Coat – Boden. Sweater – Eileen Fisher. Necklace – Louis Vuitton. Bag – Coach. Trousers – Filippa K

Passport holder – Louis Vuitton. Bag – Coach. Heels – Kurt Geiger.

And just like that, the fashion month circuit is closed. The lions are cajoled back into their cages and the tents packed down into wagons; one by one, the throng dissipate into a Euro tunnel or Charles de Gaulle terminal after another, and all that’s left of the festival is a dusty, patchy field and a village-worth of Airbnb’s that need a-cleaning. The days are a touch cooler, and shorter, than when it all started. I had joined the last leg in Paris on the final three days for the two shows that I always catch, and finished the season adequately rested, sufficiently surprised and inspiration fully fueled. I can’t wait to start sharing everything I’ve worked on soon with you all. For now, the Boden coat in siren-red (a bit of Benjamin Button with the content, as usual), on my way home from Paris… attracting all manners of attention including three separate accounts of ‘you want taxi?’ men, two ‘petition for the deaf’ scammers who seemed incredibly not-deaf, and of course, the good old-fashioned drunk men demanding beer (or wine?) change.

Note to self, do not dress like gullible tourist lady with Robin Hood disposition to Gare du Nord.

Every morning for the past couple of weeks, a sliver of  crisp air has been seeping into the bedroom through the slits of our single-glazed windows and chilling the room down to a temperature in which a leftover casserole dish could safely sit in for about a week or so before being deemed inedible. Inside the duvet and out is the difference of Northern/Southern Hemispheres. This can only mean one thing: Autumn is here. And that we should probably replace the draught-prevention stickers for the windows… and we also e-mail the landlady to complain why the house is still balls-cold with the heating on. So three things.

The streets are laden with men and women of varying stages of confusion: those shuffling by in full Day After Tomorrow get-up in duffle coats and pickaxes, and then the skeptical few with a very cold-looking set of toes peeking out of yesterday’s ‘heatwave’ sandals. Alas, we are Londoners, it’s simply too impolite to the day’s general schedule to go back and change. So we charge on, trench foot galore. A general aroma (or shall I say ‘fume’) of Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL) wafts through the tube system, reminding us of the impending holiday that is distinctly not-of-British-tradition (i.e American), and the one vegetable we do not bother eating any other time of the year. A bit like how we consider turkey a dry, inferior chicken, every other time than Christmas.

Coat, Sweater, Bag, silver brogues – Coach AW15. Brogues – Hudson Shoes

Our garden has mysteriously given birth to a wagon-load of fat apples, most of which have been gnawed on by foxes or pecked out by magpies, but one day I looked out our bedroom window and thought it was a rather beautiful scene lying so closely to my highly sarcastic lifestyle, so we decided to shoot some of my favourite bits from the Coach AW15 out there.

this is a photo Diary(ish) of a twenty-something year-old taking on seven days in new york city for fashion week, one hot minute a time. watch as she steps into a puddle of trash juice and denies the whole thing happened, then does a marylin monroe over subway fart in front of a gaggle of construction workers. it’s ok, she is proud about it all.

I can never go back, can i.

Dress – 2nd DAY. Skirt – ASOS (similar). Hat & Bag – Kurt Geiger. Watch – Larsson & Jennings. Bracelet – X Jewellery.

As usual, the effect of New York to this European-to-the-core is that of whiplash, whatever medal I mentally award myself for packing semi-appropriately for the weather (contrary to the numerous occasions in the past in which I had completely missed the memo about either blood-stopping cold or biohazard heat). The minute you get in that Uber at JFK, it’s Keep your hands in at all times, and better secure those sunglasses because they will fly off on the next loop. If a New York minute is to Johnny Carson, the interval between a Manhattan traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn, to me it’s that (ever so slightly dejecting) micro-moment when the tax gets added onto a bill. One minute you have the exact change, the next minute you’re splitting your $100 note and getting a Robin Hood sack of change in coins. My point is, seven days in New York is but a blink of an eye, and at the end of it all, you’re just in sheer amazement of how much you managed to take in such beautiful grandness, smelly, screaming awesomeness, in that split second of a minute. Well here’s me trying to explain in photos.

And of course, it’s just too bad a London Minute is essentially the customer ahead of me in the Royal Mail Post Office checkout line, which means I’m looking forward to being in New York again in about TWO BILLION YEARS.

Bag – Kurt Geiger

Dress – Coach. Culottes – Finders Keepers. Bag – Coach. Boots – Kurt Geiger. Watch – Larsson & Jennings. Bracelet – X Jewellery.

Shoes – Kurt Geiger. Trousers – Filippa K. Top – Carven.

Coach launch at Selfridges + a little special announcement

Here’s an exciting piece of news I’ve been holding off on for some time now – I’ve been jogging in place until that light turned green. On the second day of London Fashion Week, Coach threw an intimate soirée to celebrate the launch at Selfridges, and that was my green light. I’m happy to share now that I will be working with the brand as the UK ambassador for the season, and boy am I looking forward to playing centre field (I mean, have you seen all that shearling). The brand seems to have been given a new lease of life ever since Stuart Vevers took to the archives and emerged with a playful take on what Coach is great for: practical designs and leather. Think Americana, a tinge of of preppy, mixed with classic sportswear. If you haven’t seen the AW15 collection, winter is coming, this may indeed be the ideal time to take a gander. As always, I’m looking forward to interpreting the collection in different visual stories in the coming months, and hope you are as excited as I am with this partnership.

Wearing full Coach look from the AW15 collection

A small disclaimer that while this blog may suddenly be rife of ‘sponsored’ initiatives, everything is my interpretation and edit. Nothing goes up without passing through very strict brand alignment and quality control. And first and foremost, this is still a very personal space for me, so while I feel privileged to be compensated for my time and work (just as one would in a day-job), all decisions for collaborations are made very subjectively in consideration of my readers.

Shirt – Boden. Skirt – Boden ICONS. Jeans – Marques’Almedia. Shoes – Coach. Bag – Louis Vuitton. Bracelet – X Jewellery. Watch – Larsson & Jennings.