Home and Away

As a child, in foreign restaurants in the seedier parts of Islington, my eyes were often drawn to the English Dishes section of the menu, where there was recognisable and soothing fare such as egg and chips and steak and kidney pie, forbidden things you were not supposed to order. I knew to request them would have indicated some sort of insufficiency on my part; a reluctance to meet and greet alternative cultures, a lack of respect for sophistication. To play safe was to miss out, I was informed, when I hankered after the familiar. It was a double failure, not only a failure of style but a moral fibre failure too.

Those days are long gone now and this week, out looking for a dress, I found myself craving something with a strong, international flavour, that would be both serious and mysterious. I imagined what a sophisticated Italian mother who maybe had a sideline fashioning elegant pots from marble chips might wear, or the clothes of a conscientious Parisian poetry archivist. My wardrobe is crammed with party wear featuring dots and ruffles and stripes and unfinished hems and bows and loops, but this time I wanted a proper evening dress that could make me look intriguing. I wanted something with not a whiff of the cheeky schoolgirl to it. (I have had one or two dreams of late where I have seen myself aged fifty five still in my Scruffiest Girl in the Upper Fourth garb and I did not like what I saw.) A 'grown-up, own-up' dress as the poet Hugo Williams put it. In actual fact, the dress I was seeking would take me to a Jewish wedding in the house where Gosford Park was filmed and possibly frame me nicely at my book launch in five weeks time. 'Remember you need to cover your shoulders, well at least until the last frumer has left,' I'd been warned.

My first stop was a tomato red silk jersey dress at Celine which was pretty great but its halterneck rather daringly nodded towards the rugby player aspects of my physique and was hardly frumer-friendly. A gold two piece at Dolce and Gabana did me no favours either, a dream on my sister in law, on me it was a little too Elvis's grandma in the burger years. A sludge green chiffon and satin dress at Alberta Feretti made me look like soup, a light as feathers lilac cross over David Szeto gown was sweet but did not suit my shape, a Peter Som empire line blue top with little pink satin epaulettes was only available in a size 8 and the other cranberry coloured Feretti with a draped front looked a little fussy. Then it hit me. The main reason these all these garments were wrong was because in my mind's eye the dress I was wearing was black. I was now thinking of the devastatingly simple attire worn by Milly Theale in The Wings of the Dove, proper New York heiress-in-mourning clothes.

In Selfridges I made a lightening inspection of all the black clothes in the store until I found my garment which consisted of an underdress of fine black silk and an over dress made of black stretch cotton tulle with three rows of raw frills at the neck. I slipped it on and immediately felt a surge of power and poise, like someone on the edge of some grand new departure. I checked the label for the price and then looked to see who the dress was by. Then something odd happened. My continental -governess-who-suddenly-finds-herself-dining-with-the-dashing-widowed-master dress was designed by none other than Mr. Paul Smith. This was bad news.

I have nothing against Paul Smith- not really- he creates successful clothes which make not very adventurous, yet affable, straight men feel stylish and a little bit special. But wouldn't I feel a hypocrite in a dress made by a designer that I don't feel expresses me properly? I rehearsed a few sentences in my head. 'Funnily enough it's by Paul Smith', I ventured, but the sentence died on my lips. 'Paul Smith, can you believe.' I could be more evasive. 'It's from..er..Selfridges', I tried. Of course I could lie. I could lie up, 'it's Blumarine, next season!' I could boast. I could lie down and drop into the conversation casually that it was a Top Shop special. I'm not proud of this, but looking at the label, I just couldn't square it with who I wanted to be, not the New York Princess, nor the governess and certainly not the Italian mother serving an exquisite dinner in a warm garden in the middle fo the night, framed by bougainvillaea and beautiful sleeping children. Instead I saw sticks of rock and wintery windswept beeches and Big Ben and rain and Egg and Chips. Still, it was the nicest dress in the store. Can you hold it till tomorrow? I asked the bewildered assistant. I really need more time to think this through.