Perfect mothers, everywhere

Victoire de Castellane, the creative force behind Dior jewellery and watches, is a genius

Are you familiar with that point when everyone around you is suddenly united piously under a common cause of dealing with the problem that is you?

Packing for a weekend trip requires some thought, so going away for a month is a logistical minefield

I always feel a little inferior around glamorous French women

Jeans shopping is an odyssey of transformation, illusion and shame

As tradition dictates a glamorous crowd descended the stairs of Annabel’s yet again to attend Charles’ pre-Bafta dinner on Saturday night

It won’t be easy but nothing worthwhile ever is says Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis

I don’t ski on principle – very hazardous business skiing, and potentially a bit too hearty for my liking

If she says she wants something special for Valentines, you know just what to get

Who says fashion doesn’t make sense?

Escaping to Rome for a couple of days was the best thing I could do. Although it rained most of the time, there were some spurts of sunshine each day. I welcomed these with open arms as frankly London weather has been making me contemplate immigrating to New Caledonia (how’s that for an unusual plan?). [...]

At Tod’s we saw a smashing array of Tod’s fair, as one might expect

The significant matter of the week was of course the shows and clothes

I got excited as soon as I watched the girl lay out her priestly cornucopia of implements and pots

As we know, political power comes with significant responsibility

I found that I was seated in the front row, seat A 4 if you must know

If you want to treat yourself to fabulous hair then take note: there is no one better than David

Bread has always been a symbol of transformation

Just shot a video for the next big thing in French Rocka Billy

It’s tough being back in London. For starters it’s freezing and the general mood is less than chirpie.  How on earth would it be? I, for one, am mourning being back in the real world. I pretty much jumped straight from my board into the car and headed for the airport. I was desperately trying [...]

Have a wonderful Christmas my dears and see you all in 2010 xx

Rummaging around in the further recesses of my memory I seem to recall a snatch of erudition that was not overwritten in the palimpsest of my mind or obliterated by the unhealthy appetite for refreshment that characterised my years in the grove of academe.

Rifle Paper Co. is our recommendation for stunning stationery

Writing of Seychelles, Somerset Maugham once mused,“Sometimes man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously belongs.”

Watches are inherently masculine

My mourning for this beautiful piece of Parisian silk has also conspired to have me neglect my blogging duties

Tach Christmas drinks

Modine said he wished to approach NASA to hop a ride or an architect like Lord Rogers to build a seemless skyramp

Yes, upon the tumbler glows that urbane icon of sexual promise: the lippy mark

In need of an endurance test? Just take a ride on London’s Underground during rush hour. The sheer quantity and desperation of people shoving and pushing along the platform and into crowded compartments is anger management advanced level. Add the smell, the heat and the discomfort experienced on the tube and you are left damn [...]

Grazia is out today. Go and buy a copy. Or we’ll send the twins round

Yes that is right; both Tom Stubbs and myself were awarded best dressed man

Carpe Diem I tell you! After all we are not getting any younger

Without context how can one conform, rebel, juxtapose, blend or make statements effectively?

In Europe I deplore the wearing of suits without ties but I countenance it when wintering between Cancer and Capricorn

For most Brits, a massage is an outrageous and rebellious act of shame-laced luxury

First of I would like to sincerely apologise for my tardiness. Last week passed me by as quickly as a gust of wind. I barely had time to write two little pieces to fill my page in our Finch’s Quarterly Christmas issue when – puff – I was sitting in a plane on my way [...]

his was a night where the collective spirit of the group gathered was more about the cause than the cocktails being consumed

Gloves are most potent when abandoned prone and partnerless on the floor

Bovey’s motto is “do as much or as little as you want”

The Clockwork Orange décor and freakiness is epitomised while standing on the tiny little terrace made entirely out of plexiglass.

This Museum reminded me just how cool Jack looked; he had the lot, youth, money, power, girls, movie star looks and suits so sharp and accurate that you could set your watch by them

The bed was so incredibly comfortable I literally sank into the mattress not to resurface for 8 hours, which when one is still fighting jet lag is a welcome gift.

It is the fuel of warriors, not moppets, and it should excuse not indulge your tastebuds, presenting unpretentious sustenance in an ancient mouthmound of gelatinous goo

Well, I actually found the idea of never getting round to eating pizza at a pizza place quite comical

Shoreditch House might have a “no suits” policy, but Finch’s Quarterly ensured that Savile Row was well represented at Pizza East’s baptism (of wood-fire, I should think).

The East End has moved on since the days of Limehouse opium dens and Lascars and it might surprise you to know that I once considered moving there about twenty years ago

I’d like to shoot fashion shoots that way but the budgets barely cover the confectionary rider, let alone cranes.

Adopt a sympathetic disposition and you could leave with a pair of silk pyjamas

When Kate Moss arrived there was a big commotion as queen bee deserves upon buzzing into her sticky hive.

So much carpe dium crap is written about remembering how to live; too little about remembering how to remember

My hairdresser David Mallett turned my never-endingly long goldilocks mane into a mad Barbie blonde Nastassja Kinski Paris Texas bob

There can be no doubt that during the next election the voice of FQR will prove crucial in determining the future political course of this country

I spent August sitting at home in London, joining many in this year’s cult experience of a ‘staycation’ – aka ‘too broke to travel’.

Leather smocks, jerkins, fibre optic skirts and Lycra speak nothing to me about my life. Nor those poor lads by the looks on their sullen faces

One felt very much yesterday’s man about town amongst the Nouveau Goths, tribute Blitz kids and piercing merchants

Neither is an elegant solution – after all I could hardly cycle in a dark suit on a Sunday and while practical the shower cap hardly cuts the dash that my vanity demands of me

FQR’s founder and owner receives a pen from Mr Arnaud Bamberger

The thing one learns pretty quickly when they land in Sin City is that where ever you go, the party is never far away

We had a little Blackberry versus Iphone debate where he told me quite a funny story regarding David Hockney’s fable for making daily Iphone drawings and sending them out to all his Iphone friends.

The Jacket makes me the woman I want to be, now I am truly no longer a girl: totally comfortable, just pulled together enough, and shimmering a little, like the softly smoggy sky

Being a crashing snob, I felt a little guilty that I voted against Andrew’s spirited and ingenious defence of snobbery, as a powerful force for good

Henceforth we began abseiling from the castle tower everyday.

Wei is a publishing tycoon in Singapore, the local panjandarum of taste and, as far as I can tell, he is about the closest thing that Asia has to James Bond

Needless to say, the last men standing were of course the fashion crew. Despite our rep we’re actually made of stern stuff.

From the first breath, as soon as the plane door opens, the delicious smell of sea air and humidity infuses my body with a sense of true vacation

Legions of women have embraced musks and leathers, ambers and woods, in the hope that a bitch-on-heat-rubbing-her-civet-sac-up-against-a-cedar-while-smoking-a-pipe bouquet will mark her out as queen of the jungle

I love the fact that time means nothing there, as annoying as it can be when you are waiting for your driver to take you to the airport

Bloody photographers. He’ll be wanting paying next.

I’ve managed to borrow a rather spectacular 15th Century family seat, replete with moat, drawbridge, Lord, Lady, highland cattle, butler and maze

What I am after is a short sleeved shirt with a bit of Graham Greene or Somerset Maugham about it: a shirt for cigar smoking and blazer wearing rather than one for sitting on a horse and playing high speed games with mallet and ball

I’m British, God damn it. I’ve spent years giving my entire body a hard time. Why should teeth be excused?

Marbella is the best. How do I know? I just know.

Maybe the perfectly imperfect is what makes London so perfect.

Guide and fisherman can develop long term friendships.

The smallest of these vocally loquitious ladies, is the size of a wee blue whale so Christ knows what her curse would be like….

I suppose it is all about instantaneous communication rather than lengthy disquisitions about man’s place in the cosmos or, rather more importantly, the correct depth of a turnup – I waver between 1 ¾ and 1 15/16ths of an inch

In fact it is quite unusual coming home and not finding an entire camera crew, a journalist or even a biographer following her around.

I have entered what I believe is called the blogosphere

Charles Finch has his first angry editorial rant on FQR

What started as a formal meeting between Michael Jackson and a couple of Princesses and a Prince ended up as a real friendship between us kids and an introverted musical genius there after

In the half-hour windows between nights spent marinating in whisky sours in dank Lower East Side bars, the only thing I was capable of reading were the instructions on the back of the blister plaster pack

After being featured in The London Paper this week, FQR’s travel editor gives the scoop on her media-savvy dog’s high-flying London life

Alf has travelled extensively since he was acquired for £60 from a council estate in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, at 4 months old. He had stayed in castles in Scotland, the presidential suite of the Four Seasons in [...]

Bishops and drag queens, castles and cramped stinky flats, strict schools and crazy parties, – from an early age I have been exposed to the seemingly opposing.

The South of France has it all: the light, the views, the climate, the scent and, above all, the “je ne sais quoi”

Familiarity breeds comfort, but also contempt. To get that perfect knicker hit, you need to go new

Obviously there is still good art and bad art but in the end its all about being there, seeing it all, and absorbing it like a paintbrush.

In Venice you can fall in love with a lamp post

Stephane Feugere captures the sunset and guests getting snappy at the FQR dinner at Hotel du Cap

Never say ‘don’t you know who I am?’ You’re nobody – no, Charles, not even you.

Even in a ‘quiet’ year, there’s plenty of light, cameras and action in Cannes

It was probably the most dramatic and silkily seductive spirit that has entered my mouth for many years

Bank holiday. The words themselves jostle in an uncomfortable pairing, reminiscent of the last scene of Mary Poppins

My lord, if I could find a way to bottle time I would be the richest person on the planet.

Did I avoid the bridge and tunnel crowd in New York only to be poisoned by one of them in Northern Italy?

In many ways Lourdes is an upside down land where the sick are the important, the disabled are the pampered and a wheelchair is as valuable as an “All Access” pass at any rock concert.

At the risk of being escorted to the border and having my passport cancelled I am going profess that I have never found London a romantic city.

Of much more interest to my sister and I was the fact that Leonardo di Caprio was staying in the room next to ours.

My confusion is hardly surprising since London is probably as famous for its bad weather as it is for Buckingham Palace but the sun does shine on occasion.

Having failed to engineer the scenario in which I owned the ones wrapped round the rock hard waist of Jesus Luz as he padded muss-haired and pink-cheeked from the enseamed sweat of my super-king to brew me a good dark Nicaraguan, T K Maxx’s cut-price 450 thread count Egyptian cotton seemed a reasonable compromise.

The older I get the crazier my family seems to become, or maybe it is just more apparent to me today and we have always been barking mad.

If all this sounds incredibly petty to you, ask yourself isn’t bribery almost as persuasive as flattery?

If Italy broke away from the rest of the world there wouldn’t be much it would miss, says FQR’s travel editor Kate Lenahan.

This is a savoury, sloppy, primal mouthful of embryo that makes you realise life may be nothing but a blossoming of creamy goo, but by God, life tastes good.

The inside and the outside of the balloons were filled with trippy projections, laser shows and steaming smoke.

By nature I am a bit of a dizzy girl and the thick fog of smoke and the fried air made my head turn in a very unpleasant manner.

The problem is that tactile covers, except for the odd holiday read, invariably clothe the worst books.

Hotels, as they say about many things, come and go but The Ritz in London continues to be one of the world’s most highly regarded hotels.

It’s the process that messes up my squeaky-clean-tripping-fairytale-imagination

The kicks and thrills and wild raves atop Volcanoes in Balinese forests are replaced by overworked zoning – out in front of the TV.

Phillips de Pury & Company Presents Ai Weiwei Four Movements

Charles Finch reports on the Oscars

Truly excellent specs should shout uncool, remain resolutely unruly, refuse to kowtow to such petty concerns as social acceptance, attractiveness or style

FQR’s travel editor Kate Lenahan extols the virtues of LA service and gives us her pick of place to stay

If, like me, you believe that elegance and practicality are rarely compatible then Paris is your ultimate luxury.

FQR’s party spy has been there from the start – offering a snapshot of the party as it evolved over the years

I shrivel at the thought of a Valentine’s card or worse even a rose.

FQR’s travel guru Kate Lenahan survives treacherous temperatures and adverse exchange rates in New York

This is tea as catalyst rather than comfort, stimulant rather than snug, bursting through the lugubrious dishwater gloom like a flash of Dior Spring ‘09 couture.

In fact Fuckface was only one of many disturbing pieces of contemporary art scattered around our place.

Call it a complex but I am a Closet Princess. Is this my coming out?

I’ll be honest – I hadn’t actually heard of Charles Finch (gasp) so I did what any intelligent, resourceful young gal in my situation would do …

Guided by the gracious Chris Blackwell, FQR’s Travel Editor Kate Lenahan chills out in Jamaica with a rum punch in hand.

Your life is a masterwork of mundanity, and it deserves to be embellished and bound like the quotidian gospel it is

Oh, God. Christmas. All we need is love, right?

The first course of any good brunch must be humble pie.

Obsession has long been one of the hallmarks of artistic authenticity.

Whilst private members clubs are fantastic as a refuge in the city without having to spend a fortune, they are little use to those who are not members.

We have entered a truly fallen Fall.

English vineyards have been the butt of jokes from the rest of the wine world…

Charles Finch introduces Finch’s Quarterly Review on a private jet with some helpful contributions from the passengers.

If there’s one phrase we Westeners cling to as our civilization slides down the Olympic-sized slalom course to hell, it’s freedom of speech.

No, you sweetly predictable thing. It’s not a Montblanc.

Star of Full Metal Jacket, Matthew Modine, launches his new scheme, Bicycle For a Day, this weekend in New York.

The drone of the road, a cooling stickiness behind the knees, and the acerbic savour of sweat: this is summer in the city, alone, with a glass.

The 65th Venice Film festival started today with tonight’s premiere of The Coen Brothers’ new movie ‘Burn after Reading’ opening the proceedings in the elegant Sala Grande of the Palzzo del Cinema. Not one to avoid the cameras George Clooney arrived in Venice, down the Grand Canal, by speedboat to join his fellow cast members [...]

The high-pitched sound of a mobile phone alarm, with rapidly increasing noise levels, is not under any circumstances a pleasure.

 
Walking down Savile Row each day on the way to the office can be quite a depressing experience. In (most of) the windows there are suits, shirts, shoes and shavers that, one day, I hope to be able to actually purchase as opposed to simply walking past admiringly.

I write this lying by the rooftop pool at the historic Grand Bretagne hotel, overlooking the Acropolis, in Athens… with the Spice Girls ’shake it to the left’ unfortunately blasting from the unsubtle speakers positioned in the surrounding flower beds.

I am sitting in Da Nino, Rome – my favorite restaurant in the eternal city where twenty years ago I lived for three years making my ill fated Directorial debut ‘Priceless Beauty’.

See who was at the Gorbachev Lunch

See what happened at the Cannes Party

View the Pre-BAFTA slideshow

Introducing the FQR team…

Finch’s Quarterly’s Chief Executive, Charles Finch, welcomes you…

If you enjoyed reading this, we recommend:

Turnbull & Asser- Gentleman’s Outfitters of Distinction
Travels with My Valentine IV
Travels with My Valentine III
Travels with My Valentine II
Travels with my Valentine

Finch’s Quarterly Review was officially launched on Wednesday night in the wonderful and sunny surroundings of the garden at the Ritz London.

If you enjoyed reading this, we recommend:

Welcome to Finch’s Quarterly
Turnbull & Asser- Gentleman’s Outfitters of Distinction
Travels with My Valentine IV
Travels with My Valentine III
Travels with My Valentine II

The Finch’s Quarterly Review Launch Party. Wednesday July 2 2008.
The flowers have been delivered, the newspapers have arrived and the large umbrellas are being put in place.