LFW Schedule published for AW08

The BFC have published AW08's show schedule. The shows run from Sunday 10 - Friday 15 February, opening with the solid commercial worthy-ness of Paul Costello and ending with Julien Macdonald's star-spangled journey to the land that taste forgot.

As I noted last season, for the first time in my memory (I've been doing this for way too long), the BFC have finally decided to run schedules that makes sense geographically so we aren't pinging across London like elastic bands (when we aren't stuck in traffic jams.) There are still a few crazy back & forths between the Topshop venue (Marylebone Campus of University of Westminster) & the BFC tent (Natural History Museum), but they are mainly in the evening - or at least they will be once the shows start running as late as normal.

I understand that with the dearth of decent models doing the London season, the shows are always going t run late as designers wait for the frantic girls to zip between consecutive shows, but I am consistently gobsmacked that designers showing first on the schedule run 20-40 minute late. (I was so innured to this that the first time I covered the New York shows I actually missed a couple as they all ran ON TIME - extraordinary!)

Thinking Bloggers Unite!

Why thank you darling Susannah of Le Style Sauvage firstly for tagging me with a Thinking Blogger Award, secondly, for saying the most delicious blush-making things about my blog and, thirdly, for alerting me to some rather good blogs. I first got tagged in June by my adored Mrs Fashion, and several times since: I do like the way it lets blogs connect to each other.

This time around I would like to tag Wee Birdy, for keeping me so stylishly up to date with London, Nonsense on Stilettos for proving categorically that girls who live in India are just so thoroughly ON it, The Glam Guide for being such a good blogosphere friend, Queens Michelle & Marie of Kingdom of Style who not only enagage with great design in an intelligent and amusing manner, but quite obviously have the best wardrobes in Scotland, and a return-the-compliment tag to Style...A Work in Progress for being a blogger who writes beautifully, and who always surprises me with her take on life.

My favourite Christmas present

I think the best presents are often the ones that cost the least, but are given with most love. This year my mother handed down my Grandmother’s brown alligator handbag from the 1950s, after having had it furbished up for me.

Granny was a true English eccentric: a classic Nancy Mitford-esque bolter, on husband number three by the time I was a child. She was a famous beauty with exceptional taste, and indulged it at every turn: jewellery, luggage, clothes, lovers, foreign travel. The only thing she didn't indulge were her three children, who were brought up by her first husband and by her parents, when they weren't at boarding school (from the age of five.) She spent her way through the family fortune in the manner of sand through fingers until there was nothing left but memories and a wardrobe of exotica.

However, she & my mother were reconciled throughout our childhood and we adored her: she was the mistress of the grand, sweeping gesture as she floated around in kaftans, dangling necklaces, chestnut wigs and diamanté sunglasses, heavily bejewelled fingers firmly clasped around a rattling glass of Johnny Walker, often with a fluffy cat or small dog in tow.

She lived on a narrow boat on the Broads and, for a while, ran a guest house by the seaside on the Norfolk Coast. She ended her days in a small flat on the Costa Blanca with husband number three and his fine set of white moustaches, although I think in her head they were still living back in the glory days when he was a Second World War Squadron Leader with an OBE to match, and she was the ravishing belle of the ball.

When she died, we flew over to Spain and packed up her life. This bag came back with us then. I think my mother had mixed feelings; it represented the money her mother didn't stint on spending on luxuries rather than on her children.

So, my Mama had it reconditioned by Mr Urbanska in Edinburgh when she was on a business trip with my father earlier this year. They completely renovated it, mended the clasp, replaced the worn strap and spruced up the suede interior. It is as good as new, & I adore it. And I love that it has now been carried by three generations of my family.

PS Extremely thought-provoking article here from The Times on the growing clothing mountain, & wearing your parents' hand me downs

My fabulous mama

Christmas presents are such a lottery. I spent days making lists, thinking about the perfect present for everyone, but I suspect that others aren't quite as fussed about getting it right. Some of my relatives can really come up trumps in the what on earth department, but my mother can be usually relied up on to get it right - I didn't give her a list. (It's no surprise that I ended up working in fashion.)

My top presents from her: silk pillow cases from Ginger Lily, (is she trying to tell me that my skin needs all the help it can get as I get older?!), some Florentine writing paper, the most enormous four foot wide & six foot long dark grey fine cashmere scarf/wrap from Fenwicks that can be twisted as a scarf but will never bulk up, twenty pairs of black lace boyshorts from M&S to restock my knicker drawer, the V&A Golden Age of Couture exhibition hardback, and the absolute classic Mulberry Anthony satchel for using at weekends. (And which was sold out on Net a Porter). She tells me she swiped the last one out from under some other shopper's nose in Selfridges. Don't mess with my mama when she's on a mission.

Christmas present guilt

I’m suffering from the usual festive guilt: is it very bad form to eBay off one’s unwanted Christmas presents? I have accumulated some extra special items and, now that I live abroad, it does seem fairly pointless to shove them in the back of a cupboard to gather dust. I’m a big believer in re-gifting, (there’s generally a home for most items), but these few presents are just so wrong I just can’t see anyone else wanting them. The worst offenders are always fashion accessories: working in fashion as I do, I have very particular taste and, not least, I have made a huge effort over the past year to fine down my wardrobe to pieces that I love and really work, rather than the experimental collection I accumulated in my twenties, so there’s no space for the well, maybe, I guess pieces. Especially when they have to be lugged across the Atlantic and back.

Sartorial hiatus

One of the joys of being based in the country is not having to bother with the sartorial. I had two of my fellow village friends (also in exile from London for the Christmas season) over for tea & cake and we admitted that we hadn't washed our hair since Christmas Day, had eschewed any make up, and were wearing an assembly of clothes that were kept at home purely for wearing in the country. K, in particular, was wearing her father's extremely manky Barbour which I would put money on her never wearing in Hackney. I'm rather enjoying not bothering, but fear this mode of living may become rather too enjoyable....

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

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

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

*when I win the lottery

J Crew cashmere & Loro Piana

Cashmere Cardigan $2650 by Loro Piana at Neiman Marcus.
You may not have heard of Loro Piana, the venerable cashmere company who make some of the world's softest, and most expensive woolly garments. Apart from clothing multi-millionaires from their fancy-schmancy boutiques in the fashion capitals of the world, they have become the world's largest cashmere maufacturer and have a thriving fabric wholesale business making cashmere, vicuna & wool fabrics. This much is in the public domain. There have been rumours for years on=line that they sold their cashmere to J Crew and my personal little birdy in the fabric industry tells me that J Crew buy in such vast volume that it makes commercial sense for Loro Piana to supply them. Anyway, that certainly explains why J Crew cashmere always seem to be such good quality for the price point.
Photo: jcrew.com

My quintessential Manhattan in 2007

Bicycling around Central Park with the barrister. Staying at M's glorious apt in the West Village and waking up to find it had snowed overnight. Top of the Rock with Liz. Finding the perfect skirt for $2 in the East Village Flea Market. Being placed front row at several fashion shows: unexpected but always pleasing. Freewheeling down Broadway on my bike. CSS at Irving Plaza with Laura. Riding the rollercoaster at Coney Island. Managing to make cupcakes in my toaster oven. Sunbathing by the pool on the roof of Soho House. Casa Mono with Henry. Hotel room hanging with Garbage. Dressing up as a Deadly Sin for Hallowe'en. Brunch at The Carlyle with my parents. Making out with a preppie banker. Oxenberg cash-llama scarves. Sunday lunch with Barry Humphries & Angelica Huston on Ed's penthouse roof terrace. Suppers of raspberry martinis and French fries with BA. Dachshunds everywhere. Always having painted nails. Birthday supper at Morandi. Brooklyn Botanic Garden with Muv & sis. Strand Books. Wine & therapy with Mich. Eating hot dogs at Crif Dogs in the East Village. Kaiser Chiefs at Hammerstein Ballroom. Picnic-ing in Union Square with Clare. Guacamole. The Waverly Inn with CA. Dropping $600 on frocks on my birthday in the sale at Miguelina on Bleecker. Dating a boy in Brooklyn. Swimming in an open-air pool on a pontoon in the East River. Looking like high class call girls at the Four Seasons with JD. Riding a police horse in Central Park. The Whistlers at The Frick. Dancing to The Cure at Beatrice Inn.

Le Rev & CC Sheffield in Manhattan

During CMJ in October I hopped it down to Fontana's on the Lower East Side for Los Angeles' Viper Rooms' series of showcase gigs. On the Friday I was there to support my gorgeous friend Julian aka Shah (ex-Whitey) who had flown in from LA to play bass for CC Sheffield's band Le Rev.

A somewhat odd evening. Julian whisked us up to backstage before the show, and I sat down with CC who charmed me from the get go. Intelligent, self-deprecating and funny, she is a talented actress & model who puts a large chunk of her earnings into her self-financed band. She hasn't taken the easy option of churning out pretty girl pop, and instead plays a fantastic post-punk set. It has to be said she also looks fabulous.

After jumping about like a Mexican bean during their (very good) set, I retired backstage to regroup & get stuck into the vodka. Which is when Julian appeared, uttering the immortal line, "Harvey Weinstein wants to meet you."

Somewhat tipsy, and very unbelieving (Fontana's isn't exactly a glam venue), I followed him downstairs, weaving through the grubby dancefloor to the front bar where Harvey Weinstein was indeed perched across a bar stool, talking with CC, who had told him a writer from XXXXX was in the house. Hence the summons. Turns out he's a very big fan of the band and of CC, who he thinks will go far. We chatted for a while, and then I made myself scarce, whisking into the bathrooms to scrawl down, rather illegibly, Harvey's pearls of wisdom.

Check out Le Rev's MySpace, and CC's blog.

Where to eat...and where not to in New York

In this city where restaurant meals are so often a medley of gastronomic cliché and mediocre execution, finding a plate of food that transcends the pedestrian is a hard slog. But there IS some exciting food to be had in New York. And, for a Londoner paid in pounds, it's staggeringly cheap. Even a three course, Bordeaux and Armagnac fuelled grand bouffe at the hottest restaurant in Manhattan, the Waverly Inn, which surely has the most overpriced, expensive wine list in America, costs £50/$100, including 20% service. This is a short list of some of the best - & worst - places I've eaten in the past year.

Maze at The London: Gordon Ramsey's secondary joint at The London after Restaurant Gordon Ramsey. More relaxed, and the tapas style menu means you can graze at will. Truly delicious. Truly expensive. (Try not to flinch when reading the wine list which competes with Waverly on add a couple of zeros mark ups.)

The Jackson Heights Diner: Proper, authentic Indian food way, way out in Queens. Total cost: $10

Casa Mono:< Mario Batali's tiny, perfect, modern take on tapas & raciones. Delightful in every way.

The Spotted Pig: Manhattan's first and only gastro-pub tucked away in the Victorian West Village. Chef & co-owner April Bloomfield has, quite simply, one of the best palates in Manhattan.

Public. A former library in sexy Nolita, this Peter Gordon twin serves up interesting AND delicious Pacific fusion plates, with a stonking wine list, fab cocktails and a hot clientele. My favourite go-to NY restaurant.

Lil'Frankies in the East Village for the best pizza I have ever, ever, ever eaten in laid back Downtown surroundings. Great music piped in from East Village radio next door. (Jesus & Mary Chain last visit) Award-winning wine list & Italian al forno specials too.

Schiller's Liquor Bar: The poor man's Balthazar from the same stable. Faux French bistro on Lower East Side. Super sexy boys drinking at the bar, buzzy atmosphere, clever wine list, and the food's not half bad either.

The Carlyle: Old world, grown up Sunday brunch. Immense amounts of delicious food, Champagne, exemplary service, and Upper East Side regulars in furs & pearls in the corners.

Allen & Delancy: Neil Ferguson (ex-Ramsey Holdings) finally sets up on his own in a dark & sexy LES room. Hearty dishes, and well-meaning service.

I also enjoyed Waverly Inn, Morandi, Takahachi, Pop Burger, The Modern and Shake Shack. God I enjoyed Shake Shack.

The worst:

Grimaldi's: Consistently voted best pizza in New York. We slogged over to Brooklyn to queue for an hour to eat burnt, over cooked pizza with disgusting, almost inedible mozzarella. Really, really bad.

The Elephant: Incomprehensibly well reviewed and way over-priced East Village Thai gets it all wrong. Green papaya salad with no chilli - and no taste. Inedible pad thai.

Kittichai at 60 Thompson: Eye-wateringly over priced Thai, with model eye candy and designer room in fantastic SoHo hotel. One for palate dead fashion victims.

Savoy: I so wanted to like it. Great service, interesting room. Sound ethics. And horrid food which was way too clever by half. There was one ingredient in every plate of food that was distinctly off key, so you grimaced at every other mouthful.

Pastis: Sacred cow of McNally empire (Balthazar etc). Abominable in every way. Inept service, stroppy management, tourist-Mecca. Omelette aux fines herbes on a par with the offering at an English service station cafeteria: a rubbery, three inch high, pallid oval lump of dry solidified scrambled egg.

Soho House: Possibly the most unexciting menu in New York at its price point. Well-meaning but useless service. And, unforgiveable in a city of faddy eaters, barely anything for vegetarians bar the odd salad or bit of goats cheese.

Café Felix: Otherwise known as SoHo's Euro-Central. If you can fight your way through the over-excitable crowd of Eurotrash at the bar to a table, I'd stick to olives & drinking spirits. Until Felix I thought it was impossible to balls up a plate of moules-frites. And the wine. Eurgh. It's unacceptable to serve vin de table, pretend it's a glass of Sauvignon Blanc & then treat us like fools for pointing this out.

Over rated & Over there

Every time I return to London I feel completely food-ed out. Although I am a good cook (I'm writing a cookery book and am obsessed with food), I eat or take out from restauants, bars & cafés in Manhattan maybe eight or ten times a week as my apartment is just too small for entertaining.

Many Manhattan-ites (especially the single 30-something variety) are in the same boat, which seems extraordinary to Londoners who eat out maybe once or twice a week: with a two course meal with a single glass of wine for one at, for example, Pizza Express (an average upmarket-ish chain) costing approx £30/$60, it's just too prohibitive to eat out in good restaurants frequently unless you have a generous expense account.

So in London we eat an enormous amount of more inexpensive cuisines: Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Malaysian, Indian and more. For me it's not just a financial thing, it's a taste in part fuelled by the travelling I have done all over the world, both for pleasure and as a travel writer for a Sunday broadsheet and a major glossy travel mag.

These small, often family-run UK restaurants turn out extraordinarily good food, equal to the dishes you are served in resturants, hawker stalls, markets and street corners in Bangkok, Mumbai, Cochin, Hanoi, KL, Singapore and the rest. The Vietnamese restaurants on the Kingsland Road in Hackney, Indian in Southall...Chinese in the West End...

And goodness, I miss this in Manhattan where the food from these cultures is sub-par every single time. Greasy, soggy Chinese; Thai green papaya salad with no balance of flavour and shockingly, no chili; a Madras curry with no heat and no perfume; flaccid pad thai; Pho with overcooked noodles; dumplings with wrsppers seemingly made of shoe leather. I just do not understand why it is so, so, so bad, so inaccurate. All the spice and chili is stripped out of iconic dishes, leaving them as pale imitations of themselves. The only exception to this litany of execrable food is Mexican, which explains why I eat Mexican food maybe six times a week.

Blogging Accolade

Well, aren't we all the cat's pyjamas?! I was very chuffed this afternoon to receive an email from Catwalk Queen telling me that my blog had been voted one of the top 100 fashion & lifestyle blogs. Especially chuffed when I discovered that only 20 of those blogs are fashion per se, and only ten of them are independent like mine. And how lovely to be in the company of some of the blogs that I admire hugely, namely my two fellow English fashion editor anony-bloggers DisneyRollerGirl and Mrs Fashion, and Queens Michelle & Marie of Kingdom of Style. You can see the rest of Catwalk Queen's Top Fifty here.

I know I've said it before, but I am continually astonished that my blog, with its schizophrenic content, ranging from restaurant reviews to catwalk reports via dating mishaps and insider gossip, which started off as a glorified letter home from New York to my friends & family in England, has found its own constituency. I love being part of the blog community, and appreciate every email and comment I receive... keep them coming!

All hail The Celtic Sheepskin Company

I adore classic shaped leather satchels for weekends. I have certain criteria: they have to made from stiff, hard wearing leather that will age well, be brown, have a long adjustable strap, a flap that fastens with a buckle and, above all, no over-designed bells & whistles. For years, I've been toting an old vintage one of my mother's, but it's been re-stitched together so many times that I doubt there is any original work left in it. Definitely time for a replacement.

As regular readers will know, I was enormously disappointed with the lame satchel offering from Boden, which got sent straight back along with their ill fitting & badly sized riding boots.

So, as I like to hand out projects rather than Christmas present lists, I put my sister on the case. She has the twin credentials of a truffle hound ability for sniffing out items on the internet and the time to do so. I can't say I actually expected her to find exackerly what I wanted, but was gobsmacked when she came up with the bag above which is so utterly perfect. (Although she's not quite so pleased: she has to buy it for me now.)

A mere £75/$150 from The Celtic Sheepskin Company, the Sennen satchel is even more pleasing as the company has strong ethical policies, is based in Cornwall where it employs local people in an area of high unemployment, and regularly uses organic and recycled products - even recycled wool in their womens' jackets. Impressive. Upon further investigation I discovered these fab ear muffs (£48/$96): I also like the Isabelle bag which is just £95/$190, and the Envelope bag which is just £20/$40 Best of all, no one will know where you got them from. Goodness, I am bored with logo'd bags.

Another Christmas card

Call me a humourless old bat, but I'm not sure I really found this e-card from fashion PR company Phyllis Walters particularly amusing.

A design Christmas...

I'm very impressed that so many companies have decided to send virtual cards this year. This card from Tom Dixon is quite my favourite so far.

ADDENDUM: A kind commentator directed me here, to product & furniture designer Jamie McLellan's wonderful illustration side project. For it is he who designed this fabulous card for Tom Dixon.

My new winter coat

Fur is a difficult call to make. I've been a vegetarian for 22 years, a militant one to start with but, as I've grown, learnt and mellowed, I'm a lot more relaxed now. I happily cook meat for all my friends, would raise children to eat meat, don't freak out if I find some meat in a dish I'm eating, taste my gravy, wear leather - and vintage fur.

Yes, as you're realising, consistency isn't my strong point. But I went vegetarian not because I am anti-meat, but because I was anti-cruelty. If free-range, organic meat had been available way back then, I doubt I would ever have considered vegetarianism. Nowadays, there's no personal reason for me to remain vegetarian and I suspect I may not be for very much longer.

But I always buy free-range and try to lead an ethical life. Where fur is concerned, I only buy vintage, from the 1950s or earlier. I like the idea of recyling, of not adding to the clothing mountain, or pumping chemicals into the atmosphere through producing artificial fibres. I also like being warm. (As my sister points out, in countries where there is a real risk of dying from cold, the fur debate doesn't exist.)

Few of us are consistent in our attitudes towards animal cruelty, bar vegans. After all just how many battery hen-eating, anti fox-hunting people are there? Tens of thousands, I know. Along with all the anti fur people who happily wear leather, sheepskin or shearling (which very often are not the by-product of the meat industry, whatever you may think). I think the point I am trying to make is, before making knee jerk criticisms of other people's ethics, perhaps we should all examine our own actions a little more carefully?

When I was considering how to keep warm in the New York winter, I looked at these, but disliked all the artificial fibres, and resented paying for something so unaesthetically unpleasing. Then on one of my regular eBay trolls, I came across the coat pictured here.

Not only was it inexpensive at £20/$40, I loved the waisted shape, flared skirt and knee length. Like all good vintage coats, it is beautifully finished, with an embroidered satin lining, braided seams, wonderful buttons, hidden furriers hooks, secret pockets in the lining, reflecting that this once was a very, very expensive coat. So, I bought it.

Indeed, before she died, my grandmother had difficulty getting her head around the fact that a mink jacket with glorious diamanté fastenings that might have cost the equivalent of two or three thousand pounds as a status symbol back in the 1950s could now be picked up for £30 on eBay and worn, as I did, with jeans and Converse.

(I think in the 21st century fur jackets only really work dressed down with trousers or denim, otherwise you can run the risk of looking trashy. I saw a girl on Fifth Avenue the other day wearing one with a pencil skirt and knee high boots, and the look had a whiff of streetwalker about it. Maybe if one was ultra groomed, with a salon fresh do, serious jools and Louboutins, a fur jacket could work with a smart skirt, but how many of us work grooming to that extent each day? So, with a wardrobe of dresses to cover up, and seriously cold knees, I am very excited to have found a long fur coat that doesn't fall from the shoulders in that Upper East Side/Russian/Mafioso/kept woman manner.)

Rambling

Thank you all so much for your get well wishes. It is so very cheering when one feels so comprehensively rotten. I am now tucked up in bed at my friend's home in Highgate. Once it was a village with a tollgate into London, perched on a hill overlooking the city, and today Highgate still feels separate from the rest of London with its Georgian and Victorian houses. I'm in the attic extension of one of those houses, in a bedroom with huge roof windows open to the sky, so that I can see the stars.

MY parents live in the depths of the country, where nursing care would be almost impossible to arrange, so I am, guiltily, imposing myself upon the staggeringly generous C. It is lovely staying with a family though: C and I have been best friends since we were 16, and I can hear Ollie, my three year old chocolate-smeared godson having his bath downstairs and his little sister Luella squeaking about. Although I am in my own guest suite, it has an open staircase so they can't resist crawling up the stairs to investigate what Aunty XX is up to. (Sleeping, in the main.) Ollie tried to feed me chocolate today. Very self-sacrificial of him. And impressed that he already equates chocolate with medicine.

Anyway, the prognosis from the surgeon is very good, although I can't sit, walk very far, wear trousers, or heels (the horror!) for maybe a fortnight. Luckily the fabulous District Nurse team will be visiting me in bed every day to look after me. The National Health Service is just beyond extraordinary. Coming from New York, I appreciate the NHS more & more each day. All this costs me not a penny. (Well, it does in taxes, but you know what I mean.)

Right. I have to do some sleeping. Lovely, lovely painkillers. Mmmmm.

Warning: brief blogging hiatus coming up

Gah. After the most tortuous journey imaginable, I am finally back in London. Three inches of frozen slush and an ice storm, combined with ungritted roads in Jersey nearly made me miss my check-in time slot. Not that it wld have mattered, as we sat on the apron for nearly three hours whilst they attempted to de-ice the plane. Then it took an hour to de-ice the luggage hold on arrival at Heathrow. Left home in East Village: 5.30am. Arrived at sister's in Hampstead: 12.30am. Not good.

Tomorrow 0730hrs I go in for the chop. I do hate general anaesthetics, and this is my fifth in two or so years. Still, I get to lie in bed for a week and, given the piteous central heating prevalent in England, that is probably the best place to be right now, considering it's bloody freezing. Even stuffing a snoring dachshund under the duvet last night didn't help much on the warming front. Thank goodness though for the thigh high socks I, um, liberated from my last catalogue shoot, and which are currently doing duty as bed socks in a wierdly quite sexy-looking kind of way.

Anyway, next despatch from my sick bed on Wednesday. xx

Vivienne Westwood to show second line in London

Following a nine-year absence from London Fashion Week, Vivienne Westwood is returning to show her Red Label's AW 08/09 collection on-schedule in February. The Red Label, which has not been shown during a fashion week before, was first launched in 1994 to appeal to a wider audience and is inspired by Savile Row tailoring and French couture. Vivienne's first line the Gold Label will be shown in Paris, as usual.

I just think it's shame that London's official show schedule is becoming the place to show diffusion and second lines: Marc the season before last, Stella's line for Adidas last, and now Dame Vivienne's. Is this really the way to boost London's reputation and get the foreign press in? I think not.