Mademoiselle

I love birthday parties especially when there is something big to celebrate like being 25 years old, I remember mine as if it were yesterday, well it practically was.  I’ve dusted off my best frock, bought some jazzy heels and had my mane made as blond as it can physically get without falling out.  This is not just any old birthday party, it’s 25 years of London Fashion Week (just a tad younger than moi) and everybody is in town.  I spied most of the American press yesterday who have probably flown in for Burberry tomorrow, which reminds me, what am I going to wear to the Burberry party?  Outfit hunting must take priority today, well that and the million shows and presentations I have toattend. London has really ramped up the fashion action over the past two days, really raised it’s game in terms of creativity. Somerset House is the perfect venue for a birthday party, all super luxe and with a touch of the Louvre about it. Tres chic.  Danielle Scutt’s latest show was probably the best the designer has produced.  The hair was quite a spectacle, sort of poodle parlour meets Alaia. I snapped the hairdressers backstage trying to remove some pom pom hair attachments with a hacksaw.  The model didn’t look impressed.

Speaking of models, my girl crush Coco Rocha walked for Nicole Fahri yesterday, it’s so nice to see the supers in town, can’t wait to see who the Burberry have walking in their show tomorrow evening. The Louise Goldin collection looked good enough to eat.  The designer broke free of the more obvious side of body con and showed a collection that may have been inspired by the colours of ice cream.  Lilacs, lemons and blush has never looked so right on a runway and thankfully signal a return to a softer silhouette and look.

I’m so over the wide shoulder thing now. It’s looks so hard edged, unless worn by Joan Collins as she probably invented the wide shoulder thing before any of us were born.  Considering I wasn’t going out last night I am surprised at the hour I got home, I blame Mulberry, them and their hilarious fair ground theme party.  Claridges was festooned with pretty balloons last night in the manner of a five year olds birthday; Claridges did kitsch in a big way.  There was a dip for the duck competition where the prize was an oversized cheetah print patent Bayswater.  There were Dj’s, candy floss, mini burgers, static fairground horses, it was quite the sensory overload, as for the cocktails, well my head hurts and there’s Luella, Marios and Christopher Kane today so had better break out the eye cream and the Nurofen Plus.  Follow me on IamMademoiselle@twitter.com for frequent updates.

When an invitation to join Hermes at a ’scarf’ event at Liberty landed on my desk I thought odd, weird and more importantly why?  Things got even more curious when the Hermes press office sent over a selection of scarves for the fashion team with instructions to wear them however we wanted to at the event.  A few hours in the fashion cupboard later we had all decided on our look for the evening, I wore several around my neck, the Senior Fashion Ed wore hers threaded through her YSL bag, one assistant wore one around her wrist.   We arrived at Liberty scarf department at 7 o’clock on the dot to be greeted by a further box of scarves, a white canvas wall and a photographer; it was dress up time!  Everybody wore their scarves differently, some around head (the style press), some as ties (the men from Wallpaper), some as belts (the skinny girls).  In answer to my question WHY? This was the playful side of Hermes trying to get out, they wanted to introduce something inherently classic to a new audience; it was time the Hermes scarf met the kids.  Smart, I liked it.  Liberty had kindly donated it’s entire designer floor to the Hermes cause.  There was  DJ, a chef and half lagers served by cute waiters (yes, I said half lagers, lager is orange after all). I could have stayed all night but I had a date with Petra Ecclestone over at Matches on the Marylebone High Street.   Owner of Matches Top Chapman emailed me personally last week to invite me along to this event and given I am still on the Isabel Marant ankle boot wait list I thought I had better accept.  It was a men’s event you see so not something that ELLE would usually attend.  The launch was to celebrate the latest men’s collection by ‘Form’, inspired by the heritage of Formula One racing, there was even a racing car parked on the road outside the shop.   The car had it’s own security guards, apparently if it were to be sat on it would crack.  I learnt this important fact as my COS clad ass was about to hit the bonnet.  The very cute Ms Ecclestone was wearing a dress by Peter Pilotto, a dress that I’ve lusted after all season, it was a good look, the cool side of glamourous.  Jodie Harsh spun some great tunes whilst Moet provided some great booze.  Mademoiselle, sponsored by Nurofen.  

I feel weird. Not nice weird, I like nice weird. Nice weird when you wake up in a panic thinking you’re late for work but it’s actually a Saturday or when you eat too much wasabe paste and your nose and eyes start watering uncontrollably.  I can ‘do’ nice weird, this is not nice weird, this is spooked out weird!  Take yesterday for example, I was at the bus stop waiting, yep you’ve guessed it, for a bus when an aggressive homeless guy came over and started shouting at everyone standing there.  I was the last in line and so I was the final person to say sorry, I don’t have any spare change.  I would like to make something clear at this point, 90% of the time I give money to homeless people, that’s because 90% of the time they ask in a really courteous manner and that makes me want to help them out, usually they have a dog, we chat about dogs, life and yadda yadda yadda.  This guy however was shouting at us, so it’s 9.30 in the morning and I’m being shouted at by a wild eyed man, as if life wasn’t stressful enough.  Anyway, I tell the guy sorry, but I don’t have any money to give him and he absolutely loses it, goes nuts and pokes me hard in the chest with his finger. Ouch, it hurt. I cried but had got over it by the time I reached work.  I was wearing a hippy dress I bought at Glastonbury and a necklace with a CND trinket hanging off it.  Oh the irony, peace and love whatever.Then last night I went out to a bar and some girl randomly poured a drink over me.  Why? There was no real reason given.  I hadn’t even noticed her or her boyfriend who had apparently been standing next to me all night.  I hadn’t actually paused for breath  or looked away from my friends face due to the amount of gossip we needed to catch up on when the incident happened.  Her boyfriend came over to apologise muttering something about her freaking out sometimes and being jealous.  Jealous of WHAT?  The only thing I could think of was I was wearing a particularly short dress so what is this?  Glamour tax?! Sisters come on!Apparently it’s a full moon tomorrow, am wondering whether at this rate I’m going to bother getting out of bed.