Nothing says 'tis the season like boozing it up with Kate Moss. Photo by Dave M. Benett/Getty Images for Rimmel
Merry, Merry, Ho, Oh…
I am loathe to open with the line ‘It’s that time of year’ and yet I can’t help dragging it out when surmising London in December. Just as the sun will rise and the credit ratings of European nations will fall, we find ourselves on a seasonal binge that would otherwise have us locked up at the Priory during the lesser 48 weeks of the year faster than you can say “My name is Lucy and I am an…”
For me, it officially starts at the British Fashion Awards in early December when the great, the good and the paid-for-from-LA come together to air kiss at that great British institution, The Savoy. Two Kates, a Sam and a Victoria didn’t disappoint the banks of otherwise bored papps and without sounding like I have swallowed the press release, it did feel like London’s rebellious heart, while not exactly swinging, was definitely beating to a rhythm of indignant Brit cool. Whether this was down to a genuine admiration of our home grown talent, or the multiple glasses of champagne I drank on a stomach of mixed leaves (this is a fashion event, lest we forget) is still TBD, but it was a fitting start to celebrate a time of year that is impossible to ignore. From the Mayfair hedge funders invading the Arts Club, to the Euros sweating it out in Bijoux, December, like a Russian model during Fashion Week, will eventually have her way with us all.
Cannes, last winter. Less glitter, more snow. Photo credit: Sean Bernard, http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanbarnard/4350088751/
A Tale of Two Towns
I wake up at 6am on a dark and freezing London morning and by 1pm I am greedily tucking into steak tartare on the sunny French Riviera. I am in Cannes and I’m amazed at two things: first that I am here at all (who on earth comes to Cannes in December?) and second at the palpable difference of today versus those 10 heady days in May when this town is transformed into Hollywood’s paid holiday to the South of France.
This afternoon, I watched elegant old people drift slowly along a deserted sea front where mnths earlier, perspiring young publicists clutching clip boards run. Being here without the hoopla reminds me of the line “you are who you are when no one is watching”. So this is Cannes when the glitterati has turned its back; it reminds me a little of Brighton, only the piers here are lined with super yachts and the rocks on display sure ain’t candy.
The last time I was here was during the Festival, when I managed to get stuck in a hotel lift as I was making my way between a Rapper’s blinging rooftop pool party to clink Cristal in crystal at a civilised soiree on a Tycoon’s yacht. I didn’t quite make it to the latter, thanks to the lift’s overload of industry peeps: an overweight film director and a bejewelled movie star and her nervous entourage. Sort of like Gilligan’s Island, only without the skipper and a wobbly South Pacific set.
The lift scene was a surreal 30 minutes during which a powerful, yet claustrophobic LA talent agent quietly wept, the movie star lost all composure and screeched into her Blackberry, the director complained of a heart condition and I distracted myself from all out panic by trying to calculate if the oxygen levels would deplete at a faster rate due to the size of the egos confined in such a small space.
Eventually we were freed and spilled out to a bemused lobby of onlookers like hysterical shoppers at the opening of a Prada fire sale. Less than five minutes later I watched, with knees still trembling and in bewildered awe, as the movie star gracefully swept down the red carpet with smile fixed and without even a hint of the drama that had preceded her grand entrance. Her megawatt transformation, witnessed only by a few, is a metaphor for Cannes in May versus December and one of my favorite memories of this town.
Bondi Beach. Photo credit: Jimmy Smith, http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmysmith/58591095/
Winter escapes
The Swiss boyfriend and I are swapping the northern hemisphere’s economic and climatic gloom for Sydney this Christmas. I bought him Bill Bryson’s book to prep him for his first foray down under. It opens with an impressive list of native animals that will kill you before you’ve exited customs. The boyfriend’s from Geneva so the scariest wildlife he’s ever encountered is a cuckoo clock with an attitude.
I, however, am far more fearful of the toned and bronzed Aussie bikini bodies stretching across Bondi, so I’ve decided to buck the trend and do a last minute diet and detox in a desperate attempt to squeeze into my Eres bikini. So far I am hating it. Turkey without the trimmings is just a lump of dry protein and vodka soda is no match to a large glass of red by an open fire. Did I say vodka and detox? Well now, let’s not get carried away, it is that time of year after all…
