LUCY IN MY SKIES...

Lily Allen is giving up pop to open a vintage shop called Lucy in Disguise with her sister!! I knew opening a vintage shop was, like, the coolest think you ever could do. I just knew it.

Lily told Style.com: “The thing I love about vintage is that it’s all incredibly well made, like Chanel—it lasts forever. Hopefully, Lucy in Disguise will be an education as well, teaching customers there’s something other than mass-produced rubbish.”

I'm so going to write Lily a letter inviting her to come and check out my newly acquired 1940s draped taffeta bourgeoisie dress.

Museworthy: Kirsten Dunst, 1982-

GIRL CRUSH!!! Kirsten Dunst is clearly the cutest, chicest thing I can think of to inspire this week's fashion dreams. I've had this kiss-blowing picture of her from Lula magazine on my desk top to inspire the make-up for a shoot I've been working on. Plus a shot of her from Marie Antionette to keep me thinking sorbet colours for next summer's collection.

And then, whaddya know?, I'm scanning The Daily Beast trying to keep up with Obama and Toyota when I get distracted (well it is late, and I did just eat a giant risotto and sometimes a girl needs a bit of dross stop her falling asleep). So, yep, I'm distracted from the political news not by "Bob Dylan's Port-O-potty Problem" (TOP STORY!! Shame on you, Beast) but by Kirsten's Turning Japanese video clip. Is she releasing this as a record? I hope so. I'd buy it, wouldn't you. Harijuku Kirsten, you are the bomb.

Museworthy: Charlotte Rampling, 1946-

You know how sometimes you wake up and feel like eschewing makeup entirely, embracing your inner hippie, and going au naturelle but then you look in the mirror and realise you could freak out children you pass in the street if you don't cover up those eyebags and wack some Greatlash on to open up those poor little peepers (little being the operative word...small; they're practically non-existent)?

Well, I don't reckon Charlotte Rampling ever feels that way. Because Charlotte Rampling - fashion muse, mate of Juergen Teller and the deliciously sultry actress who starred in such cult movies as Georgy Girl, The Damned and The Night Porter (often sans clothes - ironic, no, for a fashion fan?), is not normal.

Charlotte is fabulous. Even without her make-up.

UNFASHIONABLY LATE

So why is it that sometimes, however chic your shoes, however beautifully pressed your new silk blouse, however perfectly placed your favourite Tom Binns neckpiece, you still screw up and waste your day like someone dressed in pyjamas and a shower cap?

Despite my very best intentions, sometimes I do find myself in the sorts of situations you couldn't make up. My friend Fernando calls me "Help!" Maybe I am Bridget Jones after all? I am English...But I don't smoke and I'm not single, I don't care how many calories I ingested over dinner last night. And yet. I'm still, deep down, the sort of person who would serve blue soup at a dinner party. No matter how many years I spent at Vogue.

As a student, I once got stuck atop of spiky metal gate trying to escape from a temp job after hours. A bunch of us had trouped out of the front door, heard the latch click behind us, then found that monstrous front gate locked and the street - our escape - denied to us.

One by one my friends scaled and jumped the gate, landed on their feet and walked to freedom. Not me. No. I went last, got stage fright and got stuck up there, skirt around my waist, Christmas knickers exposed for all to see, until the caretaker came and OPENED THE GATE. Sent me and my xmas undies swinging to the general hilarity of the crowd that had gathered to giggle.

Some things never change.

Today is a very busy day. Sue Miller says it's MY MOST IMPORTANT CAREER DAY IN 12 YEARS. I have shit to do. So why, oh why, oh why did I leave my house keys in my car and not notice when my husband locked our back and front doors as he left this morning? I am in a prisoner in my own home. I am very late. I am cross. Bridget lives again. Going to cook some blue soup.

SAD...

Oh no oh no oh no oh no. Too sad about Alexander McQueen. He was a magician. We will miss him.

Museworthy - Violet Trefusus, 1894 - 1972

I'm having a Violet Trefusis moment. For a change. I know, I know, I'm always wishing I were Violet, at least in the mad, bad, intoxicatingly beautiful heiress sense, that is, not the wicked, philandering, lesbian sense.

Fact is I don't really want to be Violet, unhappily hitched as she was to a man she didn't love and trying to stifle a raging passion for a woman she could never have. No, I think I'll pass on all that. But her clothes, yes please.

I'm a 20s type if it's possible to be such a thing - a fan of drop waists and bugle beads and cloches and peacock feathers. Yes, I love the sleeveless silk shifts and the ruffled flapper dresses with their straight-up-and-down silhouettes (a pox on corsets!) that were all the rage in Violet's time. I love the boldly raised hemlines that spoke of liberation. And I love the decadent flavour that pervaded the era when Violet and her lover Vita Sackville-West thought, We're doing exactly what we want to do, and no-one can stop us!

Oh, and I totally love that Violet had her priorities right - shop first, worry later. Her most famous quote: "I don't like museums; there's nothing to buy." Atta girl Trefusis! I'm dressing Violet all this week.

WE HEART ANNABELLA

Here she is looking ethereal and divine in a Mrs. Press bustier, Raquel Allegra twinset and wild Grandiflora flower glasses in the new issue of Harper's Bazaar. While we're on the subject, we love Michelle Jank, who styled this treat, too. THANK YOU MJ, ANNA AND BAZAAR. XXX

Who's Your Daddy?

Sometimes I reckon books are better than friends. They've never gone out to a nightclub and left their phone behind when you're feeling crap and want some cheering up. They never plagiarize your top secret unpublished novel (yes, it happened to me; never trust a woman who makes aprons in her downtime), and when you're sick of one, you can move onto another without feeling guilty.

That's what I did last night. I'd been wading through an impenetrable biography of Jean Cocteau - two pages a night, then zzzzz...it's all over. So I picked up a 1989 copy of Danielle Steel's Daddy I once bought as a prop for a shoot and hey presto - wide awake! Couldn't put it down. Danielle Steel rocks. Vivienne Westwood knows it; that wild fuchsia opera coat knows it...hands up who wants to join my Danielle Steel book club?
Cocteau fans need not apply.

Chictionary

F’row word of the week

Real People (reel peepul) n. (half strength) derog. Okay, so it’s actually a phrase not a word, but a valid one, as you shall see. The term is used by magazine girls to refer to the non-models who occasionally turn up in shoots called things like “Chic at Any Age!” and “Chic for the Office!”

Real People are especially useful in fashion’s dud months (i.e. Jan/Feb and July issues) when everyone’s seen the looks of the season shot on Lara Stone and is yearning for a fresh idea. That the very existence of the concept of Real People suggests that models are unreal/fake people/chimaera doesn’t seem to worry the fashionista – perhaps the fact that ex-models can become Real People when they get old is reassuring.

So who’s keeping it real? Not just any old people, clearly. Frazzled working mums, Supré fans, students and people with regular-sounding jobs (accountants, chemists, charity workers, teachers etc.) need not apply. Not that it’s up to you to apply. The editors do the choosing – a (real) girl can but hope.

You have a reasonable chance of being selected to represent reality on the pages of a glossy magazine if: you look almost like a model in clothes and are a fashion PR; you look almost like a model in clothes and are a big spender at Belinda; you look almost like a model in clothes and present a slightly off the radar TV/radio/music video show; you look exactly like a model and intern in the Vogue office.

Young and pretty artists, film directors, architects and dancers will also be considered as long as they haven’t made the big time yet – serious fame renders one unreal. But don’t stress of this charge is leveled at you…come the March issue, it’ll be back to the fake people. Where there’s life, there’s hope…

In conversation. Hints and tips for daily use:
It’s the Feb issue production meeting at Runway magazine. The troops are bored and have been banned from shooting Balenciaga till next season.

Fashionista 1 says: “How about we do a Spring Clean Your Wardrobe! story, and shoot it on some Real People?”
Fashionista 2 says: “Great! How about Nicole Trunfio?
The Editor says: “Sorry girls but Nicole is a model. Who else you got?”
Fashionista 1 says: “Skye Stracke?”
The editor says: “She’s a model…”
Fashionista 2 says: “I’ve got it! Steph Carta!”
The editor: “I give up. Let’s do a Models Off Duty! story.”
Fashionista 1 says: “O.M.G! Unreal idea!”