to walk home after supper in Manhattan. (They are incredibly lightweight too, and water marks just disappear when they dry.)
After weeks of debating, I bought the Kurt Geiger ankle boots, and they look just fine. I also picked up two Whistles jackets. The first, a brilliant black, long line, tuxedo jacket with satin revers was reduced from £180 to £50, and a black fitted, curvy gaberdine jacket/blazer with navy blue grosgrain trimming a la Balenciaga was £80 from £180 - but I hesitated so long before buying it that it was reduced another £35 by the time I bought it.

I also wanted to mention the amazing service in Whistles. If they don't have your item in stock, they will ring around the other branches and, if it's in stock elsewhere, will post it Special Delivery to you for a mere £4. Given the price of London transport, schlepping round to another branch would cost more than this! Plus Special Delivery actually costs £6, so this really is an extraordinary service. I bought both jackets this way and in each case they arrived the next morning.

Wardrobe Wisdom

Contrary to popular opinion, I abhor shopping. Don't get me wrong, I love new clothes, it's just the process of getting them that I can't stand. I've already seen everything months before at press days and, most of all, as I have an unusual figure, about 1% of any shop's stock actually looks good on me.(Huge bosom, tiny back, no waist, great legs.)

I'm also no good at impulse buying: I need to try something on, go away, think about it, and then maybe go back to do another trying on session. Preferably with my sister who can cut through my pretensions with a few well chosen words. It's a truism that stylists aren't very good at dressing themselves.

I also detest shopping with other people: I can scan a shop's entire stock in seconds for pieces that work. Everyone else faffs around, prodding and sighing and stroking for what seems like hours. It drives me bonkers.

I don't mind taking someone else shopping if they'll just sit in a chair, let me pick out suitable pieces and then escort them to the changing room. After all, I AM a fashion editor, and can generally be relied on to make other people look great.

I've just started up a sideline business called Wardrobe Wisdom, where I go round to people's houses, blitz their wardrobe, put together new outfits, and then email them a list of what they need to buy (& where) to pull together their existing pieces. Email me for details & references from some very happy clients if you are interested at libertylondongirl@gmail.com (I'm not cheap, but I am very good!)

With one client last week, we gave three bin bags of clothing to her cleaner, made a pile of designer labels for her to eBay and, even with so much pruning, she only needed to buy four or five pieces (mainly long sleeve T shirts) to bring her wardrobe together. I'm continually amazed at the ease with which people can forget what is actually in their wardrobes, wearing the same few pieces day in, day out.

Most pleasing of all, she has had lovely compliments on how glowing and pretty she looks each day since. But no one has commented on her clothes. Which is exactly how it should be for a size UK14 (US10) mother of two in her mid-thirties: her clothes should enhance her, not the other way round. (It's not about me inflcting what is new & trendy on my clients, or turning them into mini-mes, but making them look like a better version of themselves.)

ooofff

I want to write something intelligent & pithy today but, unfortunately, I am a running river of snot, with a head full of porridge. I will resume blogging activities tomorrow. LLG xx

Marks & Sparks

I was absolutely astonished on my trawl through the West End with Miss P last week to see that Marks & Spencers have substantially lowered their pricing. Where a pair of black lace knickers used to cost £12, with the matching bar chiming in at a painful £30, I picked up some very cute undies for a mere £5 for the knicks and £9.50 for the bra. Whilst I am the first to complain against overly cheap clothing, I have to say that I have never understood how knickers could be so very expensive for a mere sliver of fabric. Of course it doesn't help that I am a 32G (eek!) so I do need some underpinning, but still...I can only assume that with Primark lowering the price bar so successfully, that M&S have had no choice but to follow. Maybe this in some way explains M&S's less than stellar Christmas trading figures.

I also bought this dress for £39.50 after much humming & hawing. It seems so spot on trend for this SS08 season. If I was living in the UK, I wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole - I have no desire to wear such an instantly recognisable dress out & about, but I reckon in the US there's zero chance of bumping into anyone else in it.

A smart party

Well, I had to take a rain check on the drink with the boy on Tuesday night. Instead I had a three line whip for The Sunday Times Travel section's 20th birthday cocktail, so I hotfooted it to Theo Randall at the Inter-Continental on Park Lane.

An absolute pleasure to attend a party that was actually for writers & editors, rather than countless PRs, blaggers, and sycophants, as is the norm in the fashion world. The venue was a little strange though - I feel for poor Mr Randall. His eponymous restaurant is one of the most dispiriting spaces I think I've had the misfortune to hang out in. Windowless, over-lit & corporate. A shame because, if the canapés were anything to go by, the food is delicious. (And the Prosecco is even better.)

I was stumped as to what I should wear. My editor knows me well and requested no 'fashion-y wierd stuff', but as he hasn't a clue, that could just have meant no bright colours and frilly pieces. In the end I plumped for a 1950's style LBD in stretch wool with a cross over V neckline, cap sleeves, and a curving silhouette to the knee, black Wolfords and my new bronze dancing shoes. A slash of fuchsia lipstick and Veronica Lake waves. I carried my big black Janet Collin bag, as an evening bag would have felt too 'in from the burbs for a Big Night Out'. This way I felt like I was in very smart editrix day wear.

I'm not a cowardly custard, honest.

As a journalist I know better than to slag off people unless I have facts to back my opinion up, (I’ve no time for blogs that rant and rave without a purpose), so you’ll never read anything negative on this blog unless I truly believe in what I have to say, be it a show review, complaint about an inefficient press office (Topshop anyone?) or a completely objective (hmm) whinge about an ex-boyfriend.

But the reason that I anony-blog isn’t because I want a licence to say rude things about people with no comeuppance, swirling my cloak of anonymity El Zorro-like around me, but rather because I fear the mighty Google.

Pop my real world name into Google and page after page of relevant entries appear. (The only other person with my name is a female sportswoman from the other side of the world). Even though my Facebook is on maximum privacy, if you scroll through Google you can find immediately articles I’ve written as far back as 2000, my cell number and even hear my voice, talking on in a radio interview syndicated from the BBC World Service. I find this ready access to such minutiae disconcerting.

When I internet date, I use a blind email address, and never, ever divulge my surname before meeting. If the date goes badly or I’m not interested, I want to walk away with my privacy intact, rather than leave my life wide open to Mr Random. I've also found that men have been intimidated by my real-world job, and I don't want to be pre-judged by what I do to earn a living.

Can you imagine if my blog was under my real name? One quick Google search and my personal & professional life over the past year would be unfurled before anyone who cared enough to search in the first place, whether potential datee, employer or would-be psycho . No thank you.

And a coda: whilst I FERVENTLY admire Susie for putting herself out there, I fear I am just too old for that style of personal blogging. So, I wanted to add to all the lovely commentators who have asked for pics of me in outfits: sorry my feet
are about as far as I'm going on that tip!

Cutting my coat...

If I were to find myself in a position where glamorous Valentine's day presents were a possibility, then this pretty ring from Ritz Fine Jewellery would be a very welcome gesture of affection.

However, given the perpetually diastrous state of my affaires, I suspect the only person to be buying me jewellery will be, well, me. Which makes this pink sapphire and diamond bow ring, at £2,500, rather out of my personal spending range. Back to Ernest Jones with me then.

Maybe I carry too much stuff around?

I’ve been tagged to show the contents of my handbag by the lovely Buttons and Stars. So, here goes: My bag at the moment is the black leather Vivienne by Janet Collin. Janet v kindly emailed me back in December to ask if I was interested in her private, end of season sample sale. Was I? Oh yes! I love her bags. They last for ever, have great outside pockets for my phone & Oyster Card and a little mirror in a leather case swinging from the handle. Genius. (And, best of all, it’s totally unrecognisable: no flash logos here)

And inside: US Blackberry & UK mobile. Red leather wallet for cards & notes. Shanghai Tang coin purse from Hong Kong. Muji notebook for To Do Lists. Black Moleskin for story ideas & interview notes. Broken pink plastic pig key ring/torch which squeaks.

Battered old FrostFrench for No17 makeup bag (freebie) with essential warpaint: Bobbi Brown Nude & Revlon Bright Pink lipsticks. Kiehls SPF lipbalm.Lancome liquid eyeliner in dark grey. Mac eyeliner brush. Shiseido cream blusher. Cheapo black mascara. Clear mascara for eyebrows. Smints. Purell hand sanitizer.

Vita Sackville West novel for journeys. Antibiotic eye drops. CK Calvin Klein sunglasses (US press day freebie). Memory stick. Trace free rubber(eraser) from Il Papiro in Florence. Black leather, silk lined elbow gloves from Bendel’s.

Dog breath mints (Sorry rat, but yr breath needs desperate measures). Dachsie key ring (thank you Clare!) with keys for London, NY & parents. NY & London subway passes. Random hair pin & hairband. Mason Pearson hairbrush. Pretty gold & garnet ring from an antique shop on Bleecker in NY.

Not pictured: iPod Nano, Purdey corded dog lead, dog poo bags (you so don’t need to see those) & ripped up bits of tissues, manky cough sweets, & a hundred receipts swirling around at the bottom of my bag.

Now I'd like to see what Mrs Fashion , Tales Near The Runway & Nonsense on Stilettos have been toting around.