At long last, I’m back-back-back on party circuit! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved writing Dude?, but a girl’s got to slap on some face and get out of the house sometime. Much as I love my jim-jams, they cannot be classed as an ‘outfit’.
Last night, I had the honour of rubbing shoulders with the primped, coiffed, bouffed and stre-e-e-tched glitterati at Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards (www.glamourmagazine.co.uk). Having written a fair few articles for them this year, the mag’s generous, hilarious and occasionally downright wicked (in its traditional sense) features editor wangled me a stiff silver invite to the do (loving your work, Corrie!). Party-starved for so long, I snapped her hand off, replying both in writing and via email. Goddam it, my name so would be down, and I so would be coming in.
Except, I nearly didn’t. Ask anyone – I’d been pathetically excited about this bash for weeks. So why, 15 minutes before kick-off, was I hyperventilating? Was it my dress (‘vintage’ Warehouse, circa Spring ’07)? No, I looked hot to trot. Was it the rain, that threatened to attack my locks like a nuclear frizz-bomb? Nope, I had a strong brolly and plenty of cab money.
I now know I was experiencing my first red carpet panic attack. Matters didn’t improve when I arrived (solo) at the ma-moosive marquee in London’s Berkeley Square and discovered that Yes madam, there is only one entrance. And – gulp – Emma Bunton was just going through it and – double gulp – Mark Ronson and Daisy Lowe were just drawing up in a cab, with Jonathan Ross behind them. Er, how exactly was a Nelly Nobody like me going to get in to the party without being crushed like red carpet roadkill?
In the end, I sensed a lull in the star-traffic and grabbed my moment, cruising in like I was born to it. It went on to be a bloody brilliant night. The freelancers’ table was predictably raucous – I sat with photographers Fiona Freund (www.fionafreund.com) and Ben Wright (www.benwrightphotograhpy.co.uk), food writer Jo Pratt and fellow features writer Wersha Bharadwa. Oh, how we laughed like drains.
I also happened upon my old classmate Sophie Ellis Bextor, who (thank the lord) remembered me from school, was totally charming and introduced me to her man Richard and Dan Gillespie-Wotnot from The Feeling. (Although, not being a muso, I was shamefully lacking in ‘hanging with the band’ chat. ‘Oh, I’ve heard some of your songs on Heart’ did not seem like the cool thing to say…)
Alexa Chung, Fearne Cotton, Keeley Hawes and Kate Beckinsale were all Oh-sod-it-why-did-I-even-bother beautiful, Matthew McFadyen is seriously hot, Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie was as dashing as his character Marc, but (mercifully) far calmer… and Beth Ditto and Lily Allen were both surprisingly endearing. But the fashion pack are still my favourites. After all, you’ve got to love anyone who genuinely thinks, ‘Mwahs, darlings’ is an acceptable way to draw a conversation to a close… Love it.
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