Sunday 23rd January 2011

Who would have thought it? The hotel’s been marginalised. It’s not the absolute centrepiece of my mini-city-break in Paris with my architect, Bruce MacBain and Prince Dmitri Hersov, the blue-chip accountant, record and art collector. We’re just so thronging with events. I haven’t a second. We took the world-shattering once-in-a-lifetime  Monet Exhibition at the Grand Palais at 7 am yesterday morning, then straight on to L’Orangerie for the waterlilies, then lunch, then the Musee Cluny (sorry, no time for accents). Experience, thoughts, talk, style tips, Bruce MacBain and the Prince  in full flow. Then, at 7.30, round to Bruno-France Bruno’s, only recently re-met after a long gap of years, at Reggie Cresswell’s New Year’s Eve party.  When last known was living in excellently re-styled ex-council property in London although always highly peripatetic and elusive of definition. Would mysteriously offer the rarest opera tickets 40 minutes before curtain up.  Always seemed to have access to other expansive unique residences. Has been in Paris for the last five years. Much missed in London . Gave normal sounding Paris address. Open the street door with this code, he said, then text me from the courtyard. Turned out to be a superb hotel particuleur. ‘This is from the Yemen,’ he said, ‘ 4000 years old. This is by Praxateles.’ Well, not quite. Not sure about spelling. But definitely an equivalent. Small statue of male nude, in perspex box that rotates so you can view all round.

Without knowing it, we’d drilled through to the very core of Paris life at the highest level!

And more today. Must rush to live. Anything could happen.

Come back later.

Friday 21st January 2011

We have gained: Prince Dmitri Hersov, Bruce MacBain, my architect, and me, Adrian Edge. We take the world-shattering Monet Exhibition at the Grand Palais tomorrow.

Lord Arrowby didn’t show.

Settling in to hotel life: at the Relais Saint Sulpice. Only 3 stars but advised by Harry Rollo that in Paris 3 stars is the thing. Attractive garden room, much fabric and carpet, now a novelty. Will report more intensely later. I wanted a cocoon not bare boards, white linen, a metal flower and a chocolate mohair throw. Especially in winter.Have been here five minutes and already beginning to blossom. The walls are squidgy with fabric.

Ordinary class in Eurostar: quite a success. Bruce MacBain in a quandry. He’s been winning awards  for his architecture and featured everywhere. Now the Evening Standard want him to disclose the add-on value of the self-refurb of his ‘property’, meaning home. He is horrified.  He wants a pure design angle, no real estate pornography. Dear, good Prince Dmitri, just about the only Poor Little Rich Gay with any moral sense, agrees. But I am mystified. ‘If your values were low,’ I say, ‘you might want to keep quiet. But they’re not.’  Between you and me, I can’t think why he’s bothering with all these scruples. In his place, I’d have my prices plastered everywhere.

Prince Dmitri has recently been auditing an enormously top car manufacturer prior to sale. Poor Little Rich Gays only tend to deal with blue chip. I keep saying he’s had to count up every carburetor but apparently he hasn’t. All the same,  we flow naturally onto the topic of how well we grasp our private empires.  For example, I have only limited comprehension of my own wardrobe.  Think of those chestnut slacks forgotten at Prada.  And other outfits wiped from consciousness and hanging neglected  in remote cupboards. We agree that grasp of detail is the mark of a true tycoon. The Multis would never forget that they owned a flat.

Robert Maxwell  knew his domain down to the last re-structured pension fund. Poor Little Rich Gays should have this quality but in other areas be vague –  to make up.  Vagueness is very attractive but requires money to fund.  Poor Little Rich Gays should have money but be vague.

Fresh Rose in my Bathroom at the Hotel Saint Sulpice Paris. Nicely Cut Marble

Squidgy Fabric Walls, Carpet and Curtain at the Hotel Saint Sulpice, Paris

Friday 21st January 2011

So teeming in fact I find I’ve forgotten all about my chestnut brown Prada slacks seized in the Sale. They’re still at the shop, after mending. Gone completely from my mind. Also, the Photo Multi send a graph  of me at a country lunch in 2006 or so. I’m wearing a black jacket. At first I thought I recognised it as part of a suit once in my possession but further graphs revealed jeans.

I don’t know that jacket. I never thought I’d forget my frockage.

We had Esme Manning’s birthday dinner at Laura Malcolm’s. Esme wore a blond mink jacket belonging to her mother. Fabulous lining. ‘Gloria’, her name, sewn in. ‘It’s been to many a rabbinical function, this jacket,’ Esme said. She was radiant. Laura has acquired a new builder, to put right Miroslav’s little errors.   He’s called Powell, as a first name. But it appears he’s had other names. He refers to Poles as  ‘jam rolls’, which is cockney rhyming slang. Laura writes down everything he says. He’s full of self-drama, which appeals, from a distance. ‘Posh birds love me.’  ‘Some trees grows all twiggy. Me, I keep on going  straight up.’

Lord Arrowby is having a texting season. He’s also been graphed in a low magazine at a gay club in a little dolly blue summer shirt with embroidery, special Designer glasses kept just for evening  and elaborate neck interest – a huge cascade of silk scarf.  He refused Paris whence I board in 30 minutes, for the Monet Exhib.  Also to wear outfits. But still I hope that he will come swirling down the platform at the last minute in a mink coat, through clouds of steam, just as the  whistle is blowing, with a massive orchestra soaring. That’s the sort of romantic drama he’d go in for, despite being an awfully stern Government figure.

We mustn’t forget either that Lord Arrowby has suddenly sprung up as a tea-pot collector on Antiques Road Trip although masquerading as another. More of that later.

On Wednesday we went to London Art Fair but took no interest in the art. Eddie Sedgewick revealed that he doesn’t use shampoo which was awful. What a agonising gap in shopping! Then a salesman from one of the galleries offered a raffle to get a free print by some well-known artist. Eddie said: ‘I know him. He’ll give me one free.’  We were troubled by shoes. Other people’s, of course. The outfit above may be doing something but what is the point if anchored by nothing shoes, and scuffed and old too?

The art was lovely but exhausting. Eddie said: ‘I love the old art.’  He meant 20th century.

Here are some Christopher Wood. I’d buy him if I had £200,000

Christopher Wood £295,000, 3 x the Price of the Other One. Why?

Christopher Wood: Only £95,000 But Has Got More Colours in It

Many Poor Little Rich Gays Hark Back to Their Schooldays

Thursday 20^th January 2011

Contrary to false reports, Poor Little Rich Gays are teeming, teeming.

Lord Arrowby, my part-time love interest, has chosen his summer trousers from the Look Book. They’re not in the shops yet. What is the Look Book? What are they like, these summer trousers? It’s a secret. All the same, very thrilling. Shows a different side of this magnificent Lord. Relaxed summer is his favourite look.

The Photo Multi is thinking of buying a new Louis Vuitton bag with a dramatic diagonal black band across. Bags and shoes are his favourite.

Val phoned from the mid-Shires yesterday. Could I measure my iPhone?  Why? He’s making a shooting suit for the wife of a very famous comedy actor who went over the top in the end having lasted for ever up until that point. Val’d been five hours making a pocket for her cartridges. Next step: slot for her iPhone. He’s assisting an old friend who coutures for Royalty and the Great.

Last week Val was in a bad way: not answering and presumed dead. Possibly re-bottled. This week, he’s back and stitching at the highest level.

There’s been a controversy about a chair sat in by Rufus Pitman in Bangladesh. Lord Arrowby insists it’s called a Bombay Fornicator. I have contradicted Lord Arrowby just to be annoying and provoked displeasure.

Then there’s Esme Manning’s blonde mink jacket and Laura Malcolm has got a scandalous new builder.

So much to tell.

And tomorrow – Paris!

Wednesday 19th January 2011

It’s not quite true that Poor Little Rich Gays are reduced, flickering on the borderline of shopping, sunk back into the ground in January.

In fact it’s not true at all.

Monday 17th January 2011

Laura Malcolm is trying to curse the month away. Poor Little Rich Gays are either in Calcutta or in their kitchens assembling elaborate winter fare – no guests expected.

I bought a new sink-tidy, except I don’t think it is a sink-tidy. I think it is a sink-drainer. The old one disappeared during the canapé outburst for my party on December 19th.

Where are they now – the pre-Christmas canapés?

Still, there’s always something to look forward to.

My New Sink Tidy or Drainer

Wednesday 12^th January 2011

I was saying: at Martin Margiela, I told the God-lettes in charge, after purchase of some honey-beige slacks: ‘My Sales shopping is over. I’m going home.’

I spoke too soon. It was the Constructivist (I stand corrected by my architect, Bruce MacBain) shirt by Raf Simons, one of my other Sales gains, that caused the unravelling to begin. I put it on for New Year’s Eve. Its trimmings and edgings are navy blue, so a black jacket with was out of the question. I have a pseudo-tweed Topman jacket in brown, but it’s got plain brown trimmings. You don’t want too much trimming. I wore the Topman brown but only had 6/10 outfit satisfaction.

I began to conceive. There was a heaving within. A grey jacket. If only. And a memory, of what the divinity running Topman within Harrods had said: Did I know, at Oxford Street  Topman, they’re doing Harris Tweed jackets? Pure. The real thing. Had a delirious success. Might be none left. But only from Oxford Street.

Before I knew it the vision was lodged irrevocably: tweed, so much texture, such subtle flecs, such a good contrast. Nothing else would complete my wardrobe.

I pounded to Topman. Yes!  Harris Tweed. There it was. Actually a bluey grey jacket with flecs of amethyst and ocre. Unimaginably right and new and different. I gunned through the  rack. And gunned again. The wretched truth could not be riffled away by endless rummaging. Only Size 36. Minute, even for me. In fact even trying to wear it could have resulted in strangulation, fatal straining of the limbs, death from arterial constriction.

Topman were adamant, God-like hard: no hope of further Harris Tweed. Not at Oxford Street, nor any other branch. I tried on-line.

To think, that Harris Tweed has been sitting in Topman since October and I never knew. What weakness and failure!

I re-visited all the other clothes shops of any kind, a complete revision of the Sales. Well, I’ve done that before, many times. Then, after suffering, I remembered my spiritual lesson, learned for the first time this Sales: hang above, watch, wait. Topman will provide. There will be a substitute for the Harris Tweed. Topman will think of something.

I left it a week. Last Saturday Topman knew me again and had given a rack of grey Harris Tweed jackets, not the yearned for blue-grey, of course. Maybe they were there before. Maybe not. No size 42 but 44, fitting all right on the shoulders, sleeve-length fine, just sacky round the middle. ‘I’ll get a tailor to hack it down,’ I told the attendant who was got up like Brains from the Thunderbirds. I’ve done that before too. Joe Allen in Cross Street, London N1 is marvellous. Risky, of course. It might not work. But a risk you must take.

I’m getting some Balenciaga trousers that were too tight on the thigh altered while about it. Joe Allen called yesterday. Everything is ready. Next week I can launch out for Paris and the Monet Exhibition and hotel life for two nights with 10/10 outfit satisfaction.

The Ideal Topman Tweed but Not in My Size

The Topman Harris Tweed Actually Achieved by Me, Before Alteration. I'm Having the Top Stitching Taken Out As Well

Monday 10^th January 2010

The Look: There is a good look just now. The question is: where to get it? Jackets are still short; the twist this season is they are nipped in, hugging your lovely torso. Still lots of edging and trimming on the jackets and shirts.  Harris Tweed is new because the new Doctor Who had it, so I hear (and so my Harris Tweed drama was ignited: come back tomorrow to hear).  Knits have lost their way. I’m still wearing skimpy V-necks with shirt and tawny Prince of Wales Check slacks from Paul and Joe in lovely fine thin wool (though warm). But completely superb would be a tiny grey suit with black edging or a Harris Tweed jacket-lette (doll’s size), a white shirt from Paolo Pecora with sateen trim, and tight jeans – anything but normal blue denim. Waxed is good. Those distressed jeans with built-in crease-marks and masses of zips are still about but best avoided.

Where to Buy? The so-called top designers are back-pedalling furiously. It’s the recession. Fashion is being driven from below, by Zara and Topman especially. The young figurine who runs the Balenciaga outlet in H. Nicks was wearing a tiny black shiny jacketlette with white piping from Topman last January sales and is still in it this sales. Was rather prickly when I quizzed him about the garment originally. At Prada, it’s ‘How about another boring V-neck jumper in black, navy or grey?’ I don’t remember such drear, such lack of choice for many years. I’ve had sharp words about it.

Distressing Developments at Harrods and H. Nicks: now almost all for fat, old tourists, nothing but black and grey, navy for a change. Or the youth market with wads of cash from working in people’s homes. So acres of drab, scruffy casual wear. I ran into Felix Still, Fergus Strachan’s best friend, 1^st Class from Bangkok where he is huge, with his companion, Wasan Bandrachouk, in Harrods Contemporary Menswear, as I do every year. We agreed that it was beyond belief.

Other Shops have Ditched Glamour Too At The Library they had no suits at all. Many shops that used to purr with luxury items now resemble army surplus stores. I extracted through charming banter with an exquisite in Sefton (remember, as a Poor Little Rich Gay, you must ensure that staff have never known such hilarity nor been so terrified) that the main sellers now are trackie, hoodie non-descript items for extreme leisure wear. Which Poor Little Rich Gays don’t want, of course.

Poor Little Rich Gays Hack On and On Never give up! Never let go! Through absolute will you will achieve glory despite everything. Visit all the shops; then revisit them for revision.

Finally at Prada, Always Ask I know I have bitched Prada. Some stretchy check slacks years ago, oh and the ones in butterscotch nylon were fab. But the suits – my present Lindeberg is just as good at half the price. All the same, I’ve a lot of Prada in the wardrobe, acquired by hook or by crook. It’s a subject in itself: Prada. What I was going to say was: always ask, especially if you’ve a particular colour in mind, because they’re tremendous hoarders at Prada. They’ve got half the stock hidden where no-one can get at it. That’s how I got my present chestnut slacks, which I’ve still to collect from Sloane Street. They were brought out from behind the scenes – and they turned out to be half price.

Saturday 8^th January 2011

It started badly. I was three days late for the Sales. Joshua Baring was texting: ‘Hurry, hurry back from the country. The shelves are being picked clean by vultures’.

Some miraculous aura, still but strong, descended and swathed me. There seemed no doubt that my required items would heave themselves from the chaos into my basket. At Selfridges and H. Nicks I did not exactly stand in the middle of the shop floor and do nothing, but that’s how it felt. I was hovering and waiting. Over two days, levitating mildly, filled with pleasantness,  I got all the shops covered almost without noticing –  Selfridges, H. Nicks, Harrods, Joseph, The Library, Matches, Paul and Joe, Browns, Martin Margiela, Sefton, both Pradas.  The sense of drama and difficulty I mentioned in my last post were not lost but I was not tipped over into despair, I did not shatter or snatch buy. At Prada, the last pair of black shoes, 50% off, were waiting for me, as were some chestnut brown slacks, stretchy and huggy – just as I like.

The Sales are like life only more so. You must have a plan, you must identify the holes in your wardrobe, you must invest for the future (this I admit I have not done: come the summer, I’m going to be up a gum tree with nothing to wear), you must think what will freshen and revive the wardrobe as a whole. Just a few new pieces can inject new life. But you must be ready at a minute’s notice to veer violently off course, to snatch some totally unexpected opportunity from the rack.  Above all, as I said in my last post, you must struggle for your purchases, they must not come easily. It must be a difficult birth, otherwise you will not love your babelet.  Now this January I offer you this new gift of spirituality at the sales, of calm, alert suspension, in the fray, suffering, yet at peace, driven yet removed, of this world, yet not of this world.

Do try to achieve this yourself.

I had not expected to buy a champagne cardy, but at The Library they’d got Fabrizio del Carlo back in. Not seen for years. Fabulous, rare, rare designer of stretchy knitwear – the summer tops! Already it has proved useful, an excellent contrast garment, adaptable, suitable for a small dinner. I’ve worn it to three in a week. At Selfridges, I had expected a white shirt by Jil Sander. They had a goodly selection, much of which had been sabotaged by someone with a marker pen. Prada, Balenciaga and Jil Sander do marvellous shirts, well-worth the money if they’re half price. I ended up with one by Jil Sander but in a colour described as ‘opal’, an extraordinary, mysterious, tiny lavender tinge. Finally at Martin Margiela I bagged some moleskin trousers in honey beige, washable, adaptable to both formal and casual. The assistant said: ‘Have you many more shops to visit?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘that’s it. I’m going home.’

Well, it wasn’t quite. Later I nipped out to Sefton and bought a white shirt by Raf Simons with fabulous navy flashings (‘Very architectural,’ Bruce MacBain, my personal architect said).

There’s where the trouble started and the entire Harris Tweed saga began to unfold.  But, first, before taking you on that terrifying roller-coaster, tomorrow I’m going to impart my pearls of wisdom re: the London frock scene – the look, the shops, the designers.

Interesting Carpet Treatment at Prada, Sloane Street

A Cluck at Martin Margiela, Not Bought by Me

Black Shoes from Prada Down by 50%

Champagne Cardy by Fabrizio del Carlo at The Library in Dishcloth Knit

Honey-beige Moleskin Slacks by Martin Margiela - Washable, Adaptable, Designer

'Architectural' White Shirt with Navy Flashings by Raf Simons

'Opal' Shirt by Jil Sander - Tiny Lavender Tinge

Friday 7^th January 2011

I’ll tell you what I’ve bought later. New frockage. There’s been a bit of a tragedy re: Harris Tweed at Topshop, otherwise success: a freshening of the wardrobe from the injection of a few new pieces, just a very few, really only one or two, or perhaps…

I’ve also bought something else. Some utter folly. Not in a sale. I don’t know that I’ll be able to bring myself to tell you about it. It moves and is black.

For thirty-five years, since arriving in London at the age of 18, I’ve hacked at the sales face. In those days they used to start mid-January. I’d be there, first in the queue at Browns, South Molton Street, for the Saturday opening. I had the Wendy Dagworthy black overcoat with the velvet collar, the tiny, tiny Paul Howie heather-mixture suit with the turquoise lining. They were at the bottom of Long Acre in fact. That was very late sale and only £40, 70% slash if I remember correctly. I wore it to the private couture show at St Laurent in Paris in February 1979.  Much gawping by emaciated French horror ladies.

You won’t believe it but this year, pre-sales, I thought: Has the time come to buy full price? But then I saw a superb little summer suit in the new collection at Prada – grey with a gorgeous sheen, lovely grain in the fabric: £1600.

Absolutely unthinkable. I could spend that and buy nothing else. Some people would. But no, there’s just got to be sconti (that’s the Italian for discount).

I’ve always homed straight in, without a glance at the price tags, on the most expensive thing in the shop. From my very first entrance into one – think of that, there must have been a first time – that’s what I’ve done.  But never bought it, never.

When I was young  – don’t try to follow my logic – I used to worry that contemporaries would get rich and suddenly axe me to the ground with their cast-iron chic. As a student I had certain advantages, just that teeny bit more money owing to certain funds. Once the others started working, I was sure they would overtake. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not claiming to have been faultlessly frocked. Anyway, I was wrong. Some were established in frockage from university days or before – Robert Nevil, Eddie Sedgewick. Others later got rich but their frockage altered little. Have you noticed, is it right? –  people are really dressed much the same all their lives, unless they become Royalty or First Lady when usually there’s someone else working them behind the scenes.

Where am I drifting?  Is it something about people not changing much, and money acquired during life not changing them, not fundamentally. A tendency to frockage will be apparent in a teenager regardless of funds. Those destined to rout out designer goods will do so from adolescence. Which brings me back to the Sales and why I go on with them, now when it’s not strictly necessary.

Oh to have 60 million! Lord Arrowby, my part-time love interest, is always complaining that I talk too much about money. The lottery!

But it wouldn’t do. It would be deadly. You’d end up like Robin Smallmeal, loathed Poor Little Rich Gay and Head of Landfill in this country or whatever (although only on about £400,000 a year), deadened by money, condemned to soulless spending, goods heaping up on the counter while the Bentley waits at the curb, only twenty minutes allotted to the task. Massivebury Manor Mansion itself was acquired in such a way. You can always throw it away and get another one. Which is what he did. Massivebury will be tipped into a landfill pit, unless we can save it.

No, there must be drama in the acquisition of goods, a sense of by the skin of the teeth, of a miracle, as when that gorgeous petrol-sheen Prada coat (only Red though) appeared from nowhere in last year’s sale. I’d been down the rack inch by inch and it wasn’t there before.

I always home in on the most expensive thing in the shop. But I never buy it. I wait – until it has been reduced.