An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
The skirt I’ve worn most often recently is long, blue and as comfortable as it is flattering. ‘Why, thank you,’ I reply with a satisfied smile when I’m complimented on its delicate floral print and the way it swishes as I walk. ‘It’s Dorothy Perkins, 2011.’ I may not be able to distinguish Dolce &
The French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has urged civil servants to trade shirts and ties for woollen polo necks under their suits. It’s part of a drive to heat ministries to no warmer than 19°C – a policy that is compulsory in all government buildings except hospitals and care homes. French petit fonctionnaires can
I own a motorcycle riding jacket that is unabashedly a fashion piece. It contains armour made of a space-age material that hardens on impact but that is hidden away. The outside is constructed of ‘pull up leather’ which was tanned in such a way that the jet-black colour artificially fades in places that see a
No one who has watched the events of the past ten days could doubt the King’s commitment to his late mother – or to his people. But I think another of Charles III’s commitments is also becoming apparent: one to British tailoring. From his black-braided morning suit when he addressed the Houses of Parliament at
In this period of national mourning, it may seem frivolous to comment on the late Queen’s handbag. After seven decades of selfless service to the nation, fashion is but a footnote to Her Majesty’s glorious reign. And yet her style is something that helped to create the powerful majestic image of Queen Elizabeth II, and
Neckerchiefs are an oddity. Once the cowboys’ sweat-wiping tool, they are now a key accessory in the glamour – or camp and borderline tack – of a flight attendant’s uniform. My approach to them tends to sit somewhere in the middle. Neckerchiefs are useful, stylish, rebellious, but comforting – a rare choice for men’s fashionwear. A
Every few months I take out a box of essential oils and carefully lay them out on my kitchen table, organising them in order from sweet-smelling to musty. On the left will be scents like juniper berry, lime, frankincense and bergamot; in the middle, woodish fragrances such as sandalwood and cedarwood; on the right, the
It was Barbara Amiel, whose copy I used to edit at the Sunday Times, who first alerted me to the important point that one private jet isn’t enough. One jet is always in the wrong place. Or having heavy maintenance. Two was the minimum, she said. Plenty of others appear to live by the same
In a 1965 issue of Playboy magazine, the late Sean Connery said: ‘Bond is the invincible figure every man would like to be.’ If you’re such a man (or woman) you’ve probably left it too late to step into the Crockett & Jones chukka boots worn by outgoing Bond Daniel Craig in No Time to
As every electric car owner knows, driving an EV over long distances in Britain is not without its obstacles. Everyone has their own tale of getting stranded somewhere unintended after running out of juice. A lack of available chargers can turn even short trips into a logistical nightmare. So how easy is it to run
The recent unveiling of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first joint portrait drew attention to a special piece of jewellery pinned to Catherine’s emerald green dress – the Duchess of Cambridge brooch. The pearl and diamond pendant brooch, on loan to the Duchess for the portrait sitting, has been a royal family heirloom since
At Ivana Trump’s funeral yesterday, her children paid tribute to their ‘trailblazing’ mother. She was the ‘embodiment of the American dream’ they said. They were right, she was focused and driven, but she was also surprisingly generous with her advice. I sat next to Ivana Trump at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, and was
With the 37th America’s Cup a mere two years away, a small number of the world’s billionaires are busily pouring vast quantities of cash into building the AC75 monohull racing yachts that will skim across the sea off Barcelona at speeds of up to 60 mph, all in pursuit of a trophy colloquially called ‘the
I know of few greater pleasures than a Saturday morning spent moseying around one of my local second-hand shops in Pimlico. These charity and vintage stores attract a varied crowd. Old-timers, but youngsters too, for whom vintage shopping is hip: not just for its ethical and sustainable credentials but thanks to the current clothing fashion
Only Princess Diana could carry off Wimbledon white-rimmed aviators with such style. Pictured in the Royal Box at The Championships in 1986, The Princess of Wales brought an edge to her natural elegance in these striking shades. White sunglasses scream summer so are a great addition to a holiday wardrobe, pairing well with colourful fabrics.
I am in the south of France in the Maybourne Rivera: a mad, modernist hotel on a rock above Monaco filled with cashmere blankets, and beds. The cloud rolls in and Monaco disappears like an eye closing, and I am glad. Monaco is a land of defibrillators at bus stops and street signs that say
Brompton is one of those brands that has Britishness baked into it; it’s the reason why the bike has become a status symbol amongst China’s metropolitan elites and why 75 per cent of Bromptons are exported. But it was always hard to tell whether riders loved the idea of the bike more than its reality.
As this year’s Wimbledon Championships will demonstrate, tennis has moved on a bit in the past half-century: rackets are no longer wooden, ‘Hawkeye’ settles the ‘You cannot be serious’ moments and the winner of the ‘gentlemen’s singles’ competition will trouser £1.7m (compared with the measly £5,000 Stan Smith took home in 1972). But what happened
Entrepreneur Jonathan Carrier reckons more people would drive electric cars if they had portable chargers in their boots. The electrical equivalent of a can of petrol. So he’s launching one. Called the ZipCharge Go, he claims it’s a design world first. There are portable battery packs that work with electric cars. Generally, these are designed
Another day, another diva disrobes. If it’s not Madonna (63) being ‘outraged’ after being banned from Instagram Live (after continually breaking the app’s rules with her nude posts) for ‘digital depictions of her vagina’ it’s Emma Thompson (also 63) getting her kit off for her new film, in which she plays a widow who hires
When Kim Kardashian wore Marilyn Monroe’s dress to the Met Gala recently – the shimmering, crystal-studded, second-skin gown in which MM sang her infamous rendition of ‘Happy Birthday, Mr President’ to JFK in 1962 – many people had a collective fit of the vapours. You’d have thought someone had wiped their nose – or worse
‘Moisture is a car’s worst enemy, Gerald. So why are you washing it?’ So says Julie Walters in the 1985 comedy Car Trouble in which she plays frustrated housewife Jacqueline, whose pernickety husband has transferred his affection to an obsessively pampered Jaguar E-Type. The Sunday morning scene in which Gerald lovingly polishes the car’s famously
The year was 2015, and I was head over heels, completely obsessed with House of Hackney’s Palmeral wallpaper. The bold print features fans of colonial green palm leaves splayed across a soothing off-white background, and I fantasised about plastering it over all four walls of my London living room, thinking it was the closest I
Plenty about the Top Gun sequel has garnered anticipation, not least because Covid has consistently pushed the release date, which coincidentally finally landed around the time of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. At the Diamond Jubilee, we had Paloma Faith discuss both royal matters and her new album during the BBC’s questionable coverage. At the Royal
In the past couple of years successive lockdowns and the need for self-contained holidays meant record numbers of people embraced motorhomes and campervans for the first time. 16,608 new motorhomes were registered with the DVLA in 2021, topping the existing sales record by 8 per cent. But was this just a lockdown fad? Not if the latest sales
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is mere weeks away – the floral spectacular that inspires us all to head out into gardens once again. In May and June a host of British flora comes to life, with dabbles of bubblegum peonies, shocking fuchsia azaleas and the syrupy smell of lilacs in the air. So why
The Duchess of Cornwall revealed a surprising hobby during a visit to a charity shop on Tuesday. After splashing out on a £1.50 mug celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee, Camilla confessed that she has a ‘whole collection’ of royal memorabilia at home. With the Platinum Jubilee just weeks away, there will be plenty more opportunities for the
Fringes have in recent years been considered attractive – Bettie Page, Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Birkin, Kate Moss – so it is easy to forget the period we have been living through is something of an aberration. For most of history, cutting a fringe has tended to mark a woman out as odd, mad or suspicious.
If there’s one company that’s a kind of stock market indicator of the condition of the British middle classes, it’s Lakeland. It specialises in very good household stuff – cleaning and cookware and any number of ingenious gadgets (the catalogues are, I have to say, addictive) – and it has an uncanny knack of registering
