Finally: the Versace at Barney's party

There are many things which and many people who are considered to be quintessential parts of the New York experience. I’ve done pretty well at ticking off a lot of them in the past year, but some have eluded me – until last week. I firmly place Woody Allen on the list, so his under-stated entrance at the Versace party last week made the evening for me.

I’m no starf**ker,(you just can’t be in my job), but he is so synonymous with Manhattan that I was completely over-excited to see him, standing rather awkwardly as the tweedy filling in a photo sandwich between the resolutely un-fashion Soon–Yi and Donatella.

However, to my eternal shame I have to report that B and I were even more excited to see Leighton Meester (aka Blair) from Gossip Girl working it in blue Versace over by the Champagne bar. I know thirty-somethings shouldn’t be into Gossip Girl, but we are, so suck it. She’s incredibly pretty, looks relatively normal and is as tiny as all screen stars are in real life.

Donatella, on the other hand, whilst tiny, looks relatively abnormal in the flesh. She is such a construct, that I can’t begin to imagine what she must look like sans bleach, tan and maquillage. There is absolutely no sense of what her real self actually looks like. I do have to give her props tho for being able to walk in the highest pair of stripper heels I’ve ever seen in action outside of a lapdancing bar.

Fashion PR parties such as this one (to mark the launch of Versace menswear at Barney’s) are odd affairs. Firstly you have to disabuse yourself of the idea that they are parties. What they are are photo ops for all concerned. Very few people are there to kick back and have fun. (The worst ever was the Kate Moss for ToSho launch also at Barney’s).

I normally loathe them (my thoughts here - scroll down to fashion parties), but this one was actually rather enjoyable. Lots of eye candy (all those sexy gay boys), rivers of fizz, delicious canapés (altho I do wish Barney’s wld ring the changes as they serve the exact same caviar/truffle fest at every party), and great music from an extremely hot female DJ. It wasn’t over-crowded (except in the area by the lifts where the snappers where practically orgasming over Woody, a fur-clad Patti LaBelle and Busta Rhymes) and we (well, I) proceeded to get tipsy on three glasses of Laurent-Perrier. Oops.

Party pics are over at Style.com

Handbag nightmares

Let this be a warning to be vigilant: I had my handbag stolen from a cinema in Leicester Square whilst watching The Painted Veil last year. Granted I was curled up in a ball, sobbing my heart out by the end, but the last thing I expected was that some sticky fingered cretin would hook my huge Anya Hindmarch handbag out from under my seat during the film.

Spending the next two hours in the nick, hanging around for an officer to report the crime, I started making a list of what had gone. I nearly had heart failure at the total. I do not buy a lot of designer accessories and fashion editors on magazines, contrary to popular belief, aren't especially well paid, but the replacement value of all the Christmas presents, press gifts & freebies soon mounted up. And, as you may have noted from the picture of my bag here, I sure carry around a lot of stuff.

Once I added up the replacement cost of the bag itself, my Smythson Fashion Diary, a pair of Prada sunspecs & pair of Oliver People's Vanadis, & the Prada wallet which was my leaving present from a job, I was already thanking God for household insurance. In addition I lost my precious digital camera, prescription spectacles & my gold family signet ring, which I had been carrying in my make-up bag prior to getting it re-sized. And then I added up the replacement value of all the cosmetics in my make-up bag. Eek.

It took me months to get all the receipts together, and find the authentication cards for the Prada pieces, in between pinging across the Atlantic like an elastic band. Still, the insurance company have been great and, whilst they are directly replacing the camera & my ring, they've sent me a cheque for the rest. It's mighty tempting to blow the lot on high living or even my tax bill, but I do feel I should replace my nice things, rather than just buying cheap shit.

I did think about calling the PRs for replacement sunglasses, but it feels super cheeky, so I'm buying the replacements. For the rest, some stuff is difficult to get hold of in America, but eBay is proving most helpful.

My new Vanadis (pictured above) arrived this morning via DHL, and I have my Mason & Pearson hairbrush arriving soon. Very excited to have all my accoutrements again: aomehow I feel more together when I have all my accessories in a row. They may not all be expensive or designer but everything I choose is the best thing for the job, and I take great pleasure in that.

Lookbook

I styled an AW08 look book the week before last for a new young ethical designer whose work I really rate. All her pieces are fair trade, and the fabrics are all organic. Better still, the designs stand on their own merits, regardless of their worthiness.

She had chosen to use the factory in the Garment District where her samples are made up, and shoot the model in situ, as though she was a designer working there herself.

Her creative vision is so strong, and so spot-on, that I was less a stylist and more a sounding board. It's perfect when you just get each other, and we really do work brilliantly together, with a total respect for each other's opinions. This meant I had time to scoot about the factory floor, which has to be one of the most fascinating places in which I've hung out in Manhattan. R, the charming & super helpful owner has worked with anyone who's anyone in the young American designer world, and there were bolts of fabric and trim stashed away on shelves with labels with boldface designer names scribbled on them, sketches and cuttings pinned to the walls, and half made up garments lying on benches.

It was a fantastic insight into the side of the industry we journalists rarely get to see, and I have a whole lot more respect for young designers now that I appreciate just how much back room work goes into a small capsule collection like F's.

MORE Hot Cross buns!

Scenario: Good Friday and I am pootling around the apartment, alternately mulling over copy & swearing at the mystery bike thieves. The door buzzer rings, and Mr Fedex hands me a really heavy big box.

Inside are sixteen Marks & Spencer Hot Cross buns. Squishy, curranty, spicy, sugar glazed and wholly delicious. They've had a serious journey: from London to San Francisco in the case of one of my oldest fashion friends, and then back to New York via Fedex

When I put out my plea for Hot Cross buns on-line, I was just looking for info. I certainly didn't expect anyone to actually send me any. Lovely Susie at Style Bubble suggested she send some, but I thought Customs might take a dim view. Tales From The Runway went one step further by actually bringing them with her on her holidays.

I ate four on Friday: one immediately, stuffed in my mouth like a chimp at a tea party, one cold with an inch of butter sandwiched between, and two toasted, split & buttered (but I didn't eat anything else - my diet rule, if I eat bad things, I can't have any other food!) The rest are in the freezer, and I am rationing them.

Evil bike nabbing bastards

It takes a lot to stop me in my tracks, but this did it. BASTARDS. Evil bike thieves had tried to use the weight of the bike as leverage to bust the D lock. Props to K Mart for my $12.99 lock which didn't snap. However, not only did they leave my bike hanging off a signpost, they jammed the lock, in addition to bending the wheel out of shape, and screwing up the gearing.

Fortunately John from Great Used Bikes was on his weekly mission into the city with a van full of bikes on Sunday, so stopped by St Mark's and literally melted the lock off the signpost with a flame torch thing. Most impressive. Sadly my wheel is beyond repair, so he's done a bodge job for me to ride around on this week, and is bringing me a new wheel next Sunday. Now that's what I call good customer service. I am thrilled: not least because I don't have to rely on the charlatans at the bike shop around the corner who charged me $5 to put air in my tyres last month.

Posh actually looking ike a normal chic person

Is it just me or does she look (relatively) normal, pretty and together in this picture? And how much better does she look when she's not trussed up in body-con outfits?

I've never really got the Posh phenomenon, but any editor would be a fool to underestimate her effect on the general (British) public. Every time I've done a radio 'phone in for the BBC as a studio guest, the callers have, to a man & woman, thought that she was the epitome of aspirational style. She's one of the very few celebs to have this polarising effect: where the fashion world continually derides her, but the real world thinks she can do no wrong, style-wise.

Nanette Lepore shoe

For a fashion editor, I am remarakably restrained about my shopping splurges. I buy a lot of High Street (carefully seeking out the pieces that could be designer), & vintage and wear a lot of my mother's pieces from the Sixties. I rely on sample sales, discount cards and gifts from designers too. Full retail price for designer stuff is not a concept with which I (or any other editor) am enormously familiar. But, once in a while, the blood rushes to my head and I see something I REALLY, REALLY want. Like these Nanette Lepore shoes.

I am a half size, & have incredibly narrow feet & heels, so I generally wear Mary Janes or shoes with ankle straps so that my shoes actually stay on. It's also the secret to wearing very high heels as you get more stability. I heart these babies as they will lok fab with opaques for the next month, and then work brilliantly with all my summer dresses. (I think it's difficult to find a high heeled shoe that doesn't look tarty with flippy summer clothes.)

$360 from Shopbop.

Personal style

I was hooting with laughter when I read a lovely review of my blog on Coffeecrazed's microsite on Stumble Upon. It included the line: "You can just tell from the picture that she's one of those impossibly well-manicured, well turned-out blondes with smooth hair. *sigh* ".

I do feel I have to disabuse her: Blonde straight hair (by genes not bottle,) okay - true, but the rest unfortunately not. Sure, I scrub up fine, & I cannot deny that I have a pretty amazing wardrobe, but the scrubbing up & donning of the amazing wardrobe is a very conscious exercise which only happens when I have an event or meeting, as I work from home. I also f**king hate having to blow dry my hair or get my paws painted. My thoughts on the subject here.

This is probably a good place to point out that 85% of fashion editors have no personal taste and often look truly horrific. (The English often favour the 'my wardrobe exploded this morning & I'm just wearing whatever landed on me approach', and the Americans adore wearing a mishmash of expensive labels with no thought whatsoever to creating a personal look.) The other 15% look bloody brilliant, & I envy them wholeheartedly.

There is no greater truism than the one which reads 'Fashion editors can only style other people, not themselves.' And I include myself SQUARELY in this camp.

ADDENDUM: Anouk asked in the comments why, then, do the85% not style each other? My answer: Because a lot of 'fashionable' people in the industry would rather wear the latest trends or cult label to signify how on it they are, rather than consider if said trend or look actually suits them. LLG xx

Easter worship

I don’t get homesick for my life in England: I’d pretty much reached the end of my tether there, but I do miss the comforts of familiar rituals. When I called home this morning everyone was in the middle of a huge Easter lunch at my parents’ country farmhouse, and I could hear the laughing & joking as chairs scraped across the flagstones, Champagne corks popped and the whippets, Jack Russell & dachshund leapt around looking for snacks.

We always go to church at Easter, walking up the hill to the tiny village church with sheep grazing in the graveyard and my mother’s glorious vases of lilies in the chancel and in the choir. My faith is an undecided thing, but I take great comfort in the familiarity of the liturgy, and enjoy feeling part of a community, even if I only go twice a year now.

Moving country necessarily involves building new rituals. I looked up churches on the net, and fixed on St Thomas’s at 53rd & Fifth Avenue, as it’s reputed to have the best choral music in America. It’s Episcopalian, part of the Anglican Community, and joined with the Church of England, so the liturgy is the same.

I’ve never worshipped in an urban church, and certainly not in a society one, before and it was an extraordinary experience. Fifth Avenue was closed for the Easter bonnet parade, with onlookers watching as we queued to get in, so popular was the service, and I was seated by the skin of my teeth in the chantry.

I was all dressed up in a black fitted coat, black fur wrap and heels but looked positively restrained compared to the elderly women in cartwheel hats & full length furs, and the ushers in full morning suits, with floral buttonholes. There was a sprinkling of denim clad tourists in pac-a-macs, several immaculate, Prada-clad African American families from infants to grandparents, and a lot of preppy couples in the congregation.

To move from the commercial bustle of Midtown to the calm of a grey stone, cantilevered interior, with carved altarpiece, tall Paschal candles burning through out the nave & chantry and lilies everywhere was like changing centuries. The choir had a full orchestral accompaniment and sang Taverner, and then various motets during communion which set me off crying again.

In fact I had started crying the moment I sat in my pew. I cried throughout the service. I thought of my grandparent's funerals in quiet country churches, of daily chapel services at my boarding school, of constructing a Garden of Gethsemene at primary school, of country house Easter weekends at the R-B's and of point-to-point racing in the mud on Easter Saturdays, of reading the lesson and taking the collection plate around when I was a child, of my sister & parents & I sitting like ducks in a row in our family pew at church, of all the things I’ve left behind in England.

Hot Cross Buns, Hot Cross Buns

Happy Easter my little bunny rabbits. Firstly apologies for the paucity for postings this week. I’ve been tied up with a big work project, which then got postponed until July after I had turned down other work in order to do it. Grr. And grr again.

It’s been the most glorious Easter Sunday: crisp and sunny, and warm enough to wear my pretty Cacharel olive cotton, zip front collarless jacket, which is lined in a red floral Liberty print, with wide-legged jeans, a grey cashmere knotted scarf and cream Converse hi-tops.

I’ve been barrelling around town like a maniac on my bicycle in an attempt to burn off the delicious food I ate at the Easter brunch J threw at her gorgeous Soho apartment.

I had promised to bring a contribution, so made chocolate cornflake nests with mini eggs last night, (yes, I really am 10 years old), but ran out of time to make my Hot Cross buns as the dough needs an hour to rise, & I needed to sleep.

Waking at 8 to make the dough, I tried hard not wake my roommate as I crashed about, spraying currants & spices around the kitchen and getting wet dough stuck in my hair, under my fingernails and seemingly permanently glued to the kitchen counter.

I’ve also had some bike problems, so John, the amazing bike man rocked up from Pennsylvania at 9am to sort things out, and then I punched down my dough and made a dozen extremely oddly shaped buns, scoring the tops, brushing them with egg wash and making a simple flour & water dough to roll into strips to press into the scores to make the traditional white crosses.

They only take fifteen minutes to bake, so I made a simple sugar syrup whilst they were baking, which I poured all over the buns when they came out of the oven: Hot Cross buns are traditionally super sticky. I have to say they looked pretty odd, and were pretty heavy. I need to get the balance of yeast sorted out. (God I hate baking using cup measures: so imprecise for what is essentially a scientfic process.)

Kate Moss for Topshop

I really cannot compete with Jezebel's comments on the hideous Kate Moss collection for ToSho.

Oh god I feel awful

Well, the healthy eating plan has been slightly derailed by my attendance at the Versace party at Barney's last night. Truffled pastry & cheesy truffle fingerling potato canapés, and lots of Champagne has resulted in a savage hangover. Off to the diner for eggs, home fries & ketchup. Check back later for Versace party report.

Oof.

Fashion & dieting

God I'm getting porky. Too many pizzas, fries, burritos and Creme Eggs have been shovelled in my gob of late. Whilst I am the first to decry the fashion industry's obsession with weight, there is a difference between being skeletal and being heathily in shape.

I am neither, & am tipping dangerously towards the wrong end of my BMI scale. Plus, as any fule kno, apple-shaped women need to be extremely careful not to store too much fat around their abdomens. (It massively inreases the risk of heart disease & other nasties.) With my skinny legs, I am looking more and more like a barrel perched on two golf clubs as each day passes.

I'm determined to turn over a new leaf as of yesterday.

I started by combining health & nutrition on a super fast bike ride to the lower reaches of Chinatown in search of suen sum, pak choi and properly fresh garlic. I intend to live on pounds of steamed greens, shitake mushrooms and braised tofu. Delicious and healthy.

The Chinatown expedition also worked quite well at killing my appetite when I walked past an elderly Chinese lady on the Mott Street sidewalk who was casually picking over a deep plastic tub of fat, very very perkily alive & slimy looking frogs.

Dating Option Number two

I am meeting Dating Option number two, a property business bloke, tomorrow. (I realised that the fact that I let DO One's enthusiastic follow up call go to voicemail, and then took six hrs to text him back meant I wasn't enormously enagaged with the idea of a return match. Great company but I don't think I fancy him. Not that he's followed through on asking me out again yet.)

I'm off to Barney's in the evening to meet the bling-tastic Donatella at a cocktail Howard Sogol is throwing to launch Versace Menswear in the store. BA is my date so that we can view the eye candy together (although we fully accept that most of it will be gay).

DO Two is meeting me for a cocktail afterwards. For, as my (male) friend L so memorably put it tonight, "You don't bring your own food to an open buffet".

On-line dating

So on-line dating does kind of resemble a smorgasbord of men. I lack the energy to trawl through the site I'm on, so my MO is simply to post a profile, and then sit back and see who comes to visit. I've been inundated with winks & emails this week, and now I'm weeding out the nutters, vertically challenged, perverted, geriatric, tantrically inclined and hippy from the possibly eligibles.

After all on-line dating is about dating by specifics, not about giving people you wldn't normally date a chance. Plus at my advanced age, I know that I find a very specific type of man sexually attractive in the real world, and I doubt my taste is going to change any time soon.

My personal preferences are for height - 5'8" & above only, (I'm 5'10" in heels, & looking down at the top of someone's head is not a personal turn on), build - preferably skinny (I grew up with a picture of Morrissey on my wall), no students, slackers or indigents (I've subbed one too many boyfriends in my time), no Paulo Coelho readers (get a life), no pictures in a car or on a motorcycle (so you have a tiny penis then), and an ability to construct a sentence (so you're not illiterate then).

And any man who writes an email which says, "Look at my profile. If you like what you see, write back", gets null points for effort.

Osman Yousefzada for Mango US part two

I went to New York's SoHo store today to look at the collection. Huge disappointment: only one dress (this one) in stock, and it is still out the back, as they are waiting for deliveries of the rest of the collection. The manager had no idea when the rest were arriving, hence her holding back the one dress delivered so far.

Get your act together Mango.

Osman Yousefzada for Mango US stockists

Further to my post below, these are the US stockists for Osman Yousefzada - 10 Little Black Dresses at Mango - to be launched on March 17th worldwide.
(Selfridges, London pop up shop from the 10th March for 2 weeks.)

U.S.A. BELLEVUE - BELLEVUE SQUARE, WA
U.S.A. SAN JUAN-PLAZA LAS AMERICAS,PR
U.S.A. MCLEAN-TYSONS CORNER CENTER,VA
U.S.A. L.A. CENTURY CITY CENTER,CA
U.S.A. CHICAGO-WATER TOWER PLACE,IL
U.S.A. BOSTON-PRUDENTIAL CENTER, MA
U.S.A. NEW YORK - QUEEN'S CROSSING,NY
U.S.A. BROADWAY SOHO
U.S.A. SAN FRANCISCO-S.F. CENTRE, CA
U.S.A. COSTA MESA-SOUTHCOAST PLAZA,CA
U.S.A. LAS VEGAS-FASHION SHOW, NV
U.S.A. STA MONICA-3RD ST PROMENADE,CA
U.S.A. SAN FRANCISCO-POST STREET, CA
U.S.A. MIAMI BEACH-COLLINS AVENUE, FL

ADDENDUM: I went to New York's SoHo store today (Monday 17th) to look at the collection. Huge disappointment: only one dress (this one) in stock, and it is still out the back, as they are waiting for deliveries of the rest of the collection. The manager had no idea when the rest were arriving, hence her holding back the one dress delivered so far.

Get your act together Mango.

Osman Yousefzada for Mango

I am so very excited to see Osman Yousefzada's little black dress collection for Mango. The dresses may all be riffs on the LBD, but Yousefzada has drawn on his own multi-cultural roots to add clever detailing, and flashes of colour which all explain why American Vogue dedicated a whole page to his him & his dresses last year.

I've been a dedicated believer in Osman's enormous talent since his very first collection, and we became friends when I met him on the stands at the Exhibition that accompanies the runway shows in London. I ordered this dress, and picked it up last year in late spring from his studio in the West End. I also bought a pretty black stretch cotton scoop neck T with a ravishing black stretch tulle fall from the back shoulders. And I have the most to-die-for butter soft cashmere sweater in a blue that matches my eyes that he gave me when he stayed with me in the autumn. I garner outrageous compliments when I wear his pieces, a result, I believe, of his inherent grasp of what works for women's bodies.

Fellow fashion blogger Susie B has already bought her Mango dress from the advance launch at Selfridges (& looks wonderful in it), and I cannot wait to get my sticky paws on one (ahem, some) when the line launches in the US on Monday.

Osman has just emailed me to tell me which dresses he thinks will work for me, ("think the Grecian peplum number will look good on you, and also the little afghan tunic...as well as the swing gold bar, and possibly the baby doll..."), so I can foresee biking home from Soho with a very large bag swinging from my handlebars.

Blind date no 1: The report

The date was completed with minimal embarrassment (apart from the bit where I got lost looking for the sodding bar - when you come out of subways here it is often impossible to work out which way is north and I always feel emminently muggable if I ask random strangers. After all, my accent is very English and I'm generally dressed up, rather than blending in.) Anyway, he came to find me on the Greenpoint street corner on which I was trying not to solicit business. Was so pleased to see that the leather jacket with zips and tassels he had told me to look for had been a joke, that I didn't really take in much bar the fact that he passed the not-looking-like-an-axe-murderer test.

Since I was ill at Christmas I seem to have lost my previous meagre immunity to alcohol. One round can get me giggly, and I always get a hangover. Very tedious. Still, I managed not to make a complete prat of myself over two glasses of merlot, and we wandered off (me trying to avoid tripping over the cracked pavements in my platformed heels) to eat at Paloma . (I had to agree to supper. I was going to fall asleep on the subway home otherwise).

Greenpoint isn't exactly the most bustling part of Brooklyn, and the restaurant is on a desolate, post-industrial street. It looks shut - until you push open a huge wooden door, to find a concrete floored, high ceilinged space with splashy artworks, skinny jeaned youth, DJ decks and The Smiths on the sound system.

The menu is an interesting read, with lots of seasonal, market driven dishes, mixed with standard bistro grub (skirt steak, fries, roast chicken, pork chops), poncily billing itself as 'American Nouveau' but which is, frankly, standard simple modern English/American - delete as applicable.

I had a distinctly under-whelming three vegetable plate ($14). A heap of unseasoned crescents of roasted squash and one (one!) very infant beet just weren't good enough, but the plate was redeemed by the only edible treatment of Brussels sprouts on record; shredded and mixed with roasted garlic cloves, they avoided the more traditional budgie head appearance and sulphorous reek. The acompanying dish of crispy white beans was exceptional, with canellini beans braised with lettuce and then fried, notable as much for the combination of wet & dry textures as the taste. My main gripe: I do wish self consciously cool restaurants would stop trying to be clever for the sake of it and just serve normal fries or even home made chunky ones, rather than ones with the skin on, which just makes them chewy & flabby and not at all moreish. Although I still ate most of the bowl. I blame the alcohol.

We walked companionably arm in arm in the freezing rain to the subway round 2330hrs. Four hours without annoying the beejesus out of each other is as much as one can hope from a blind date, and we certainly had plenty to talk about. He's called today to suggest round two. Maybe.

One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns

Okay: my next plea. I am CRAVING hot cross buns. Can one buy them in America?

From Wikipedia: A hot cross bun is a type of sweet spiced bun made with currants and leavened with yeast. It has a cross on the top which might be made in a variety of ways: it could be pastry, made from a simple flour and water mixture, cut from rice paper and glazed onto the bun, iced, or simply cut into the bun itself.

They are traditionally eaten on Good Friday, but in the LLG household we eat them from Lent onwards... I adore them, esp with half an inch of butter. Yum. I guess I'll have to make them, but I suspect that like, houmous, Marks & Spencer's version is just better in every way.

Dressing dilemmas

For a fashion editor, or maybe because I am one, I am mighty indecisive about what to wear. I need to feel comfortable and together before I leave the house, otherwise I twitch all evening, regarding other women who've got it right with envy tinged with a little venom. If I get it right I never think about my outfit again.

I also have a terrible habit of only wearing one or two looks for a month or so, convinced that nothing else in my wardrobe works. Then I get bored and start putting together the next great go anywhere outfit.

At the moment I'm wedded to very, very short, cuffed hem flannel shorts from Gap of all places, in charcoal grey & in black. I wear the grey ones with patent platform Mary Janes in burgundy with paler grey wool Levante tights and an oversized grey/blue cashmere V neck cardi, or purple tights and the same shoes in French Navy, with a poloka dot chiffon blouse underneath the cardi. The black ones go with opaque black Wolfords, black suede & patent ankle boots and an oversized tux.

I have a date tonight, so I'm thinking the grey shorts - lots & lots of leg, but minimal cleavage (I have a lot going on up there, so even a peek is an eyeful). Only thing is that I have a plan B lined up for tonight if I get to the point where I wld rather stick pins in my eyes from boredom/horror/disgust than stay a moment longer on the date: the Whitney Biennial and a drink after at The Carlyle with my girlfriends. This outing requires less sassy and more sexy, ideally a cocktail frock & stilettos. I suppose I cld shove the frock & heels in a bag just in case, but it's a right pain to have to lug a spare outfit around with me.

Goodness, dating is complicated.

Reviving my handbag

I have a ravishing stone coloured Janet Collin bag that I've had for a couple of years now. As it's pale, it could do with a good scrub and certainly the wide grab handle is so filthy that I can't really use it at the moment. As I loathe throwing things away, and the bag is in perfect nick otherwise, can someone please tell me where to buy saddle soap in Manhattan? (I have looked on-line, but I want to buy it in person, as I am fed up with trekking to the PO to pick up parcels).

The other side of the coin

My wonderful friend F has started a blog, Definitely Stopping At Two documenting her life as a stay at home mother to her two (from my view) adorable & beautiful children in the English countryside. An Oxford English literature graduate and talented writer, she's embracing blogging with glee as she vents wickedly about the constructs & myths surrounding raising small children. Her life is so far removed from my own that I read it, fascinated, like a bunny in headlights.

The distance I'll travel for a date...even to Greenpoint

My Friday date emailed to ask if I wanted him to meet me at Bedford Avenue so he could walk me to the bar, to avoid making a change on the subway. I pointed out that I am from London, where ANY journey takes a minimum of 50 minutes and will doubtless employ a 15 minute walk, a bus, three tubes and a rainstorm to get anywhere.

I think I can probably cope with a journey consisting of a mere four stops and one change. (Although charming & thoughtful of him to consider it a trek.) Although as I am leaving Manhattan, & crossing the East River to get to Greenpoint, I shall be packing a compass, iron rations and spare flat shoes just in case.

Taking the dating plunge

New York may be the dating capital of America, but it tends to pass me by as I am truly useless at flirting with random men and making eye contact is not an art I've ever mastered. Generally I just look scary and unapproachable when I'm out & about, or so I've been told one too many times for my liking, (actually I'm just shy & embarrassed), so at the weekend I signed up for an on-line dating site here in New York. I figure that at the worst I'll get good copy, at best - well, watch this space...

The drawback: I'm paranoid about being recognised. This is not a faint possibility. Through looking at male profiles I have already discovered why my mate X always seem to be going on dates ("I met this smashing bird on the subway". Yeah right. That'll be the on-line subway then), and been emailed today by a man I last saw wearing lederhosen & trying to proposition my girlfriend in a legendarily slimy manner at the Soho House Hallowe'en party. I can't work out if I am offended or relieved that he didn't recognise me.

I have my first date on Friday with a TV news journalist who seems relatively normal. He's suggested a bar with fireplaces & board games in Greenpoint (Brooklyn). Sounds promising: I like this game idea - if he's a 'mare I can just concentrate on thrashing him at Scrabble, & that should ensure I never hear from him again. (Such an optimist, me.)

Greenwich Village Sunday lunch

There’s nothing more English than a proper roast meat & two veg Sunday lunch. And, unsurprisingly, they are thin on the ground in New York. Sure, ex-pat Village hangout Tea & Sympathy serves a roast for the outrageous price of $28, but it’s seriously sub-Wetherspoons*, and pretty much everywhere else does brunch on Sundays. Even the couscous joint, Café Mogador, across the road from me serves up plate upon plate of congealed looking eggs Benedict come the weekend. (Why, why do grown-ups insist on queuing to eat $12 plates of brunch eggs in restaurants that have nothing to with breakfast cookery?)

I’m not a big fan of people who move countries and then spend their time yearning for the comforts of home, but I do miss the companionable ritual of Sunday lunch. So I cycled over to a Greenwich Village apartment for my first ever Manhattan Sunday lunch, unsurprisingly hosted by an English friend, but happily furnished with Americans.

I did not cover myself in glory by rocking up an hour late, as I had failed to realise that the clocks went forward three weeks earlier than in London. Fellow guests were an interesting mix: a pretty ex-Teen Voguette, an education specialist & a handsome actor with a definite twinkle in his eye.

Pink roast lamb and a scrumptious berry cobbler had the Americans needing a gastronomic translation, but I was in seventh heaven as I poured double (heavy) cream over my pud, and chased it with a Creme Egg.

I promise I’ll eat bagels, burritos and brunch this week to make up for my shocking lapse from American eating habits.

*Crappy chain of English pubs, renowned for serving cheapo, mass Sunday lunches

NW officially folds

It's not exactly a massive surprise to discover that Bauer have announced the closure of NW (formerly New Woman) and First, after a month's consultation following on from their purchase from Emap. The womens' market in the UK seems to shrink by the month. And people wonder why I moved to New York?

Happy blogday to me!

Utterly bloody hell. I missed my first blogday. I knew it was somewhere in March, but have been so busy & wrapped up in work that I simply forgot to check. Anyway it was 08 March that I made my first New York entry here.

Intended just as a record of my time in New York, (I also had a plan to log what I wore every day, in addition to my activities here in Manhattan, but I only kept this up for a few weeks, before I got bored with my wardrobe), it's led to so much more, and I have had a fabulous year discovering the blogosphere. For several months I just wrote away, gaining a modest amount of traffic, generated mostly by my friends back in London. And then I started to click through comments, a few people tagged me, JSL introduced me to Statcounter in May so I could track who was reading me and, almost overnight, it felt like I had joined the fashion blog community.

I've made some fabulous virtual friends, with whom I correspond regularly. As one of my oldest friends lives in Sydney, I love the fact that I have a huge, totally unexpected readership in Australia. I've been given a couple of awards, and even the New York Times picked me up last week. When I post about a big decision or an event, I am overwhelmed with witty, supportive comments. It's no surprise to me that researchers have recently discovered that blogging helps people who are depressed.

And it's been surprising what people like to read. One of my most popular ever entries wasthis story about my eccentric grandmother's handbag. Lots of people enjoyed my birthday celebrations and, whilst every single food post I write seems to strike a chord, a lot of people liked this review of Allen & Delancey.

Which brings me on to my next generation plan. As regular readers know, there is likely to come a point soon-ish where this blog is going to cause a conflict of interest. The solution? I am going to launch a new, linked, sister blog, which will hover on the fine line between food and fashion, with restaurant reviews, recipes and lots & lots of my food photography. That way I'll be able to continue amusing and annoying you all without stepping on the toes of my prospective employers. The two blogs will run concurrently for a while, and I'll let you all know when the new one goes live.

Above all, I want to thank everyone who bothers to click through to me occasionally: it's been a privilege.

Image: Cakes & photo by me

Cycle heaven

I love my bicycle with a deep and desperate passion, and am rarely happier than when I am bowling along the streets of Manhattan on a fresh spring day. As I work from home, a bike meshes perfectly with my lifestyle, & it's only occasionally that there is a sartorial problem. (I'm pretty good at cycling in heels now, but have to admit that not only do I fear helmet hair, I hate my boy-racer helmet too.)

Yesterday morning I was doing errands on Free Spirit (I didn't choose the name, it's emblazoned on the crossbar). First to Union Square for a spot of brand consultancy, and then down to Soho to pull some shoes for a lookbook I was styling in the afternoon.

As I was departing the shoe store with two big bags of shoes, I mentioned that I was on my bike. The store manager raised a metaphorical eyebrow, and in a voice tinged with patronage said, "A bicycle? How...cute."

I am starting to realise that, unlike London, where it is seen as positively cool to rock up on a bike, here it's seen as extremely eccentric and kind of cash-strapped for a fashion editor to be nipping around town on one.

Certainly I chuckled when the paparazzi who always hang outside the Waverly Inn waiting for celebs to exit told me I was the only diner they'd ever seen arrive on two wheels instead of in a blacked out town car. And I'm certain mine is the only member's bike chained up outside Soho House. And do I care? Absolutely not.

And now I've discovered the answer to carrying a hideous (but life-saving) helmet is to buy one by Sawako Furuno, who is based in London. A mere £60 (consider that your bog-standard helmet costs around £30) this is on my must-have list. They can be ordered in a variety of colourways and patterns:Although I fear it is a trifle self-indulgent to have a wardrobe of cycling helmets.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Four or five years ago I was browsing in blissful Daunt Books in Belsize Park when a wonderfully designed plain grey book cover caught my eye. It was a copy of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson. This was the beginning of my love affair with Persephone Books, a privately owned imprint based in London’s Bloomsbury. They specialise in re-discovering out of print and forgotten classics by (mostly) women authors from the twentieth century, ranging from novels to cook books, memoirs to travel.

Published in 1938, and set a few years earlier, Miss Pettigrew fits into the genre of gorgeously romantic, often bittersweet, beautifully written period literature that includes Nancy Mitford & Georgette Heyer’s entire oeuvre and The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

The movie of the book opens here this week, and I attended a preview screening this evening. The casting is excellent,(Amy Adams is perfection as the ditzy co-lead, nightclub singer Delysia Lafosse) the set design ravishing, the costumes fabulous, but the cinematography is gloomy and the simplicity and charming heart of the book has been replaced by rather too much moralising and some shocking liberties with the plot that don’t really stand up to much scrutiny.

Still, it’s enjoyable and lovely to look at, even if the trailer cherry picked all the good moments.

Project Runway final

So Christian Siriano won Project Runway, He is the exemplar of everything that I dislike about the fashion industry: a toxic, cruel, sniping bitch, hiding his insecurities and youth under a veneer of obnoxious over-confidence. The fashion industry as a whole tolerates, encourages and nurtures this behaviour which is endemic and I am just so thoroughly fed up with it.

Crossroads

I'm all of a wibble right now. I had a job interview this week that came rather unexpectedly springing out of nowhere. (I thought I was pitching for some freelance work, but got called in for a proper job meeting.)

If it happens, the job would upend my life in a difficult to comprehend fashion. Obviously I can't say where or what, but enough to say that the words 'director' & 'style' may be involved.

I'm not a natural freelancer, being one of those people who operate brilliantly (!)under pressure and within boundaries. Having to continually sell myself and forage for work can be extremely wearing, but this is, of course, balanced by the extraordinary freedom I have to, say, I don't know, move to New York at two week's notice, or decide to go to Portland, Oregon on Thursday for the weekend, or just work from bed all day tomorrow.

And, of course, in the way that these things always happen, my freelance career is more successful right now than it ever has been. I have new editors wanting my work and interesting opportunities popping up all over the shop. There is also the question of my beloved blog. Way too many people know who the woman beind the construct is for me to continue writing it in this way if I took on a fill time job. The conflict of interest would be too great, and the job too senior for me to wish to give people the handle on my private life which doesn't matter when my employer is me.

I'd also have to commit to living on one side of the Atlantic (I'm not saying which one!), and giving up some hopes & dreams.

But this is balanced by the feeling that I've done my own thing for quite some time now and I do find myself longing for a work environment, a timetable, a complete immersion in a new, all-encompassing project. And a salary would be nice instead of the continual chasing after unpaid invoices and lurching from credit to debit to credit every month.

The team is fantastic, the project director a personal hero, the product believable, & the location interesting. And the role is so perfectly matched to my skills set and experience that it might have been created with me in mind.

Ah well, if nothing comes of it, I'll still have been immensely flattered to have even been considered to have been in the running for the position.

Electric Fountain opens in Manhattan

Manhattan never ceases to amaze me: just when I think it couldn't get more corporate, they go plonk a huge fairground inspired, LED sprinkled, 35 ft high installation in the middle of Rockefeller Plaza.

What it is is an Electric Fountain, mimicing the tradition of fountains in public spaces, and one of the few major public art installations by the British artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster. My inner geek was particularly pleased to discover that it uses 3,390 LED bulbs and 527 meters of neon tubing.

We trotted dutifully up to Midtown for the private view: somewhat of a contradiction in terms, as it's a piece of public art, easily viewed by anyone.

Still, we appreciated the warming hot apple cider which perked us up enough for a late night shopping session in the Lord & Taylor sale, conveniently located a mere ten blocks from the Rockefeller.

Oh and the on dit doing the party rounds was that it's up for sale for a mere £1 million/US$2 million.

The Electric Fountain is in Rockefeller Plaza from February 27 through April 05.

My new party frock

This is the back view of the pretty black lace overlaid silk party dress by Anna Sui which I wore last night. It was reduced to $88 from $249 in the Lord & Taylor sale on Fifth Avenue. Even more pleasing to discover that it is currently for sale unreduced here at Netaporter for $249/£165.

Sales over here are nothing like they are in London. Lord & Taylor has not just marked down a load of stuff by 30%, they've got another 50% off the already reduced stock, and the lovely assistant gave me a further 20% off the total. Remarkable. (I didn't mean to buy anything, honest guv.)

But, somehow I ended up with a bronze shutter pleat, Hervé Leger-ish, body con cocktail dress by the pageant dress king, Tadashi, for $80 from $348, a dark cream Tara Jarmon coat for $120 from $510 and, bizarrely, a brown jersey princess line dress from a diffusion line called OC by Oleg Cassini. (A bargain $30). I had no idea one could still buy Oleg Cassini, much less that a (to be honest, gobsmackingly tacky) diffusion line existed.

I heart NYC

Am feeling an excessive amount of New York love right now, but unfort am way too tipsy to actually articulate it properly. Suffice to say that (straight) boys stopping one at a fash party to say how gorgeous one looks is suitably spirit uplifting. This, combined with a new & splendid haircut, wonderful girlfriend company, a delicious supper and a new party frock, makes all seems right with the world.

Gucci proves most popular global brand

WGSN reports that Gucci remains the world's most coveted luxury brand, according to a recent market survey by research firm The Nielsen Group.

In an online poll of 25,000 consumers in 48 countries said they would choose to buy Gucci over any other luxury brand if money were no object. Chanel and Calvin Klein tied for second place, followed by Louis Vuitton, Giorgio Armani, Christian Dior and Versace. Although Gucci came out first overall, regional results were fascinating: The Chinese picked Chanel, the Russians Christian Dior, whilst Giorgio Armani, Calvin Klein and Yves Saint Laurent were picked by Latin American consumers, and Hermès by the Japanese.

Brunch in the City

Perfect Sunday. Rang my mother to wish her a good Mothering Sunday, to tell her how much I love her, and to apologise (hmm) for failing to produce a husband, grandchildren or any semblance of a stable life in my thirties.

I followed this good daughterliness by hopping on Free Spirit to pedal like crazy down to brunch in Nolita at Bread with BA, F & J where we took two hours to work our way through the menu from fries to profiteroles, Prosecco to espresso. (Something I wouldn't be able to do with a husband & children. Blessings everywhere.)

Jonathan Rice at Soho House

To Soho House for a low key performance by Jonathan Rice, organised by Artists’ Den, who specialise in tiny, secret gigs in unlikely locations by upcoming artists.

There’s something very indulgent about watching a brilliant acoustic set from a genius singer songwriter, whilst ensconced in a deep velvet armchair, with a glass of Merlot on a Sunday evening.

I’m not quite sure what scruffy, plaid shirt-wearing, baby-faced twenty-four year old Jonathan Rice thought of doing a showcase at Soho House. He opened with, “I’ve never done a gig in a place with moisturiser in the bathrooms”, before going on to ask the audience to rattle their jewellery if they enjoyed the set.

Still, whether he was laughing at or with the audience, he sang an extraordinary set, packed with great deadpan lines, including “An investment banker started something so I broke his neck,” from his single, "We’re All Stuck Out in the Desert", which seemed particularly apt for the audience.

He may look about eighteen, but he's already supprted REM, played the part of Roy Orbison in Walk The Line, and dates Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley. He supports Matt Costa at the Bowery Ballroom tomorrow (Monday).

Manhattan finally busts Canal Street counterfeiters

Very pleased to see in the papers today that Mayor Bloomberg ordered a crackdown on the sale of counterfeit goods in Manhattan's Chinatown. I'm always disgusted by the number of thoughless, sheep-like tourists for whom this seedy section of downtown is a Mecca. There is nothing clever about buying ridiculous aspirational fake goods, the profits of which go to fund organised crime, drug trafficking, prositution, child labour and sweatshops.

The massive pre-dawn raid on the three-building strip along Canal Street resulted in the seizure of about $1 million worth of fake brand-name items, including sunglasses, watches and handbags with imitation Coach, Prada and Rolex labels from 32stores in what Mayor Bloomberg called "one of the most notorious knock-off shopping malls in the five boroughs."

AUSTRALIA'S TARGET TO LAUNCH ZAC POSEN COLLECTION

I have many Australian visitors to this blog (hello Caz & Gervy in partic), so this piece of news is for you all.

Following in the steps of Stella McCartney's widely hyped line for Australian Target, WGSN reports that Zac Posen is the next international designer to create a discount range for the store. The autumn/winter range will arrive in selected Target stores from April 3.

Posen described the 20 piece mini-collection as "colourful prints balanced with more architectural and structural pieces", with the price entry level fixed at AUS$49.99. There is also, in a somewhat tacky celeb-tastic move, a $299.99 copy of the fishtail hem evening dress created for Katherine Heigl's Emmy awards appearance last year.

The collection also includes fitted high-waisted pants and asymmetrical skirts with matching suit jackets, cocktail dresses with brocade trim and elaborate shirts that echo the looks of his high-priced designer line.

It remains to be seen whether Posen's usual reliance on expensive fabrics and complex cutting can translate to a very cheap diffusion range - we all know what happened when Temperley made the attempt in the US. Still, the chance to reach out to an entirely new market in Asia-Pacific must have been irresistable and, with the predicted downfall in revenue for American houses, due to international currency fluctuations, Posen will have jumped at the chance for a slice of corporate cash.

Image: Zac Posen mainline AW08 style.com

Laundry blues

If I don’t find a few hours get to the launderette tomorrow, I’m going to be going to the gym in a leather pencil skirt, and hanging out in a floor length evening dress in my local dive bar.

One of the most curious things about living in Manhattan is the lack of washing machines in the apartments. And I don’t just mean in Village walks up either. Even the ritziest buildings have laundry rooms in the basements - BA’s classy UES apartment is washer-less – although she does have a completely unnecessary dishwasher.

I do get that laundry rooms in buildings are quite social, and a good way to meet your neighbours but, frankly, I don’t want to bond whilst I’m sorting through a basket of dirty knickers. And I can promise you that there are no Nick Kamen lookalikes in my local laundry.

Whilst it’s true that many apartments are based on the shoe box principle, there’s no reason why a washing machine couldn’t be squeezed in somewhere. Hell, considering the woeful number of single women in this city who can’t even turn an oven on, I can’t understand why they don’t just ditch the cooker for a washer/dryer.

Lots of people rely on the cheap as chips service washes in the launderettes on every block but I’m not a big fan of getting my clothes shrunk to fit. Some women just send everything to be dry cleaned but, apart from the fact that most of my clothes aren’t tailored, the savage environmental and fiscal costs are a barrier for me.

So, I have to block off an afternoon every fortnight or so to go to sit in the launderama on First and wash everything. It takes at least four machines: two for my sheets, towels & whites, one for darks, & one cool wash for tights, wool and bras. It’s such a waste of time but my clothes are precious to me, and I can’t stand seeing them abused by bleach and boiling.

Sex and the City movie full length trailer

I could be all po-faced about the Sex & The City movie, pointing out that there isn't a lot to admire in a series that posited that a woman's main obsessions in life are shoes and finding a husband, that a woman must be judged solely on her fashion sense regardless of the arena she inhabits, that neuroticism is obligatory and anal-obsessed naval gazing is the norm.

But that would be to imply that I didn't enjoy the series, which I did, enormously. What annoys me is that SATC has become another stick with which to beat thirty-something women. In an ideal world, men would never be allowed to watch it, to avoid them taking it seriously (why do men seem to treat it as a documentary?)

Anyway, preamble over: here is the full-length trailer that was released on Friday. The movie is released May 30 in the USA.

Tatler appoints new fashion director

Tatler has announced the promotion of Anna Bromilow to the role of Fashion Director with immediate effect; former fashion director Charlie Anderson has recently returned from maternity leave and has taken up a new role of Contributing Fashion Editor. Additionally, Olivia Falcon has been promoted from beauty editor to Beauty Director replacing Antonia Whyatt, and Deana Goldstein has joined the title as Watches and Jewellery Editor; Deana formerly worked with Lucinda Chambers, Fashion Director for Vogue.

Kate Beckinsale's stylist must really hate her...

Three things go towards making a successful red carpet look: the dress, the actress and the stylist who oversees to the total look.
Continuing with my bad styling theme for this year's Oscars, I present Kate Beckinsale:
1)beautiful actress, 2)interesting dress, 3) appalling styling.
Pic: Style.com

Why Oscar red carpet fashion went low key in 2008

This was a year of understated glamour, subtle embellishments and low key dresses at the Oscars. If there were trains, they floated rather than swooshed, colours were muted and breasts were contained. These were dresses for actresses rather than models, and what a refreshing change this made.

Sure, some commentators called this year’s red carpet ‘safe’ and ‘boring’, but we are in danger of forgetting one salient fact: these are professional woman who earn their living from acting rather than fashion, a truth that tends to get forgotten in today’s celebrity saturated culture.

As the fiscal aftermath of the writer’s strike continues to hit home for many in the industry, provocative fashion choices would have been in bad taste, and most of the red carpet attendees seemed to have taken this on board. That is if they walked the red carpet. This was the year when eschewing the crowds seemed cooler than ever, with several presenters, including Penelope Cruz only appearing in front of the cameras for the first time when they arrived on stage.

Several key styling truths seemed to have been ignored. Take Anne Hathaway in one of the only statement dresses on the red carpet, a somewhat over the top scarlet Marchesa creation: her stylist seemed to have forgotten that when putting a celebrity’s look together, it’s vital to shoot her before the event from every angle, including from the ground up. In several shots she looked almost pregnant, with billowy arms and rather too much blousiness going on.

Cameron Diaz needs to buy a hair brush, and engage the services of a make up artist: over the age of thirty acting all breathless and deshabillé at a red carpet event is no longer charming, it just looks kinda slutty. It would also have helped to have had her pale pink Dior frock fitted properly. The rolls of back fat squeezed over the bodice (on a slim woman) were an appalling slip up.

Things I Learnt Last Night

If your tights drawer is filled with pairs that you, um, liberated from shoots, then it's probably best to check to see if they are giraffe sized before you go dancing in them, otherwise you will spend your evening hoicking your tights up from around your ankles where they will be wrinkling in folds, just like Nora Batty's.

Or maybe better still, get your assistant to tell a couple of the tights PRs that the model is abnormally short, say 5'6", and will require size medium, rather than size extra tall...(Only for the more amoral fashion editors out there...)

Image: Nora Batty from Last of the Summer Wine

The Oscars: Red Carpet Fashion 2008

This is the first time that I’ve been in the US for the Oscars, and I’m amazed by the levels of excitement. I guess the time difference in England means it’s difficult for people to get worked up about a show that happens in the middle of the night.

Back in London, I’m one of the only two people I know who actually stays up all night to watch it, usually snuggled under a duvet in my nightie and bedsocks, with lots of chocolate & popcorn supplies. The other is my film director friend, but she has a daughter now, and sleep is precious.

Until this year, I've always been a guest on BBC network radio the next morning to discuss the red carpet fashion, so I’m rather looking forward to not having to pay such close attention this time. And, even though I do have some copy to file for Monday morning, at least I have ten hours to do so, rather than the five I get in England because of the time difference.

There are so many Oscar parties here in Manhattan, but I’ve plumped for the Soho House one, darling. They are putting up screens on the sixth floor clubhouse, and running a red carpet viewing from 6pm. It’s member’s only, but two of my friends are members too so, between us, we have nine guests. The plan is to bags a corner where we can ensconce ourselves and do eating and gossiping.

I’m hoping that there will be something as beautiful as Reese Witherspoon's friled silk jacquard Nina Ricci dress this year.Apparently Olivier Theyskens actually made two similar versions of this dress to take to Los Angeles, each one with those intricate hand tucked frills. The hours of workmanship for each dress must have been quite extraordinary. (There’s a frilled dress with a similar technique, if you want to get up close to one, on show at The Met’s Costume Institute show on now.)

Image: OSCAR.com

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.)