Absence / Kate Moss for TopShop

My blogging has not been up to speed. I have so many entries pending, but all blogging has had to be postponed by the announcement that I am being audited by the Inland Revenue. I have spent the last four days with a bucket of receipts and several assistants trying to make head or tail of my un-filing system.

In between I am jumping into cars to go to TV Centre to do umpteen TV & radio interviews. The burning topic of the hour? The launch of Kate Moss' dull, dull, dull collection for TopShop. More of my views on this later, but suffice to say I think it sucks. (Oh yes, I am a writer, yes I am. But really, sucks sums it up so well.) Celebrity as designer? Come off it. Sure every piece has been designed - by someone else -in that the collection has been copied/inspired by the contents of her wardrobe. If not, at best they are a collaboration between Kate & the (usually very good) TopShop inhouse team. Where's their credit amongst all the hooha?

Busy like a bee

How, how did it get to be Wednesday already? Still, I have been breakfasted, lunched, filed copy, been on air three times, been fitted for a dream of a dress by lovely Osman Yousefzada, painted a bedroom, been to Ikea (the horror), seen my father, hung out with twelve girlfriends this evening, interviewed new tenants for my flat and been commissioned to write regular updates on New York life for an on-line style guide. I even managed to go to the Karla Otto press day today (loving Victor & Rolf for AW07). My legs ache & ache from cycling everywhere: even to the wedding & back on Saturday, & to Knightsbridge from Hampstead this morning. I also have a splendid set of bruises on my knee & foot from tripping over a pothole in the middle of the night on Saturday. You'd have thought that at my age, and in my profession, I could manage to walk unaided in Louboutins, drunk or not.

Hello

to Fraser - the one man i know who reads my blog daily. And I haven't even kissed or bribed him to do so...Cheers mate! xxx

London vs Manhattan

It's not until I returned to London that I realised how relentlessly urban it is in Manhattan. My car died in January, so I've been biking all over London in the sunshine, along the canals, through the parks, trundling through the West End properly appreciating the wide open streets, plethora of parks and green spaces and, above all, the lack of traffic even in the centre of town. There is so little differentiation between the different parts of Manhattan - you can bike up fifty blocks of sun starved avenue, and the streets will look exactly the same at the end as at the start. It's made me realise that although I am very happy in our Village walk up for the time being, this experiment with Manhattan living will not turn into a permanent thing.

I need to live somewhere that I can ride my bike with impunity - in NY I take my life in my hands, dicing with the yellow cabs who drive with murderous intent. However, on the NYC plus side, London is shockingly expensive, service in restaurants and especially in hotels is abysmal, and I miss the smiling open mien of the majority of New Yorkers (but not the evil, rage-filled morons who drive trucks and 4WDs up the arses of poor unsuspecting cyclists in the East Village)

Nuptial bliss

A fabulous wedding at The Landmark on the Marylebone Road. A looked beyond ravishing in Caroline Castigliano and her husband glowed beside her all evening. She's a commercials music director, he's a television magic producer (& a magician himself) so a brilliant mixture of interesting, party minded guests: Derren Brown was groomsman and pretty much every English TV magician was in attendance, plus fashion people, photographers, designers - even a criminologist. We kicked off with the rehearsal dinner on Friday night at Haveli in Belsize Park with all A's relatives who had flown in from America. On Saturday A walked down the aisle to Panis Angelicus, and back up to The Beach Boys. I read Love's Growth by John Donne and T a Leonard Cohen poem, then the groom's father sang a song he'd written about his son & A.

Then we all drank way too much Champagne, ate our way through a three course dinner, listened to an exemplary best man's speech from actor Andy Nyman, watched John Lenahan do tricks, and did a lot of dancing - including the chair dance in homage to A's Jewish roots. And then more drinking in the hotel bar 'til 2am with the super cool bride & groom. I kissed a sexy magician and discovered that they are indeed manually dexterous.

Today I feel quite unwell.

I wore: Black silk very short Rory Beca V neck tunic. Long vintage gold rope chain. Black patent Christian Louboutin ankle strap stilettos. Bare legs (courtesy of Mystic spray tan). Black patent bubble bag on a long strap. Tashia black fur stole.

London

I've been incommunicado: with just ten days in London, I'm not sure how I'm going to get everything done. I have to find a new lodger for my London flat, do some appointments & sort out my taxes in addition to getting my hack's visa for the US and attending A & A's wedding.

So I now have an I Visa after a tortuous couple of days burning around London picking up letters of accreditation for the US Embassy, so I will legally be in New York when I return. Yay!

Rain, rain go away, come again another day

So it completely passed me by that the thunder and rain that has kept me awake for the past two nights has been a freak storm that caused the cancellation of 300 NYC flights yesterday. My American friend A is understandably perturbed as I fly (hopefully) out of Newark tomorrow to attend her wedding in London. Being English, to me rain is rain is rain - it really hadn't occured to me that it was a special, aeroplane-grounding kind of rain. It just goes to show how isolated from external events one can become in the middle of a big city.

I splish splashed my way through the puddles to meet my personal strength trainer at the torture chamber this morning - I am now lifting 120lbs and making small grunting noises rather like my sister's dachshund - and on the way back braved the tourist hoardes at Bloomingdales to buy vast quantities of beauty products (Prevage, Kiehl's, Murad, Stri-Vectin) for all my girlfriends. I also bought a pretty silk tunic for the wedding rehearsal dinner in Zara - 30% cheaper than in Europe.

Unfortunately I (and I suspect all of A's English girlfriends) had failed to realise that we were expected to wear glamorous eveningwear to the wedding. A very unusual dress code for a wedding in England where it's more usual to wear smart day wear with a jacket & hat for the ceremony, even to late afternoon weddings. (It's actually illegal to get married after 6pm in England). I am even more perturbed by the fact that she said floor length sounded great. Now I am impaled on the horns of a dilemma - do I doll myself up for A (not very English, dahling) or dress to fit in with the other female guests...

Fuck the sprouts

Today I am mostly eating chocolate.

There's been a lot of eating this weekend already: up an alley, surrounded by taxidermy at Freeman's on the Lower East Side for TC's birthday, and to O.G. in the East Village to celebrate the end of JD's shoot. Tomorrow I shall graze on sprouts...

Out of sight, out of mind....

This week I've had two men (with whom I've been previously romantically involved & who I thought had pretty much forgotten my existence) get in touch via email. One (an American) is playing some game I really can't be bothered to work out, (that's my current theory) the other is just being his usual friendly self, I know.

SCUBA suits & G strings

I am writing like a fiend, aiming to get copy filed for Monday am but feel the need for a little procrastination. I was distracted by three comments left on various postings here. Blimey! People who don't know me actually read my blog. It's quite a disconcerting thought as although, like all hacks, I secretly hope that someone, somewhere, is hanging on my every written word, a blog is so personal that it's quite a mental leap to realise that I am sharing part of my life with strangers.

It's sunny here, but still chilly. JD is shooting for Numéro again. Her asst is away, so ran a couple of errands for her whilst she was shooting: picking up a SCUBA suit (don't ask) & buying underwear. I got a certain amusement from burning up 1st on my pink bike with a SCUBA outfit suspended from my handlebars. I've spent the rest of the morning buying women's flesh tone G strings in SoHo for the male model. You can imagine the conversations I've been having with the shop assistants in Calvin & Victoria's Secret. I didn't suspend the underwear from my handlebars.

Lily in bloom

Pic: vogue.com

Lily Cole was photographed yesterday in her costume as Polly in the remake of the St Trinians movie. But the reason I posted this pic is because dear Lily fills her smashing tank top admirably.

During London Fashion Week the Evening Standard has run front page photos of Lily showing her sticky legs with a screamer along the lines of "Super thin model shocker". Lily may indeed have the legs of a daddy long legs but she's no bag of bones - as any editor who has seen her splendid bosom on show on the catwalk can testify.

I was a super skinny, thin legged, large bosomed teen who ate like a horse (sigh) so I find this persecution particularly irritating as I know you can be shaped like Lily & be thoroughly healthy. Gah. There really is no hope for a sensible debate on eating disorders in the fashion industry when the media itself fans the flames erroneously.

Field in the city

Patricia Field has a Siamese cat called Carrie, two poodles called Sultana & Putana who sat on my lap during our interview &, yes, she really does have bright red hair.

Unfortunately that's about all I can tell you as I have signed a contract banning me from discussing any part of our interview for the next six months...so sorry, no dish for y'all.

Oh My God (I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home)

It may not be true in miles, but sometimes New York seems a million miles away in attitude. The fabulously glamorous N (one of the best dressed girls I know), is the NME PR back in London, & sorted me out guest list for the sell-out NME sponsored Kaiser Chiefs gig at The Roseland Ballroom. One of the best gigs I've been to in years in terms of sheer continuous bouncing child-like enjoyment. Poor A - I don't think he realised he'd be spending the evening standing next to a Mexican jumping bean.

At one point during the completely over-excited encore (Angry Mob, Oh My God), I launched myself at least a foot in the air, arm punching the sky,(as everyone screamed "Oh my God I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home") and then for a moment duing my downward momentum had to seriously consider whether my heels would snap under the force of landing. (Note to self - very short skirts not so practical for jumping purposes.)

But here's the odd thing: all the New Yorkers just stood there like lemons for at least the first half of the set. (And this isn't germane to the Kaisers - it happens at most gigs here.) The Kaisers played an immaculate, anthemic Everyday I love You Less & Less second song in, and the the crowd barely reacted. There was a tight bunch moshing at the front, a little bobbing/airpunching/head nodding on the fringes of that, and then all these stock still New Yorkers. But, best of all, were these little pockets of obvious Brits (easy to spot - good looking & better dressed) jumping around amongst the statues.

I'm so used to the ebullience of London crowds, whether or not it's a famous band, that it was hard to believe we were at a live show. The Yanks will happily sing along, but dance, oh no siree. Far too cool. Still the irresistable force of the Kaisers, combined with a good sprinkling of British supporters meant that by the time the encore kicked off, the audience had too. The Kaisers should be thoroughly pleased with themselves. A cracking evening.

Saw MM loitering in the coat check queue afterwards. Went over to say hello, against my better judgement, as wanted to check if my judgement had been previously impaired by alcohol, but no, he is definitely a very, very attractive (& unobtainable) man. Sigh.

Oh, & another thing about Americans that struck me tonight. Why are they all so short? I'm only 5'6" (altho obviously I have 4" heels permanently welded to my feet) & find myself towering over men here. This does not bode well for my romantic chances in Manhattan - I only really fancy (with a few notable exceptions) tall men.

Osman Yousefzada is a god

I'm heading back to London to sort out my hack's visa, attend the kick off for the first in the 2007 wedding season and, almost more excitingly, get to go the studio to get my new Osman Yousefzada dress. I ordered it at the tents last September in London (40% of retail) and have been desperate to get my hot sticky paws on it. It's beautiful, one of the series of black cocktail dresses he did for this season and which US Vague featured last month.

There's no doubt in my mind that Osman is going places. Christopher Kane may be the most hyped, and Giles the most international, but Osman's quietly confident & graceful collections are right on the money.

No comment necessary

"A Louisiana pawn shop saw a father give his 2-year old toddler a lesson in how to use an AK 47. BJ's shop owner said the man kept repeating "anybody in front of you, you can mow them down. Kill everybody, soldier, because daddy's going to buy you this chopper."

Click here to read more

Courtesy of Popbitch

The Big Smoke vs The Big Apple

Last night we were guested for YoYo at tiny club Love in the Village. After all a Notting hill Arts Club night transposed to Manhattan & presented by Dazed masquerading as the after party for Lily Allen's gig earlier that evening seemed an obvious go to.



A club full of English people: a suited & booted Jefferson Hack & squeeze Anouck Lepere, Jacquetta Wheeler, Lily Allen, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Olivia Inge, loads more models, NY - LON magazine people and, er, us & all our mates.

Brilliant music, fantastic venue, shockingly badly dressed clientele - par for the course in New York it seems. We danced our socks off.

Click here for photo

Blandification

On Tuesday evening we took the F train to Jackson Heights in Queens on our continuing quest for authentic Indian food. We may live on Curry Row (East 6th) but the food is bland, dumbed down for American tastes. The charming Bangladeshi lady in our local copy shop recommended Jackson Heights for the real thing. Unfortunately, even though The Jackson Diner serves a mean mango lassi and a textbook naan, & the Kingfisher was good and cold, the curries were still not spiced enough. Bah. Brick Lane is on my list of eating places next week in London.

British Vogue May 2007 cover

There are many, many reasons why I think this is a shockingly bad cover but I'll start with the most obvious. If you were a famous model would you want to be photographed with a dodgy rocker with the words 'Fashion's Big Easy' stamped just under your groin?

It cld be argued that now Johnny Borrell is shagging Kirsten Dunst, Vogue were remarkably prescient in putting him on the cover, but surely they could at least have run a cover that hinted at some chemistry between their chosen stars? We all know she's married with two kids, but hey, fostering the illusion that they wanted to rip each other's kit off would at least have made a visually interesting cover. And what's with the dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards hair on Natalia?

British Vogue does have a history of putting dubious celebrities on the cover. Robbie Williams with Gisele Bundchen in October 2000, P.Diddy with Naomi Campbell in October 2001 and Elton John with Elizabeth Hurley in December 2002... the last one in particular set a new low at the time.

Tant pis

So, B never rang to confirm dinner...(and neither did I). The male ego is a funny thing. It's all very well for him to spend an evening flirting & feeding me cute lines, but when I tell him he has a reputation as a shocking player he drops me like a hot brick. I guess I punctured his bubble...

The question is: should I have played the game too by keeping my mouth shut? By repeating his friend's comments I missed an evening out with an interesting & intelligent man. (And was possibly rude too.)But then, as I never had any intention of being another notch on his bedpost, it was a simple way to discover his intentions.

Of course, my ego is a little bruised too.