Lazy, hazy days…

 

Being snowed in is the perfect opportunity to update this sadly neglected blog! But it’s got me thinking wistfully back to the record-breaking heatwave I enjoyed in Corsica this past summer. I cannot recommend Corsica highly enough – it’s very down to earth and unpretentious, the shops and cafes charge “normal” prices for the most part and it’s not a constant fashion show, but you can still strut your stuff if you want to.

I ended up there courtesy of two of my favourite designers at CLICKINI.com, namely Tara Matthews and Alexandra Joly-Firino Martell of Bronzette. Tara lives on the island roughly half the year and Alexandra has a beautiful summer home nearby. When it’s almost 50 degrees celsius outside and forest fires are raging, there’s nothing better than relaxing by the pool with friends and a mini Magnun ice cream!

[Photo via createvillas.co.uk]

All roads lead to the Wolseley

 

I met up with Tara again the next day. We had scheduled a joint meeting with the very lovely Sarah Harris from British Vogue at The Wolseley for 5pm but were far too early, so we made a quick pitstop at Browns Hotel for a cocktail in the elegant bar. Unfortunately my Moscow Mule was not so good, but the news Tara received on her BlackBerry was: she had made it into the launch issue of Indian Harpers Bazaar!!

I meandered on ahead to The Wolseley while Tara quickly called the fashion ed in Mumbai to provide some last minute details for the story. I was just telling the maitre d I had arrived when the person in front turned around, and it was Sarah! We had arrived mere moments apart. The restaurant had given us an amazing table right at the front, and I watched in amazement as Amanda Ross was seated at the table across from ours – talk about a small world! Amanda was having a quick catch-up with Sarah Bailey, an editor at British Harpers Bazaar while in town.

Over tea and scones, I chatted with Sarah about the new collections, showing her the latest pieces by Naelie and Bronzette, which she loved, particularly the Naelie Vesta bikini in purple and the Bronzette Zoe bandeau, which are also two of my particular favourites from the site.

After tea, it was time to head to Gatwick and back home for a rest!

[Photo via Londontown.com]

Sketchy Meeting!

It's a jungle out there!

Another very fun day in London! Decided to meet up with good friend Tara Matthews at Sketch for a leisurely afternoon tea. Tara arrived with another friend of hers, a former editor at US Harpers Bazaar, Amanda Ross. Amanda was the stylist for TV show Lipstick Jungle at the time and it was amazing to hear a behind the scenes account of how much effort goes into pairing a character with the wardrobe that best suits their on-screen persona. Amanda was over from New York to visit her twin sister, who is married to legendary London art dealer, Richard Green.

During our get-together, I got an email from Pippa Holt at British Vogue about calling in some product for an upcoming beachwear shoot. A few quick phone calls later and a colourful array of Anna & Boy, Anya Hindmarch, Bronzette, Flamingo Sands, Naelie and, of course, Tara Matthews was on its way over to Vogue House. The piece that eventually made it into the June issue was the gorgeous Anya Hindmarch Lennox dress.

[Lipstick Jungle photo via insidesocial.com]

Mea Culpa!

Wow, it’s been quite a while since we actually updated this thing – our bad!!

And it’s not like we haven’t had fun stories to tell, quite the contrary in fact.

So let’s get this show back on the road, shall we?!

[cute puppy photo via jessenoller.com]

Nina Ricci’s neighbour

They say that the fashion world is a freakshow, but even I’m caught by surprise sometimes. Nina Ricci’s Olivier Theyskens has just presided over a revamp of the brand’s Avenue Montaigne store, so I decided to check out while I was in town. However, as I wandered down the Rue Francois 1er from the Balmain boutique, I noticed a homeless woman had taken up residence in the neighbouring doorway. But this unfortunate lady was no ordinary homeless person and she even had the posters to prove it:

The one in French on the right says “I’m dying. A private detective has completely ruined my life. Now I’m on the street with no money and in poor health. Help me please. I’m desperate.”

It’s always very sad to see someone down on their luck and out in the street. Unfortunately Larissa was nowhere to be seen that day so I wasn’t able to offer her any further help. If any of you are passing by the corner of Avenue Montaigne and Rue Francois 1er, let me know how she is doing.

The Fashion Canteen

I found this brilliant article about Davé on guardian.co.uk:

Welcome to the fashion canteen

No menu, no prices – and no nobodies. Davé is the fashion world’s best-kept secret but if you can get past the ‘full’ sign on the door and secure a top table in this tiny Chinese restaurant in Paris, you can be sure you’re at the cutting edge of style. Michael Specter talks stars and spring rolls with le patron, Davé Cheung

[...] There are more than 1,500 Chinese restaurants in Paris. As a culinary experience, Davé ranks somewhere in the top half. Nobody recommends Davé for the food, however, or the prices, which, while always high, vary according to what the owner feels like serving. Or for the ambience. Davé is dark and claustrophobic, hemmed in by quilted red walls and a velvet curtain inside the door. A tropical-fish tank, which sits in the middle of the front room, provides the only real source of light. Despite all that, Davé may be the most frequently and reverentially mentioned Chinese restaurant in France. It’s certainly the most exclusive. Except on weekends, when he does not serve lunch, the place is open every day. On a busy night during the Paris fashion collections Davé serves 100 dinners – many of them tofu and bok choy, at around €60 a head.

[...] Davé makes fake things real, too. The restaurant functions as a sort of school canteen for the nomadic denizens of the fashion world, who traipse constantly between New York, Paris, and Milan. And, just as in school, the food at Davé never matters nearly as much as the seating arrangements.

[...] There could be few greater humiliations than to be exiled behind the wall separating the front room and the back room, past the fish tank and nearly into the kitchen. Some of the most powerful people in the fashion business treat Davé with a deference that they withhold from nearly everyone except those who can provide them with a good table. ‘There are some bitchy people in the fashion world,’ the designer Marc Jacobs told me one night. ‘But nobody is stupid enough to offend Davé.’

During Paris fashion weeks, the battle for a table can become even more absurd. ‘Leo and Gisele had to stand in the street for 20 minutes a while ago,’ Davé told me, with a grin. He was referring to Leonardo DiCaprio and the model Gisele Bundchen. ‘Can you imagine that? Leo had come to introduce Gisele to moi , and he was not happy at all. But what was I supposed to do? Tell my beloved friend Helmut Newton to get up and leave? Or should I have gotten rid of John Galliano? Gisele was really cute about it. But Leo was annoyed. And, you know, I owe a lot to Leo, because without him Tobey [DiCaprio's friend Tobey Maguire] would never have come in. And now he is here all the time.’

Click here to read the fabulous, full 3,000 word article in its entirity at guardian.co.uk

[Text by Michael Specter via guardian.co.uk]

Dinner at Davé

The gate which offers a shortcut between the Rue de Montpensier and Rue de Richelieu was closed so we walked the long way round, meeting up with Caroline and Giuseppe from Anya Hindmarch along the way. Despite the crisps we had devoured, we were still starving and dying to finally have dinner. Be also appeared as we were walking up the Rue de Richelieu so were were all there, bar one person.

The famous “complet” (full) sign was hanging in the doorway of Davé when we got there and indeed the place was packed, with the crowd spilling out onto the street. Once inside, we immediately spotted the legendary flame-haired creative director of US Vogue, Grace Coddington, who was apparently the fashion editor who first put Davé on the map and started a fashion industry love affair with the restaurant that has been going strong for almost thirty years. We also recognized her Vogue colleague Tonne Goodman as being one of her fellow diners.

Davé came out to greet Be, whom he affectionately calls “China Girl” and looked around for a table for us. Initially we were squashed onto a table for four next to the kitchen, but were soon upgraded to arguably the best table in the house, once the large round table in the main room became free!

Davé doesn’t do menus, since he knows what all his guests do and don’t like to eat. We placed our trust in him and waited to see what magic he would work in the kitchen. The last diner from our group, Kasia, arrived. She was a friend of SJ’s who was involved in casting the Marie Antoinette movie by Sofia Coppola. It turned out that she had organised a party at Davé for the movie’s star, Kirsten Dust. Upon hearing that, Davé whispered to us that Miuccia Prada had also tried to book a party for Kirsten the following evening, the night of the Miu Miu show, but of course Davé was already booked.

By another coincidence, it turned out that Kasia and SJ had met at CC Africa’s Madikwe safari lodge in South Africa, which was another of my former PR clients – it certainly is a small world!

A friend of Be’s who is a Director of Sales for Valentino, also joined us towards the end of the meal and talk immediately turned to Suzy Menkes’s speculation about Alessandra Facchinetti’s future at the house. Since it was after midnight, it was confirmed that this was indeed the case and that Alessandra was being replaced by inhouse accessories designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli.  I received a newsflash from WWD.com reporting the official Valentino statement later in the day.

[Image via flickr.com]

Speak of the devil…but he wasn’t wearing Prada!

By the way, the title of this post refers to the fact that we had just been thinking about Jefferson Hack when we suddenly saw him and is a pun on “speak of the devil” – Jefferson, we love you

I spotted SJ emerging from the Salle Psyche carrying what looked like a very chic little minaudiere clutch bag. In fact itturned out to a potato! The poor dear had burnt her hand on a red hot curling iron and The Ritz had suggested the age old technique of applying a potato to the burn. A pomme de terre duly arrived on a silver platter and had been SJ’s faithful companion all day ever since!

The plan for the evening was to meet with Be from Be&D and a few others for dinner at the legendary fashionista haunt Davé, a delightfully eccentric eatery presided over by the charming Davé Cheung. But that was still a couple of hours away, so we wandered over towards the Palais Royal in search of an interesting bar at which to grab a pre-dinner drink or two. We duly sauntered off down the Rue St Honoré. A very slim couple whizzed past us in the opposite direction, walking arm in arm. “Was that Jefferson Hack?” SJ asked me. We looked back and indeed it was the man himself, with his Belgian model girlfriend Anouck Lepere. Perhaps they were on their way to Bar Hemingway at The Ritz?!

The Palais Royal was already closed by the time we got there, so we ducked into the Caveau Montpensier, just a few doors down from the Maison Martin Margiela store, where I had bought an amazing cobalt blue jumper with rather space age shoulder flaps earlier in the day. The barman turned out to be Scottish and the crisps served at the bar turned out to be Ireland’s own Tayto brand!! We were starving and ate the last two packets and even a pack that was a week out of date, although the barman insisted we agree to a verbal waiver of liability before handing the gone-off crisps over! By the time we had wolfed those down too, it was time to meet the others for our eagerly anticipated trip to Davé.

[Image via businessoffashion.net]

Putting on the Ritz

The amazing British model Erin O’Connor was standing outside The Ritz on the Place Vendome as I wandered towards the door. I was a good bit early for my meeting with SJ and Caroline from Anya Hindmarch, who had invited me out for dinner and drinks after finishing work, but I already had an idea in mind of how to pass the time. Several months ago now, I read in the Telegraph an article by Jefferson Hack, publisher of Dazed&Confused and ex-boyfriend of Kate Moss, talking about The Ritz’s Bar Hemingway. Apparently there is a typewriter kept behind the bar and you can type up a letter which the barman will then keep behind the bar until the intended recipient comes to collect it – a super chic version of poste restante as it were! I tucked my BlackBerry into my coat and decided to check out this intriguing olde worlde concept, without knowing what or to whom I would actually write.

On the way to Bar Hemingway I passed Mohammed Al Fayed, owner of the Ritz (and father of the late Dodi, Princess Diana’s companion on the fateful night of her death) was sitting discretely in a armchair in the main hotel corridor, watching the world go by. It’s always nice to see a business person who keeps a close eye on proceedings. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to proceed very far with my letter writing campaign however because it turned out that the typewriters were out of action. It was fashion week after all, and I had visions of Jefferson Hack et al typing up a storm over cocktails. My induction into their Drop Dead Letter Club would have to wait until another time.

Instead, I wandered back to the hotel’s Salle Psyche, which had been converted into a temporary Anya Hindmarch showroom, and took up residence on the sofa outside. While waiting for the girls, I picked up a copy of the International Herald Tribune. Suzy Menkes was reporting a rumour that this would be Alessandra Facchinetti’s last season at Valentino. Only time would tell if the murmurings were true.

[Image via madame.lefigaro.fr]

Morning-after party

I caught up with Tara the next day for a (late) brunch instead at Angelina, the legendary tea shop on the Rue du Rivoli. The house specialties are the hot chocolate and the Mont Blanc pastries – to die for! It seemed that Tara was not the only guest at the Alexander McQueen after-show party to be feeling peckish after a night on the tiles. Fellow partygoer Naomi Campbell sashayed into view, smiling and looking every inch the supermodel in vertiginous heels, an Alaia leopard print jacket and a black fedora hat while Edward Enniful, US Vogue contributing editor and fashion director of i-D magazine wandered out from a table down the back. The party had been an enjoyable evening by all accounts.

My next rendez-vous, later in the day, was just a few doors down from Angelina at Le Meurice. Diane Hanouna, the designer of the gorgeous Naelie beachwear collection had suggested we meet there for a drink. I used to do the PR for the Hotel Principe di Savoia, one of the Meurice’s sister hotels in the Dorchester Collection (the others being the Plaza Athenee in Paris, the Dorchester in London and the Beverly Hills Hotel) and was curious to see how the hotel looked after its recent refurb. We found a table in the elegant bar and chatted over a coupe of rosé champagne about our past jobs – Diane used to design ready to wear for Louis Vuitton – and about her equally elegant collection for 2009. The Naelie collection has garnered fans including Carla Bruni and Gisele Bunchen, and who knows good swimwear better than a supermodel? The Spring Summer 09 Naelie collection will soon be available on CLICKINI.com.

It was time for both of us to dash off to other appointments before long but we agreed to meet up in London for another chat again soon.

[Image via franceinmypants.blogspot.com]