Home Sweet Home

I just found out about this fabulous all-female handywoman service called Home Jane.

Apparently the team of fully qualified and insured ladies will do anything from assembling your IKEA furniture and hanging your favourite prints to messy plumbing issues.

With no intimidating and confusing conversation about electrics and carpentry, it's definitely one number to store on your speed dial.

Très Jolie

Celebrity collaborations may be popular, but the outcome isn't always the height of style. Not so for the 'Protector Collection', designed by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, with Asprey.

The limited collection of fine jewels and silver objects was inspired by Angelina's consideration of the snake as an iconic guardian, a cultural symbol of family protection.

The individual pieces in The Protector Collection are limited editions, handcrafted at the Asprey London flagship store.

With all net proceeds being donated to the Education Partnership For Children of Conflict, the jewels make a thoughtful gift indeed.

Crisis? What Crisis?

I do love a witty quote, especially those bitterly acerbic ones that certain fashion designers just can't help themselves from giving out...

Here are a few of the more notable ones that I recently heard, regarding the financial crisis:

John Galliano: "Of course, I'm aware of the credit crunch, but it is not a creative crunch - not at the house of Dior, anyway."

Giorgio Armani: "If you react to the crisis, you can't produce high fashion... High fashion is like watching a beautiful film, it belongs to a different world."

Karl Lagerfeld: "This whole crisis is like a big spring house-cleaning - both moral and physical. There is no creative evolution if you don't have moments like this. Bling is over. I call it 'the new modesty' ".

Make Me Up Before You Go, Go...

There is a rumour that Kate Moss may soon collaborate on a makeup line with Rimmel. If true, the cosmetics range is sure to be as big a hit as her clothing collection for Topshop.

Mind you, the model does have 20 years' experience of the makeup chair, making her the perfect choice for creating a line of make-up essentials...Watch this space.

Madonna to play Wallis Simpson?

News reaches me that Madonna is keen to produce a film on the love story of Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII...in which she would naturally play the Amercian divorcée who changed the course of England's royal history.

Edward VIII's relationship with the twice-divorced American socialite created one of the biggest royal scandals of the 20th-century. After less than a year on the throne, Edward abdicated in order to be able to marry "the woman I love"...so not done at the time.

Whatever your opinion of Simpson, no fashionista could deny her incredible taste with regard to her vestiaire, which was the ultimate in 1930s chic.

If the project does come fruition, I shall be looking forward to the costumes, which are sure to include the most beautiful dresses to come out of cinematic fashion since Gosford Park, Marie-Antoinette and The Duchess.

...he believed nothing in life couldn't be overcome by a white tablecloth and a glass of Champagne

I just read the best quote about a late, well-known British creative: "[he] was a man who believed nothing in life couldn't be overcome by a white tablecloth and a glass of Champagne."

The British stiff upper lip, especially popular in times of doubt and depression, is well known, but when it comes to droll witticisms, the Brits aren't the only ones with a tongue in their cheek.

The great American originals Dorothy Parker and Diana Vreeland are two of my favourite demiurges.

Here are just a few of the fabulous words the respective writer and Harper's Bazaar editor uttered.

Dorothy Parker

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

I like to have a martini,
two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

Diana Vreeland

Elegance is innate. It has nothing to do with being well dressed. Elegance is refusal.

Pink is the navy blue of India.

The only real elegance is in the mind; if you've got that, the rest really comes from it.

What do I think about the way most people dress? Most people are not something one thinks about.