See London before you die

I have some friends staying with me and I sent them off yesterday on a tour of the East End of London with my old mate Harry Jackson who is a London Blue Badge guide. He is a specialist in the East End, Brick Lane and Jewish London as well as all the usual sights. If you're coming to London, I highly recommend checking hiom out at his site. My friends have been raving about how good he was.

If you've read Monica Ali's novel, and want to see the real thing, Harry's your man.

Mao and make-up

Was it only Monday evening, when, after an overnight flight (in economy) from Toronto, and three hours sleep at home, I met Tina Craig of the Bag Snobs on her last night in London and we got through two bottles of Veuve Cliquot and four ginger martinis at Momo? And possibly a bit to eat.

So much information was transmitted during the four or five hours that some of it is still sinking in (what she told me about her grandmother's experience of Mao's Cultural Revolution remains in sharp focus, reminding me that I really must get round to reading Jung Chang's Wild Swans, about fifteen years after it first came out - the author, I can attest from spending a weekend with her and her husband, a lover of Issey Miyake's flawless dresses.)

What I noticed about Tina was that despite the largest number of make-up brushes I have ever seen outside the professional collection of the make-up artist, the impression of wearing no make-up at all was accomplished by the finishing touch being just lip-gloss.

And I have come to the conclusion the lipstick can be ageing,* at least in the summer. A little lipgloss in a colour close to your lips' own natural shade, as Tina was wearing, is fresh, natural and takes years off you. I'm currently using Chanel's Aqualumiere, in Bubble Plum for evening and Freeze for day.

* Unless you are one of those women whose skin tone allows you to get away with a slash of deepest red. Which I am unfortunately not.

A man and his jeans

Harry's post below reminds me of a dear friend who went out to buy a pair of jeans, his old ones having suffered that perennial problem, wardrobe shrinkage, and returned home empty handed. He had tried on his usual jeans in his usual size, 34 waist, but found they were too small. Why didn't you get the next size up, I asked him?

Because they're 36 and I'm 34, he said.

Well, I pointed out, obviously if the 34 are too small, you're 36.

No, he said. I'm 34.

As if it was his date of birth or star sign, or the colour of his eyes, something fixed and static in the universe.

He hired a personal trainer.

About a dress

Regular readers will know my wearying search for new dresses. I had a crushing disappointment yesterday, with a dress I had first seen back in February, and which I believed, on the basis of the press sample I had been shown, to be empire line. It turned out to be a smock.

However, just before I went to Toronto I found in H. Nicks, a very good collection of summer dresses by Nicole Farhi and bought one of them, the downside being that it's linen, and all that that entails. But they must be on sale now.

Above is a shot from the SS08 catwalk show which will give an idea. The one I bought is the shape illustrated above, but actually, a nicer fabric. Quite low cut but a top underneath fixes that.

Shopping For Jeans

I've been thinking ( 0r rather, reminiscing ) about jeans, which I must confess is something I've not done much before. The following is what has surfaced .

My friend Pete, at the age of 15, first introduced me to the concept of the Levis 501 ( or was it 601?) and the cold bath 'shrink to fit' ritual. I was amazed. And impressed ( and he had the first Who album).

I never followed suit. I obviously wasn't serious enough. I think my first jeans were Lee. And then a couple of modish short-lived brands. And then some Wranglers. At one stage some OshKosh dungarees ( well, I was running a wholefood cafe).

In the mid 70's , when I rediscovered clothes that fitted I came across Fiorucci  jeans. And they did sizes to every inch; not just 30, 32, 34, but 30, 31, 32. Best fitting jeans I ever owned.

Then I remember some Pepe jeans fitted well. But the rest is all a bit of a  blur of indifferently fitting Levis, Wranglers, Lee Cooper. I sort of took my eye off the sartorial ball ( otherwise known as reaching middle-age).

A few years ago I started to make a bit more of an effort and came across some Paul Smith velvet jeans. They didn't fit as well as the Fioruccis , and my sons weren't entirely convinced of their appropriateness, but I liked them. And then some Valentino black denim ( but I had to remove the back pocket label- just a  bit too flash for my liking)

Currently my badly fitting Levis are consigned to gardening duty. But I do have two pairs of jeans that fit, and I'm happy to wear.

I am told that 7 For All Mankind were a fashionable label last year, which is when I bought them. I was visiting friends in the USA and said that I wanted some new jeans. A modest ambition. So the charming Ms T took me to Barneys LA. Well, that's what I call shopping. The terribly nice young assistant asked what I was looking for. They appeared to have countless brands and styles. I said I wanted dark blue denim, straight leg, and no extraneous ornamentation.He delivered six pairs for me to try. I chose the ones that I felt fitted best, which was confirmed by my shopping companion. It was only then that I looked at the label ( and the price). They have subsequently prompted the occasional compliment.

My second pair were purchased more recently, from Uniqlo, the Japanese retail brand with a couple of branches in London. A completely different experience, close to being challenging, and certainly quite hard work. Primarily because this is a youthful shop. But it's quite utilitarian in design so one doesn't feel that it is a completely alienating environment. They have  a wide range of styles, but, of course no help from the assistants.  I persevered , and came away with a well fitting pair of straight leg jeans with no contrived fading or rips. They also have no branding, which for me is a plus. And, another plus, they were very cheap.

Jeans and the Older Male

Should they or shouldn't they?

It's a question that others have asked.

I actually don't think it's an age thing. But rather a 'looking ok' thing.

Some chaps have never looked anything but a bit baggy or disheveled in jeans. Arguably they were ill-advised to have ever worn them in the first place. But as we ourselves get baggier that's an awkward look to live with. Because it accentuates loss of youth, when scruffy was perhaps the order of the day, or even a post-modern signifier of something. But if you once looked ok in jeans there is a fair chance you still might.

Apologies to 'The Thoughtful Dresser' readers for another music reference, but I saw Bruce Springsteen ( soon to be 59) recently. He has shown no desire to change the way he looks, with denim much in evidence. And he looked entirely sound. Well, sound enough to have a fair number of considerably younger women swooning ( as shown on the giant video screens). But if he hadn't been so energetic, skipping ( yes, skipping) about the stage for two and a half hours, and been quite so trim, then arguably he wouldn't have looked so good.

Small but crucial detail: his jeans fitted.

They don't always . My last two pairs of Levis have been highly unsatisfactory in that department. I bought them whilst in blokeish mode- find the right size, and then a cursory try on, because sometimes a bloke feels too inhibited to be parading around the store being , for want of a better word, vain. Mistake.

As you get older the fit becomes  both more problematic and more important. So to get it right you may actually have to apply yourself. And do that thing called shopping.

More on that anon.

How to turn a clutch into a shoulder bag

More instructions here

The Leonard Cohen suit hommage

Truly, a sharp-dressed man (Harry F. take note)

Hats off to Lenny

Still doing it. And still doing it in style.

Leonard Cohen has just played a few dates in the UK. The Guardian reviewed one of his shows: Tonight, in his suit and hat, he resembles a senior 1920's mobster, only with a guitar instead of a tommy gun. When he and his similarly attired band open with the Italian-flavoured Dance Me to the End of Love, we could almost be at a mafia wedding. The hat is gracefully doffed to acknowledge applause.'  Read on.

Leonard Cohen grew up in Montreal. His father was a tailor. He once said in an interview that he has always worn suits ( I guess that's when he's not in a Buddhist monastery or on a Greek island). And , yes, he has always looked, and been, stylish.

He is now 73. He hadn't played live for a long while. He told the Manchester audience: 'It's been 15 years since I stood up on stage. Fourteen years ago when I was 60 - a young kid with a crazy dream....'

It's a bit late in life for me to have a new one , but I think maybe he makes  a good candidate for a role model.

What we are wearing in SW19

Wimbledon fashions

What is new is the extent to which tennis stars are incorporating not just glamour, but trend. Roger Federer's penchant for retro, garden-party attire is well documented, but on Monday he stepped on to court in a cardigan - the premier success story in menswear of the past two years. This autumn, the style looks set to get a boost from the Brideshead Revisited movie, which designers are beginning to reference on the catwalk. The decision by the No 3 seed Sharapova to ditch a miniskirt for shorts reflects what style-savvy women have been doing for the past two summers. Of her pleated, bib-fronted top, Sharapova said: "It's kind of a tuxedo look, very simple lines, classic." Tuxedo-styling is a strong theme in womenswear for next season.

Urszula Radwanska's mini-tutu is no less on trend. Givenchy's most recent haute couture collection was inspired by Odette/Odile from Swan Lake, and has sparked a rash of ballet-theming on the high street. Ana Ivanovic proved that she is on top form in styling by swapping the puffball number she wore in Paris for a petal-shaped skirt that has echoes of Prada's flower-fairy themed summer collection.

Misogynists' corner

Women in a northern Malaysian city ruled by conservative Islamists are being urged to forsake bright lipstick and noisy high heels in an effort to preserve their dignity and avoid rape.
. . .
Loud high-heel shoes should also be avoided, though if women insisted on wearing them the heels could be padded with rubber to mute the sound.

Two-thirds of Malaysians are Malay Muslim, while the other ethnic groups - mainly Chinese and Indians - follow other faiths.

The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party scored a huge success in the general election three months ago, winning an unprecedented number of seats that propelled it out of its Kelantan backwater powerbase on to the national political stage.

and so on

'It's not about the dress'

Observations from Patricia Field on style, in which she makes the point that after a certain age, being too thin puts ten years on you and makes you look weak.

(thanks, Ruth, 34 [a different Ruth])

Eating from the tree of knowledge

I keep turning over in my mind the period of time last night when I examined Tina Craig's Hermes and Chanel bags. A bit like test driving a Ferrari and then driving home in a Honda.

101 uses for a scarf

After coming back on an overnight flight from Toronto, I managed a bit of sleep then got a call from Tina Craig, co-proprieter of the the bag-site, Bag Snob.

She was in London on the last day of a Paris-London trip and so I went over to her hotel to drink champagne and then have dinner at Momo and she shows me how she has taken an Hermes clutch and run an Hermes scarf through it to turn it into a shoulder bag. Genius.

Life and fate

I have spent the past week in Toronto interviewing a woman who is a survivor of the worst crime of the twentieth century

She asks me not to reveal her age, but she was transported to Auschwitz when she was a teenager in 1944 so do the sums. And here she is, sitting drinking cocktails in a John Galliano jacket, Versace t-shirt, bootcut jeans, Roger Vivier shoes and Dior bag, talking about her friends Giorgio Armani and Valentino. Sometimes there is justice.

She is also an object lesson on how not to grow old. How if you have the indomitable will, the taste and the chutzpah you can tear up that mutton-dressed-as-lamb rule book. She left me with a great deal of think about. Such as a closet with absolutely no black in it (but a pink mink).

You'll be able to read the full story, in the book of the Thoughtful Dresser, in February. Pre-order now!

How to shop

The Bag Snobs show how it's done

The weather is a bit dreary but the friendliness of the people here is enough to warm my spirits. Remember my disappointment of missing the sales next week in Paris? Well the SAs in Paris didn't agree to pre-sale anything to me, (sniff sniff) but the lovely British more than made up for it! I arrived and immediately went to Harvey Nicks, where I was told everything would be on sale on Wednesday (I'll be home by then). I noticed a woman who looked like a person of authority near the Dries van Noten bay and I asked her if she would kindly consider pre-selling to me or shipping items to me in the States. Not only did she agree, she assigned two Brand Specialists to show me around! After trying on countless amazing items from Balenciaga, Dries, Alexander McQueen, Burberry Prorsum, Stella McCartney, etc. I found a few pieces that I loved and guess what, she let me have them right then and there at the discount! A big thank you to Heather, the sales manager of Harvey Nicks and Suzanne and Tom-- Brand specialists for Dries and Balenciaga. I love the UK! If you live near London, run over to Harvey Nicks this Wednesday, June 25th and ask for Suzanne (Dries) or Tom (Balenciaga)!

Fat black women in Italian Vogue

Italian Vogue's editor, Franca Sozzani, said her decision was influenced by the New York group, as well as by Barack Obama's success in the US presidential primaries.

Meisel, who worked with Madonna on her controversial coffee-table book, Sex, brought several of the black fashion world's big names aboard for the issue. He photographed Naomi Campbell, Iman, Tyra Banks, Liya Kebede, Jourdan Dunn, Alek Wek and Pat Cleveland, among others.

"I thought, it's ridiculous, this discrimination. It's so crazy to live in such a narrow, narrow place. Age, weight, sexuality, race - every kind of prejudice," he told the New York Times. He blamed designers, magazine editors and advertisers for the decline in the numbers of black women in fashion shows. "I have asked my advertising clients so many times, 'Can we use a black girl?' They say no."

Among the black models on his roster was the full-figured Toccara Jones. Meisel argued that weight was also an issue in the fashion world.

read on

and more, here

This magazine exists to inspire women. How do fashion editors get inspired by watching the same procession of anonymous, blandly pretty, very young, very skinny, washed-out blondes with their hair scraped back in show after show? The glamazon supermodels of the late eighties and early nineties (Linda, Christy, Cindy, Naomi, Claudia) all looked equal but different as they thundered down the runway. Like the Spice Girls, each had an individual personality, a different physicality. So did the late-nineties wave of sexy Brazilian girls (who come in all colors, from milk to brown). The current wave of Eastern Europeans all look pretty much alike, which is odd for a trade that thrives on appealing to a woman's personal style. And all are, obviously, white. Sarah Doukas, founder of Storm model agency in London, remarks, "It's a naughty thing to say, because I've got some beautiful Eastern European girls, but to be honest, when I go in cars with them in Paris, I do get snow-blinded."

What do these three men have in common?

This post first appeared in November 2007

A few years ago, I was having lunch at Moro in Clerkenwell Market with the then women's page editor of the Guardian. Sitting at the next table were a group of adoring acolytes hanging on the every word of a flat bloke with a blonde bristly head like a pig, dressed in combats encasing thighs which oozed like over-ripe Camembert sluggishly running off the edge of his chair.

That, said my lunch companion, is Alexander McQueen.

And a spasm of pure rage passed through me. Who was this fat bastard to tell women that they were obese if they couldn't fit into a size 10? To make clothes that half the population couldn't wear? I am tired of fat men telling non-skeletal women that they don't exist. Granted, McQueen, like Lagerfeld, with the assistance of the finest trainers money can buy and no obligation to prepare family meals three times a day, have slimmed down, or in the case of Lagerfeld, turned himself into his own corpse, but fashion is full of fat men (sorry Alber, I really love you in every other way) giving normal-sized women an inferiority complex.

I had my picture take a couple of weeks ago to go with a magazine piece I'm doing . There was a photographer, a picture editor, a make-up artist and the manager of Hobbs all involved in this operation, and after the make-up artist had bemoaned that she couldn't find a pair of trousers to fit her in Zara, the photographer said that one her friends was a plus-sized model. 'What's plus size?' I asked. It's size 12 (US8) she told me.

Myself, I'd put every man in fashion who weighs over 150 pounds on the Atkins diet. And don't come back until you can fit into skinny jeans.

Is this a handbag? Harry poses a question

Of course it's a back pack. Or it could be called a day sack, or ruck sack, or a shoulder bag. Its near relatives might be called a messenger bag, a courier satchel, or laptop case. They are all bags for men.

I have occasionally referred to mine as a handbag, and have met with looks somewhat askance ( female) or mildly uneasy ( male). It would seem to be a bit of a gender tease .

But the truth of the matter is that I am not a messenger or a courier, and my bag rarely has a laptop in it. It might be retailed as a day sack, but I'm not actually going to call it that. It's a handbag in so much as it is where I carry my keys, diary, analgesics, notebook, umbrella, indigestion remedy, sunglasses, i-pod and Murakami novel. 

Stating the blindingly obvious: men do not have the same relationship with their bags that women do. But bags for men have been evolving and it is now possible to make more discriminating choices in this area. Without compromising one's masculinity. Well, the younger members of the species seem to be able to. But it remains a conundrum for the older male. Or perhaps it's off their radar.

Earlier this year I bought a lap top case by Mandarina Duck. I had coveted something from their range having seen the most stylish of briefcases in Venice a few years ago.The Mandarina  Duck case is immensely practical; it even has its own rain hood built in. But it is pleasingly designed, and manages  to avoid being one of those macho executive statements by brands such as Tumi that shops in departure lounges are so full of. And that makes a change.

Yesterday in  the quite modish Reiss menswear window display  I noticed two handbags. Of course they call them despatch bags. 

Hadley Freeman is banned from Paul Smth shows

Although bans have been sprinkled around the fashion press for some time, they do seem to be coming down with increasing frequency - a sign, perhaps, of a growing anxiety in the luxury market that with the impending economic downturn not as many people are buying £900 dresses and trousers. It is also likely to be a reflection of the power of advertising. Fashion magazines and some newspapers are financially dependent on fashion advertisers, which muffles the writers who work for them. They are unable to say anything remotely negative about the clothes, out of fear of losing that precious £100,000-a-year advertising account, which is why so much fashion coverage often reads as little more than advertorial puff and fluff. Designers then get used to such obsequiousness so that any words of dissent are treated as a shocking display of heresy.

read the rest