17.02.05
Check my emails before I leave for the office, and notice the last
one timed at 1am from my chief sub. We designed, approved and sent down
15 pages yesterday after holding the magazine’s printing schedule to
get our Elle Style Awards coverage in the April issue. The event was on
Tuesday night and we’re still hung over!
In the office a huge pile of press coverage greets me. Saw my last
show of London fashion week last night: Giles Deacon , such a high to
end on. Cool suits and sexy velvets.
Backstage, Giles was very
chirpy. He won our young designer award and, despite having his show to
prepare, got on his moped and collected his award in person, staying
for a drink too. “Did you all get really mashed?” he asks cheerily. We
nod.
Related
Must do June issue flatplan before I head off to the Milan collections next Monday.
18.02.05
Up at 5am with my one-year-old who has tummy bug. My hero husband
agrees to stay home with her this morning as it is my last day in the
office before Milan and I have a huge list of things to do that
include: a) June features meet b) summer issues fashion meet c) May
fashion layouts to approve (40-odd pages)n d) budget meet for fashion
and pictures.
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The prints from a last-minute shoot arrive and they are great,
featuring a model we saw at the Paul Smith show and desperately wanted
to shoot this week.
Hectic morning and my executive fashion
editor briefs me for Milan trip as I wait for the lift. Home at 2pm.
Cuddle Gracie while fielding texts, mails and answering door to
couriers as stream of proofs arrive. Will have to do June flatplan when
the kids are in bed.
21.02.05
Leave at 6.30am for airport. Don’t get to see girls before I go –
Gracie is a bit better and we pray her two-and-a-half-year old sister
doesn’t get the bug.
The actor Ioan Grufford and his girlfriend Alice Evans are sitting
next to us on the flight – we met them at the Elle Style awards and it
seems the Armani press office invited them out for the show after
seeing them at our do.
Alice is reading the March issue. Charming
Ioan helps us with our luggage at Malpensa airport. Alice has that jet
set look as she steps of the plane. But when I ask where her fab jacket
is from, she says Oxfam – £5. You’ve either got it or you haven’t.
The
couple wave at us in the front row at the Emporio Armani show that
afternoon. Then it’s straight to Prada which is inspirational–black is
definitely back. Thank God for that.
A quiet Elle team dinner to
discuss the week’s appointments and I phone home. Gracie is not good –
it looks like she won’t be at nursery this week and my understanding
husband cancels his working week.
Still haven’t done June flatplan. Defer it as I read pages of faxed features copy before bed.
22.02.05
At Pucci show by 9am. Big day today: Marni, Giorgio Armani, Alberta
Ferritti, Burberry Prorsum and an appointment at Bottega Veneta. Then
dinner with PR Daniel Marks to discuss three big projects, including
two possible covers. But we won’t be there until about 9pm.
Between shows I make frantic calls home. The au pair has gone home
ill and my husband is on his own with two sick children – the older one
having been up all night throwing up. He sounds understandably tense. I
am not due back until late Thursday.
It’s an emotional time for
me. As the new editor of Elle, this is the first season with my new
fashion team and we’ve set up a lot of appointments to show our
reinvented March issue – I need to be there.
Today is the most
important day so far and it looks like I may have to go home. My
fabulously calm PA looks into flights for me. It seems I can get a
plane out tomorrow.
It means I will miss an appointment with
Chris Bailey, the Burberry designer, but his PR team is very
understanding and I see him backstage to explain we won’t be meeting
the next day. This is an industry predominantly staffed and run by
women, so it is amazingly supportive when family crises arise.
So
still haven’t done that June flatplan by time I get to bed at midnight.
I am booked on a plane home at noon tomorrow. Read more proofs, check
mails and sleep.
23.02.05
Up early to do the June flatplan. Hurrah! It is finished and I can
board the plane relaxed in the knowledge we won’t be so far behind when
I get back into the office. Phone it over to my deputy and grab a cab
after a team debrief at breakfast.
On the plane home I sit next to the model Stella Tennant who is
breastfeeding her five-month-old baby, Iris. She has four kids and we
chat about the working mother guilt trap.
We both agree there is no answer. She has been in Milan working with Chris Bailey on the Burberry show.
My
children, Russkaya and Gracie, are overjoyed to see me, if a little
subdued. Gracie has lost weight through not eating for a week and her
sister is very hot!
I leave my suitcase full of designer gear in
the hall and change into mummy clothes. Take a couple of emergency
calls about the June cover – we’ve got four weeks to shoot it and one
project has just fallen through. Uh oh. I’ll check my mails when they
are in bed tonight.
Tomorrow I will be at home and in on Friday
to sort May coverlines. That’s the plan but for now it’s back to Shrek
and bottles of boiled water all round.
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