Another book

Tomorrow I am going here for a week or maybe two to get on with writing another novel. As I no longer have clothes at the forefront of my attention, posts to the Thoughtful Dresser will become less frequent, I'm afraid, though I have managed to talk Harry into making a reappearance, and he says he has several ideas for posts lined up, including a Christmas purchase of a handbag, though not for himself (or me.)

The week ahead

We're coming up to publication of The Thoughtful Dresser which you can order from Amazon (see side panel) or if you're abroad, with free delivery worldwide from The Book Depository.

There will be an extract in the Guardian to which I'll give you the heads up once they've confirmed the day. On Wednesday, the book's chief interview will be appearing on Woman's Hour. Catherine Hill was seventeen when she was transported to Auschwitz with her parents who did not survive. She arrived in Canada as a refugee after the war and from the sixties built a career as the fashion maven of Toronto, famous for her Yorkville shop, Chez Catherine. She'll be appearing with me at an event in London at Jewish Book Week chaired by Linda Kelsley, a former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, (everyone welcome, even practising Wiccans). On Saturday I'll be at the Bath Festival taking about The Clothes On Their Backs. And there will be a second extract in the Guardian magazine.

The following Monday, March 2, I'll be on Start the Week and later that evening, Nightwaves. And sometime in the next few days you should actually be able to get the book.

Between the covers

The book of The Thoughtful Dresser will be published in two weeks. You can order it from Amazon (see side panel). The US edition will not appear for another year, I'm afraid, but if you're keen you can place international orders with The Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide. They have fulfilment centres globally and it's the best way to buy outside the UK. Click the link here to pre-order.

New blog

I've added to the blog role Juliet Warkentin's blog. A former editor of Marie Claire, she is the content director at WSGN, the fashion industry trend forecasting site originally established by Marc Worth and his brother. The WSGN site is subscription only but Juliet has contacted me to let me know about the site's blog, which is full of useful information.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

North London goes for a minimalist palette

UPDATE
This is so exciting. The most snow we have had for 18 years in London and it is still snowing. There are no buses and not much underground service either, and our London parks are full of people tobogganing.

This evening there will be an all-comers snowball fight in Trafalgar Square

In Regent's Park

Several things

NPR's All Things Considered had a rather good review of The Clothes on Their Backs, yesterday afternoon. It's only a couple of minutes, you can listen online

In the US Scribner will be publishing The Thoughtful Dresser, (the book) but not until next year, so if you are in the US and can't wait, you can order from UK amazon (see link at the side) or The Book Depository which offers free shipping but for some reason does not allow pre-orders (the £ by the way is pitifully low against the $ at the moment, around 1.42, so I'd doubt if you would save anything by waiting).

I will be doing an event at Jewish Book Week on The Thoughtful Dresser (the book, see side panel) in the company of the book's main interviewee, Catherine Hill, who survived Auschwitz to become the doyenne of Toronto fashion. She is coming over to London specially for this event, which will be chaired by Linda Kelsey, former editor of Cosmpolitan. You don't have to be Jewish to attend and it would be very nice to meet some of the regular readers in person. The event is at 7pm on Thursday 26 February. Tickets are £8 and you can book here

Important advice on how to be in style now

Among other tips the Observer advises:

3 Do nude nails

You know how the old adage goes: when the It bag is bright, the nails must be light-er, pink. (Yes, we totally made that up just now.)

4 Read the Thoughtful Dresser

Hurrah for the extremely clever Linda Grant's latest book on fashion - a collection of essays and notions and fashion-related stories. It's not out till March, but why not pre-order at Amazon?

5 Buy a chunky necklace

The more noise they make - and the harder it is for you to stand fully erect while wearing them - the better.

Yes, why not?

The US edition will be published by Scribner, by the way, no date yet.

How to tie a sarong

In 1963 Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr and John Houston came to Mismaloya to make Night of the Iguana. Then, Mismaloya was a little cove on the Bay of Banderas half an hour's drive from Puerto Vallarta. Today millionaires' mansions climb up the hill and there are various shacks on the public beach where they'll grill you a red snapper but the pueblo of Mismaloya is still a dirt road.

We were in one of those millionaire's mansions, near the top of the hill with vast shimmering views of the bay, lumbering v formations of pelicans, schools of whales spouting, humming birds, butterflies, frigate birds gliding in the thermals. Life consisted of getting up to the sound of the er servants making us breakfast, wandering down to the beach in the company of mainly Mexican families and observing the numerous ways in which it is possible to tie a sarong, for example, making a halter neck dress out of it. We drank the tequila production of Mexico dry. We spent New Year's Eve in the pool, watching the fireworks like a jewelled chain exploding along the line of the bay and then went down to the hot tub for tequila shots.

Now, blearily I confront the bitter cold of this London Arctic winter. Normal service resumes. Sullenly.

Donde es los pelicanos?

How come I am not here any more?

More tomorrow.

British Design Awards

Check out the fashion shortlist here

More to be added, I believe.

Adios amigos

The Thoughtful Dresser decamps tomorrow first to Washington DC, then to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where I will be obliged to spend many hours in our villa, lying by the infinity edge pool and having delicious meals prepared by the chef. I will not be taking my laptop.

The collapse of Lehman Bros in September forced upon us this act of economic compassion. Personally, I would rather have stayed at home, but rental villas were lying empty, so what could we do? We must save the world economy.

See you in January.

Various items

I spent yesterday at the hospital with 'Harry', Will and Kelly. Please be patient, there will be more to report.

I am very pleased to have it pointed out to me that Helen Mirren is now so exasperated by the struggle to find sleeves that she's thinking of designing some herself.

"Dresses With Sleeves," is what she'd call her range. "There are no dresses with sleeves and we need to bring back the sleeve: fine, see-through ones, long or short," she says.

"There are so many wonderful things you can do with sleeves that people used to do, and then they stopped."

And bizarrely, The Thoughtful Dresser has been shortlisted in the British Design Awards in the fashion category. Er, I 'designed' this site myself.

Fashion
Helen Storey with Tony Ryan, Wonderland – biodegradable materials
Italian Vogue: A Black Issue, July 2008
Linda Grant, The Thoughtful Dresser blog
Louise Goldin, Spring/Summer 09 – Knitwear
Basso & Brooke, Spring/Summer 09
Alber Elbaz, Creative Director, Lanvin, Spring/Summer 08
Miuccia Prada and James Lima, Trembled Blossom, Fashion Film
Duckie Brown, Spring/Summer 09 – Menswear
Maison Martin Margiela, Spring/Summer 09 – 20th Anniversary Collection
Barbican Centre and Siebe Tettero, The House of Viktor & Rolf Retrospective
Prada by Miuccia Prada, Spring/Summer 09

On events of the weekend

On Saturday, in anticipation of Harry's homecoming, I went to our local Oddbins to buy him his requested bottle of single malt. A man was standing behind several shelves of whiskeys and stuff and I asked him where the single malt was. Here, he said, indicated with a broad wave of his hand.

And so I found myself uncharacteristically walking in the shoes of a man confronted with a make-up counter, who looks at all the indistinguishable creams, unguents etc - and panics.

Eventually, I pointed to a bottle of Laphroaig and said, I've heard of that one. And this is why so many husbands arrive home from business trips abroad clutching a bottle of Chanel No 5.

Last night Harry told me that often he goes into Oddbins just to peruse the single malts and engage in learned discussion with the sales person about their properties. Just as you or I might linger at the Bobbi Brown counter swiping lipstick on our inner wrists.

I would like to be able to report that the troubles of Harry, Will and Kelly are now over, that they had a comfortable flight back from Mumbai and that Will is now resting in an NHS teaching hospital with the finest medical attention this country has to offer. However what I have to report instead is so shocking that I'll wait until these matters are drawn to wider attention.

If you return from a poor and chaotic city like Mumbai you might expect to feel grateful and even proud to be British. You'd be mistaken.

UPDATE at bloody last, Will is now properly settled in hospital and his ongoing care is commencing. The Mumbai Hospital did an excellent job, by all accounts and can we all give a big round of applause for Harry himself who has been under appalling stress trying to ensure his son is properly cared for.

A little more news from Mumbai

Harry's son is still in hospital and still not well enough to return to Britain.

If you are in the UK please take note of this organisation for future reference. Had we know about it this time last week things would have been considerably easier for everyone

To introduce an entirely unexpected fashion note, I'm pleased to say that a care package of small treats is being taken out by none other than Ossie Clark designer Avsh Alom Gur, who designed my Booker dress, and who is going to India tomorrow to source beading and embroidery for his next collection

Also he will be dressing me for this:

Literature continues to be an exciting category at the South Bank Show Awards with nominee Child 44, the serious crime novel by Tom Rob Smith, going up against the absorbing exploration of the notorious Road House murder case of 1860 in The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale. The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant – a beautifully detailed character study and poignant family history – is also nominated.

Post Mumbai

I am not feeling very much like writing about fashion at the moment.

To all regular readers, I'm sorry for the suspension of this site. My thoughts are absorbed with other things and as the week goes on there is a lot to do.

Mumbai Update 3

The Guardian has published the following account of Harry's son and girlfriend's ordeal in Mumbai. It is incredibly harrowing reading and even worse than I thought.

For Will Pike and his girlfriend, Kelly Doyle, a night in the Taj Mahal hotel was meant to be a treat to round off a two-week holiday in India.

Instead it ended with Will, 28, lying in a Mumbai hospital intensive care bed, his back broken in an attempt to escape the bullets and choking smoke by climbing down an improvised rope made from bedsheets, curtains and hotel towels.

They had checked in at 6pm after arriving from Goa, ventured out to the Leopold café - later to become the first place in the city to be attacked - then returned to their room intending to go down to the bar. As they got ready, the sound of explosions echoed up from the lobby: the terrorists were bursting into the hotel, throwing grenades and firing automatic weapons.

For five hours, the couple, from Camden in north London, cowered in their room, listening to the sound of approaching gunshots while the terrorists roamed the corridors, apparently firing at their fellow hostages.

read on

Mumbai update

Thanks to all readers who sent Harry their good wishes and thoughts, which he has read. The situation is as follows: his son and his son's girlfriend were on the final night of a two-week holiday in India. After a couple of weeks on the beach they decided to blow the budget on one night in a luxury hotel in Mumbai before flying out the following day. Unfortunately they chose the Taj Mahal.

After hearing gunshots in the hallway outside, they barricaded themselves in their room for seven hours until a fire on the floors above them and grenade in the next room compelled them to try to leave through a third floor window, using knotted bed linen. Unfortunately Harry's son fell and has multiple fractures. An operation on Thursday was successful but it will be a long road to recovery. Harry has now managed to get to Mumbai, arriving this morning.

On a personal level I am stunned at the minimal help offered by the Foreign Office, British Airways and his phone company (who had blocked calls to India and then said it would take 24 hours to unblock them). The practical support he has received has come through a network of friends who have been able to provide essential contacts in India, including doctors and Mumbai families.

Mumbai: alert

Thoughtful Dresser contributor Harry Fenton's son and girlfriend were staying in the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai during the ongoing terrorist attacks. His son has been seriously injured. Harry is going to Mumbai later today. Any helpful information will be gratefully received

UPDATE I had always been under the impression that if you were in this situation you rang the Foreign Office number the BBC gave out and everything kicked in, including BA sorting out your flights. As I have now discovered, you ring the number, and someone gives you another number which no-one answers. You're on your own.

UPDATE Thanks to all readers who have sent their messages to Harry which he's read and which are greatly appreciated. Things have been ironed out now and he'll be on his way to Mumbai in a few hours. We should have more to report in a day or two.

Now we are one and a quarter

While I was in Toronto, The Thoughtful Dresser celebrated its first anniversary, and some time in the small hours of this morning will mark its quarter of a millionth visitor.

To Canada

I'm off on a book tour of Canada later today. See here for details.