I Just Buy It For The Articles

Mr Hefner hasn't been in my good books lately, what with all the splitting up with the Girls Next Door palava. Most disappointing. He's recovered well, however, with this beautiful editorial in this month's Playboy, featuring French actor Gilles Marini. Known for his role as Dante (*faint*) in the Sex and the City movie and, erm, Dancing With The Stars, Marini scrubs up pretty damn well for this shoot, taken at iconic Hollywood hotel The Roosevelt. The man certainly can rock a suit.

I love how richly filmic it is; it was inspired by Paul Schrader's 'The Comfort of Strangers'. Film-inspired fashion shoots always tend to be great - a favourite of mine was The Royal Tenenbaums shoot for Harper's.
Can you think of any other great film-meets-fashion shoots?

Ashish SS 10

Goddammit, Ashish is cool. He's a ruddy nice bloke to boot so it's only right that I publicly salivate over his latest sequinned offerings. I literally cannot wait until the 'I get around' top hits the shelves.

Irony AND sparkles? Yes please.

Cavalli Club

You may have gathered by now that I bloody love (and not always in an ironic way) all things flashy, trashy and of questionable taste. This makes Roberto Cavalli my spiritual leader and Dubai my land of milk, honey and champagne bellinis. The Cavalli Club at The Fairmont Hotel is the Narnia-like portal to the centre of this louche underworld, overflowing with Eurotrash like me who think leopard-print chairs are the height of chic.

A melee of snakeskin, fur and Swarovski, the club-cum-restaurant screams style over substance but proved AHM and I wrong with the beautiful food, fabulous cocktails and  fit manager  impeccable service.

I spent the entire meal very overexcited, spilled things, applied too much bronzer in homage to the great man himself, got drunk on champagne cocktails and glamour, darling and repeatedly asked the bespoke-suited waiters if Bobby was hiding in the kitchen. All in all, a very successful evening. Go.

Cringe

I don't plan on making a habit of saying I thought of things first but I've been planning on posting excerpts from my teenage diaries here for MONTHS! Damn you, procrastination. I can't remember where I found out about Cringe, the new book based on nights in London where the old-enough-to-know-better would gather to read out passages from their teenage diaries (and simultaneously betray their former angst-riddled selves). Absolute genius.

Better late than never, here's the first woefully Angela Chase-esque snippet from my 1999 diary (me aged 14-15):

(The preface, incidentally, was a very succinct: Live fast. Drink loads. Party hard. Evidently my motto at 14.)

Hello mum. 

I know you're reading this - or maybe you've skipped this part and gone straight to the juicy bits. I think invading someone's privacy is wrong, no matter what your relationship is with them. I also think if you can't trust your mum, you can't trust anyone. If I know you've read my diary I don't ever think I'll trust you fully again. And that's a very sad thing for me to realise. Please don't make it real.

Just close the damn book.

I was a comedy genius and didn't even know it. So solemn. So earnest.

So ridiculous.

Were you as misguided a teen as I was?

Tonight Matthew...

Halloween is my absolute favourite party excuse. Fact. Last year I was a completely ostentatious Marie Antoinette; a costume which I've been told that I'm not allowed to recycle. I think this has more to do with the fact that I showed everyone else up (serves all those crashingly dull schoolgirls and devils right. Losers.) and less to do with the faux pas of repeating a look. These are this year's choices...

Decisions, decisions. Who do you think I should be?

Happy Birthday To Ya

Today marks the 1st birthday of My New Favourite Thing! Huzzah! In celebration, I thought I'd break out a cracking family photo from one of my earliest birthdays.

May I draw your attention to my mother's mesmerising hair/glasses/dress combo, faux brick-panelled chimney and possibly the best farmyard-inspired birthday cake that ever was.

Ain't nothing like an '80s kids party.

Happy Birthday blog! Here's to many more...

Irving Penn: RIP

Pretty Woman

Yesterday I woke up hungover. And cold. And, unfortunately, early to boot, as I had to be at a friend's bridal fitting for a very rude 10am. End result: sartorial choices made with eyes bleary, style absent and governing force the fact that my dad had switched off the heating. An old black turtleneck, indigo skinny jeans, misshapen cardigan and biker boots inexplicably found themselves on me just in time for me to jump in a cab clutching my throbbing head. (I was actually wearing *gulp* Uggs for a proportion of the day but I toyed with actually admitting it here). Ok, nothing too criminal but not groundbreaking stuff, either. I always feel the litmus test would be whether I'd be happy to be seen by someone I know in said prosaic ensemble.

Fast forward 10 hours and The Boy comes over. 'Ooh, you look lovely' he coos at me. Hmm, most peculiar. I look more dishevelled than when I woke up. In a flash of insight I tell him that it's because I'm wearing normal clothes and not some fandangled directional get-up. 'Oh yeah!' A look of pleasant surprise lights up his face. 'You should wear civvies more often.'

His pretty standard reaction reminded me of AA Gill's piece I'd read in the Sunday Times Style that morning about what men like women to wear. Worryingly, he said men didn't really care, they just thought of it as 'wrapping' and if you were fit just preferred you out of it, anyway. I'm unconvinced at the black-and-whiteness of it all; my theory is that if men had a choice they'd have us trussed up in bacofoil mini-dresses and stripper-style thigh-highs before you could say Pretty Woman. Basically, in the new season collections give or take the odd snood and power shoulder. Lucky for us. And them. All apart from my boyfriend, who likes me in a jumper and jeans, bless him.

What I'd choose to make The Boy happy:

Balmain

Roberto Cavalli

What I'd choose to make The Boy say WTF:

Roksanda Ilincic

What I'd choose as a happy medium: 

 Ashish

What do you think men like women to wear?

Images from net-a-porter.com