American Bag Ladies Flock to London

It seems London is the place to be for American Bag Ladies...

This weekend, I really enjoyed reading the ES's profile on Mulberry's Emma Hill, who, despite her slightly silly photo, actually sounded like a brilliantly down-to-earth person. Now I'm more of a Radley girl myself, but I can see the lasting beauty (craftsmanship and great design) in Mulberry's gorgeous bags. And, of course, it's a great story. Local firm, done good.

And with that much-trumpeted success, it seems there are more brands out there wanting to "bag" a bit of that Kensington Church Street magic. On Monday, I find not one, but two US bag makers have set up shop in London.

Welcome to the greatest city on earth (TM):

• Coach, who will forever be a brand being cuddled by Gwyneth in my head
• Kate Spade, who I can't think of without NY clichés like yellow taxis and big apples coming to mind... possibly because this LLG post

Good luck to them both! We Londoners sure love our bags. I love looking at what other people have, and I love looking after my own. And maybe, just maybe, with more choice, the prices might just shrink slightly so we can all enjoy even more of them...

In Praise Of: Paul Smith

Paul Smith's Credit Crunch Bag is one of the only things to make me laugh about the whole money mayhem thing that's kicked off in the last few months.

As well as hating the hideous meaningless phrase and its damn continued usage, the way the media turned everything into awful alliterative jargon really drove me mad a few months ago.

When people at work started talking about writing a Credit Crunch Chirstmas page, I was most unimpressed.

Maybe because everyone's moved on, and are just happier to use the word recession and get over it, I feel I can now post a piccy of this bag without just totally seeming to jump on a bandwagon.

Plus, Paul Smith's great. I'm not saying I want to go out and buy all his clothes (JC's birthday cardigan was a pretty special one-off), but I do think there's something nice about the bloke. I've wandered dreamily around the shops, seen him on TV, and he always seems pretty damn cool.

See this:

I was sitting in my office one day and jotting down some thoughts about life - and then I just left them on my notebook and someone from the team came in and saw them - and the next thing I knew they were framed and on the wall. Then the New York team requested them because they wanted them on the wall of the New York shop...

SOME THOUGHTS
by Paul Smith

• Start something new
• Take pleasure seriously
• Work is not about shorter hours or longer hours, it's about every hour
• Look at the world through the eyes of someone you respect, admire and love
• You can't do it without doing it
• Make room to break the rules
• Stop making sense... Logic is predicatable... Think differently
  

I spotted all this stuff on the Vogue website, somewhere you wouldn't normally think I'd go getting inspiration.

I get the Vogue daily updates for work purposes (they're great for London's Shopping News), and once you've sifted through some of the useless millionaire daughter designs duffelcoat stories, and the sad grand old designer-you've-never-heard-of dies posting, they sometimes have some real gems on there.

Today's story about P Diddy made me laugh too.

Spotted: Charlie Brooker

Charlie Brooker: going up the escalator in Clapham Junction Debenhams, looking grumpy.

Is grumpy his default face setting? I know he does "professional" grumpy, but I was surprised to see him free-time grumpy too. I mean, it was quite a nice day today; not too crowded in the shops, not raining, quite mild, what did he have to be pissed off about?

I only managed my now customary sustained eye contact, which seems to be the best I can do when caught unawares by "celebrity" (see Mark Owen; lucky Gina McKee got slightly more than me gawping). Charlie saw me looking, looked back. C'est tout.

Wish I'd managed a knowing wink.

The rest of the (unsuccessful) shopping trip, I couldn't help penning lines of this weeks' column for him in that tone. "Shopping sucks; what makes it worse is when you bump into odd people who think they know you because they read what you write. Every week." Etc.