LONDON, Saturday, September 27.
I'm a bit of a dilettante when it comes to the international catwalk circuit. If I feel like it, I might do London and/or Paris. Have been almost every year for the past five. This season, for a motive I don't understand much less attempt to explain, I've chosen to do London, Milan and Paris. A triple whammy. I had heard that this season was going to be 'hot'. My fashion friends assured me there would be 'lots happening'.
Two days into it, I'm still trying to figure out why I'm here. I'm preoccupied: with invitations, accreditations, destinations. There are approximately 55 shows in London, 80 shows in Milan and 100 in Paris. Not to mention the parties, presentations, exhibitions, etc, that are sandwiched in between the catwalk stuff. I'll be tipped off over the next few days on shows that will be 'hot' (time for a new buzzword methinks!) and then there are the established names which hsve to be checked out. My mind is elsewhere. And my heart certainly isn't here, with all these fashion slaves and prima donnas. I'm surrounded by silliness. 'I've got a terrible headache, teary eyes. Just feel awful,' wails a black-clad, sunglasses-adorned fashion stylist sitting behind me. 'Must be the fires from Indonesia,' says his companion. The show begins: a blur of boobs, beads and feathers. I scribble some notes and leave.
Outside, people are raving about last night's Patrick Cox show ('fab'; 'divine'; 'gorgeous') and tonight's Hussein Chalayan event. It's a hot ticket - and I have one. I remember Chalayan from last season (in the fashion world, we speak in terms of seasons). We were kept waiting for an hour in a cold, musty warehouse in Brick Lane. The music was so loud I was sure the roof was about to cave in. And when the clothes finally appeared, they were, well, odd.
I stare at the ticket. It's hot. I toss it away.
Sunday, September 28 Today should be better. I'm psyching myself up on the treadmill at the Berkeley Hotel. What I really want to do is stay in my room, wrapped in a bathrobe, watching BBC television programmes and experimenting with my new MAC nail-polish. But there's Betty Jackson, Ben de Lisi, Jasper Conran ... have to go.
Later, I run into my friend Laurence, fashion editor for a French newspaper. I love Laurence because she is real and smiles a lot. This is not a reaction that comes easily to fashion folk. She's not enjoying herself either. 'I hate it. Hate it. Want to stop,' she says. Laurence is in love. She wants to work two hours a day and spend the rest of her time going to the market and cooking. She is in her early 30s - slippery-slope period. Stay at the top too long and you start to slide, clinging on desperately with your French-manicured nails. I spot another fashion writer, in her early 50s, wearing a short, lacy-lingerie-vintage thing. She has high heels and bare legs. She also has big clumpy varicose veins on her calves. Not just a fashion victim but an ageing one. It's not attractive.