A random round-up of some recent delights
Including lessons learned about fashion, and inappropriate behaviour
It’s one of my semi-regular Substack editions where I pool together a few things I’ve been up to that I hope you might also enjoy. Here you go:
I got to snoop through a celebrity’s clothes
I found myself rummaging through the glittery sweetie shop that is Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s wardrobe. We were taping an episode of the new occasional series, Closet Confessions, for Lorraine and this first one did not disappoint.
I could not have loved Sophie more for telling me that she felt compelled to do what I do before any cameras ever come round - that is, simply heave ho tons of cluttered clothes into another into another room and just them return them to the chaos as soon as the cameras are gone. And yet still she got a call from a decluttering company offering their services the second the segment aired. She and I also share the view that there’s no such thing as saving your clothes ‘for good’. If it just feels right to wear sequins to Sainsburys, that is your right. And, also like me, Sophie struggles to let go of her clothes. She’s built up a collection that means she’s guaranteed to be able to pull out THE perfect thing for any event that gets thrown at her, but her wardrobe has been so lovingly curated over the years that every piece has a memory that’s special to her. It was another moment that made me realise how important I think what we wear is for our psyche. Oh and I could not resist trying on this Mrs Jones cape - that’s another thing we have in common, our husbands are both Mr Jones’s.
And I discovered that I actually know the very clever designer of these sparkly capes, because when I was at Glamour, Susie was one of everyone’s favourite PRs working at Moschino.
My friend launched a brilliant, vital book
I think I’ve known Kat Brown for about eight or nine years now and well, I’ve been a fan from the beginning. Even when I only knew her from her very funny tweets. Then I was lucky enough to lure her to work at Glamour for a spell as our social media editor. She’s a phenomenal writer, and manages to somehow appreciate my very lowbrow sense of humour whilst actually being one of the most frighteningly smart intellectuals I’ve ever known. And she has just released a book which I think everyone should read. Called It’s Not A Bloody Trend, it’s all about the slow dawning realisation that she had been wrestling with having ADHD, without ever knowing it. The epiphany made every struggle hitherto suddenly make sense. I’m very invested in reading and learning from it as my own daughter has ADHD - which we didn’t realise until she was midway through her GCSE exams. It wasn’t so long ago that the belief held that it was a condition which really only affected boys, but we know so much more about it now. I’m excited to see that Generation X and millennials are now of an age where they’re getting to write about complex, emotional subjects in the language of our generations. (My friend Stacey Heale’s forthcoming book on grief will be another example soon).
I made a significant fashion discovery
This jacket was a moment for two reasons
1. It does not look like it came from Asda and 2. I would never have dreamed this colour would suit me. The organisers of a fashion event I was hosting (for George at Asda, funnily enough) pulled it from the rail for me to wear on the night. My first instinct was a sinking heart as I’ve often told myself I’m too pale to wear such ‘muddy’ colours. I was wrong and I love it and I was thrilled that I got to keep it. It was a good lesson in what I’ve written about before and that is, when it comes to fashion and style confidence, it often pays to get out of your own head and let someone else show you the light.
And so then I let someone else style me
Which is what motivated me to finally make an appointment with my friend, Lucy, who works in styling/personal shopping at John Lewis. I hadn’t walked the floor of their womenswear in ages. No reason other than there just isn’t a store on any of my routes to my jobs. So I made a point of letting someone else take the reins and bring me selections I might never give a chance. I wouldn’t have tried these Max Mara slim-fit trousers, for one.
I’m too addicted to my loose-flowing cuts - despite once nearly being killed by a pair of my own ‘big-ol’ bellbottoms’.
And I was reminded that John Lewis’s own brand is pretty great. I got a superb linen suit for £128.
But of course these #clothesmyhusbandhates rainbow trousers practically wrapped themselves around my neck.
I saw my favourite Oscar film
I’m outraged that the young boy in Anatomy of a Fall, Milo Machado Graner, is not nominated for an Oscar.
If you haven’t seen it, go now, I’ll wait, we need to discuss this. My friends know that I often joke (although I’m not joking) that I don’t have the patience for child actors who can’t act. I cannot sit through a film or TV show if the kids can’t deliver it with any sincerity. Nope, I don’t care that they’re only little because it turns out that if you look you can find the kids, of any age, who really can do it. LIke this kid. Now I don’t want to spoil it for you, so I’m not going to say anything about the plot other than it’s a courtroom drama about a woman suspected of murdering her husband. What I can say without spoiling anything is that it’s a fascinating and brilliantly written examination of the push and pull of relationships. And how everyone in a relationship can somehow be having a wildly different experience of it.
Oh and I found the time to fully disgrace myself
God. I probably shouldn’t tell anyone this. I was having a drink with my friend Andy, at Koko in Camden. Have you been? It’s pretty chic. We had possibly one more wine than is wise, so by the time I bid him farewell and sloped off to the tube, I was… merry. Sitting on the northern line bound for Waterloo, there’s just two people in the carriage: me and, right opposite me, only Toby Jones, the Mr Bates vs The Post Office man of the moment.
What I did next was awful and I don’t think I would have if I’d not had some wine. But I thought I would take an undetected, subtle pic of him, only to show my husband, to say, you know, ‘Oh look I saw on the tube.’ I wouldn’t have put it on social media or anything like that. Famous people have the right to keep their private movements unheralded. What if he’d pretended that night to some friends he was too sick to go out or something? So I’d never do that. And for the same privacy reasons I wouldn’t have shared it here. But, no shocks here, I was not as subtle as I thought I was being. Just know that I had a picture that features Toby Jones looking me dead in the eyes with such withering disdain, that I’m still turning inside out with shame and embarrassment just thinking about it. So the picture I sent my husband was accompanied with the words, ‘Just got totally rumbled taking this.’ To which my husband, quite reasonably replied, ‘You dick.’ Yeah.
That, my friends, is the kind of ‘fame fail’ I discuss on my podcast, Fame, with Amanda Redman. Fame does silly things to people, and not just the actually famous people. The shame, the shame. For more of the same, you can listen here. And if you’ve got any similar embarrassments, please try and make me feel better with them!
That’s some updates from me. Soon I will write about why I’m stepping down from my charity CEO role (yep, I’ve had a lot going on). But it’s not the right time. Have a great week, everyone!
Very cool clothes!
Yes! Very much with you on child actors and how good Milo Machado Graner is in Anatomy of a Fall. He deserves all the awards. He makes the film I think.