Nov 03 11 2017 by ES Magazine

03.11.17

DUA LIPA

ALARM BELLS

Meet pop’s HOTTEST property

Waking up with Piers Morgan

DON’T SWEAT IT

Why it’s time to shrink your workout

PLUS:

Katie Grand’s My London

The

big chill Wrap up, London — winter is coming

contents 5 Colin Farrell and Northern apparel in CAPITAL GAINS 7 Dive into the great outdoors in UPFRONT 9 Our MOST WANTED are Dolce & Gabbana’s starry mules 11 Rubbing elbows with Idris Elba in FLASHBULB

12 Good morning, PIERS MORGAN 21 Get your jammies on in STylE NOTES 23 Make it a mac in MEN’S STYLE 26 Take a DUA LIPA faith editor Laura Weir

32 Our JUMPER EDIT: what could be sweater? 37 Tougher tresses in BEAUTY 41 Are micromovements the next big thing?

GRACE & FLAVOUR eats at Villa Mamas 45 A salmon rice bowl in TART 47 Petal into winter in HOMEWORK 49 ESCAPE to the UK’s most stately homes 50 Katie Grand’s MY LONDON

Here are the ES team’s top five fireworks displays

Cover: Dua Lipa photographed by Luc Coiffait. MIU MIU Eco fur coat, £2,480 (miumiu.com). ASHLEY WILLIAMS choker, £95 (ashleywilliamslondon.com). Alamy; Jen Martin

Brockwell Park ‘There’s all kinds of live music and fairground rides at Lambeth Fireworks in Brockwell Park (4 Nov), but I’ll mostly be insulating myself with all the brilliant street food: see you all at 28 Well Hung for some heritage breed steak and chips.’ Frankie McCoy, features writer

Wimbledon Park ‘The fireworks display at Wimbledon Park (4 Nov) is one of the largest in south London. Grab a mulled cider and a spot by the lake to enjoy the best views!’ Clara Dorrington, picture desk assistant

2 3

Victoria Park ‘I’m heading to Hackney where the annual bash in Victoria Park (5 Nov) promises to be larger and louder than ever, including local street food stalls offering the first chance of the season to warm up with mulled wine.’ Matt Hryciw, chief sub editor

Clissold Park ‘I’ve just moved to Newington Green so I will be heading up the road to Clissold Park to catch Saturday’s display. The theme is movies and everyone is encouraged to go in fancy dress.’ Alice-Azania Jarvis, features director

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Alexandra Palace ‘It has to be Alexandra Palace: and not just because it’s nearest to my house. Its fireworks night is actually two nights (3-4 Nov) and also features lasers, DJ Yoda and the best panoramic views over all of London you’ll find.’ Hamish MacBain, associate features editor

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Editor Laura Weir Deputy editor Anna van Praagh Features director Alice-Azania Jarvis Acting art director Emma Woodroofe Fashion features director Katrina Israel Commissioning editor Dipal Acharya Associate features editor Hamish MacBain Features writer Frankie McCoy

Acting art editor Andy Taylor Art editor Jessica Landon Picture editor Helen Gibson Picture desk assistant Clara Dorrington

Beauty editor Katie Service Deputy beauty and lifestyle editor Lily Worcester

Social media editor Natalie Salmon Office administrator/editor’s PA Niamh O’Keeffe

Merchandise editor Sophie Paxton Fashion editor Jenny Kennedy Fashion assistant Eniola Dare Chief sub editor Matt Hryciw Deputy chief sub editor Nick Howells

Contributing editors Lucy Carr-Ellison, Tony Chambers, James Corden, Hermione Eyre, Richard Godwin, Daisy Hoppen, Jemima Jones, Anthony Kendal, David Lane, Mandi Lennard, Annabel Rivkin, Teo van den Broeke, Nicky Yates (style editor at large), Hikari Yokoyama Group client strategy director Deborah Rosenegk Head of magazines Christina Irvine

ES Magazine is published weekly and is available only with the London Evening Standard. ES Magazine is published by Evening Standard Ltd, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, Kensington, London W8 5TT. ES is printed web offset by Wyndeham Bicester. Paper supplied by Perlen Paper AG. Colour transparencies or any other material submitted to ES Magazine are sent at owner’s risk. Neither Evening Standard Ltd nor their agents accept any liability for loss or damage. © Evening Standard Ltd 2016. Reproduction in whole or part of any contents of ES Magazine without prior permission of the editor is strictly prohibited

03.11.17 es magazine

capital gains What to do in London

by FRANKIE M c COY

Pretty naiise

Super cool Singaporean design emporium Naiise is popping up as an ‘Anti Sweatshop’ at The Old Truman Brewery, selling all the quirky paper bulldog sculptures and squirrel cookie cutters you need for lol-worthy Christmas presents. Until 19 Nov (trumanbrewery.com)

Score blimey

Ballet ho

Northern soul

The brilliant Birmingham Royal Ballet has pirouetted down to London for a spellbinding turn at Sadler’s Wells — catch the company in a triple bill of perfect pliés in Arcadia, Le Baiser de la Fée and Penguin Café. Tickets from £12. 3-4 Nov (sadlerswells.com)

The North is a foreign country, they do things differently there — if differently means epic fashion and game-changing style, as recorded in some of the hundreds of photos and garments on show at Somerset House’s North: Fashioning Identity. Tickets £7. 8 Nov to 4 Feb (somersethouse.org.uk)

National Gallery of Art; Alice Hawkins; Getty; Rex

Charing Cross Bridge, London by Camille Pissarro

Bambi wHo?

Cult psychological thriller alert: The Killing of a Sacred Deer, starring Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman (right), is The Lobster director Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest, and will provide perfect dinner party chat. Out 3 Nov

That’s your lot

Eat yourself silly in the name of charity as Action Against Hunger’s annual Auction Against Hunger comes to Borough Market. Expect topnotch dishes from chefs such as Temper’s Neil Rankin and The Modern Pantry’s Anna Hansen, alongside delectable lots. £60. 7 Nov (auctionagainsthunger.co.uk)

Who doesn’t love an epic Hollywood soundtrack? James Newton Howard is coming to the Royal Albert Hall for one night only to show off his greatest hits — from the likes of The Dark Knight, The Hunger Games and Pretty Woman. Tickets from £29. 3 Nov (royalalberthall.com)

last chance: Dr Seuss’s The Lorax is not just for

kids — catch the Olivier-nominated show at the Old Vic before it closes on 5 November. Tickets from £12 (oldvictheatre.com)

The right impression

Les Françaises arrivent: just as they did in 1870, when the likes of Monet, Tissot and Pissarro fled the Franco-Prussian War and hunkered down in London to paint the brilliant pieces now on display at Tate Britain’s The EY Exhibition: Impressionists in London. Magnifique, non? Tickets from £15.90. To 7 May (tate.org.uk)

look ahead: there’s no denying Christmas is coming once the lights come on across town. Hit Carnaby Street on 9 November for the epic switch-on.

03.11.17 es magazine

upfront Laura Craik on autumn walking, flaunt taunts and the great carb comeback

Josh Shinner; Getty; Splash; Alamy

o I’m sat watching the latest big-budget fashion ad — sorry, ‘short film’ — this time for Erdem’s collaboration with H&M. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, it’s one part Great Expectations to two parts Brideshead Revisited, with a soupçon of Luhrmann-esque ‘WTF is going on?’ thrown in. In keeping with Erdem’s ongoing love affair with florals, it’s very floral. A botanical theme looms large, with people saying deep and meaningless things like, ‘As for myself, I hold no preference among flowers, as long as they are wild, free and spontaneous,’ before looking lasciviously at the person next to them. ‘If only it could be like this always,’ says one character. ‘Always spring.’ By the end of the 4.05 minutes, I am salivating — not merely over the clothes, but over the nature. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ I swoon, staring at all the beauty through a screen. Because that’s what we do, isn’t it? In London, working hours are only getting longer. Who has the time or energy to go out? So we sit on our sofas and watch Autumnwatch instead of participating in real-life, actual autumn. So thank you, Baz, for inspiring me to go on a walk. I bribed my kids, I strong-armed my house guests, and off we went to Hampstead Heath. It was beautiful. There were russet leaves and everything. There was even some mist and mellow fruitfulness, albeit blighted by an ice cream van that had diversified for October and was selling sausage rolls. ‘Isn’t it depressing,’ said my companion, P. ‘The fact that you can’t go anywhere in London without encountering a snack outlet?’ I asked. ‘No — autumn,’ he replied. ‘Leaves falling. Everything dying. It’s sad.’ He really did say that. I’m not making it up. ‘But it all grows back again,’ I said, incredulous. ‘Autumn isn’t a one-time thing. It’s seasonal. It’s nature. It’s…’ P had recently been signed off work with stress-related anxiety. I felt awful that autumn was making him sad. ‘I’m glad I came out, though,’ he continued. ‘It’s nice out here.’ It is nice out there. We should probably all get out more.

Unflaunted: Alicia Vikander

FLAUNT RIGHT OFF In this week’s instalment of Words I Want Banned, I bring you ‘flaunting’. Why is it exclusively used to describe female behaviour? Can’t men ‘flaunt’, too? What do they do instead? Brandish? If a female celebrity isn’t ‘flaunting her curves’ while ‘oozing out of’ her dress/bikini/whatever, she’s ‘showing off’ something. The latest blameless woman to fall

Clockwise from left, Hampstead Heath; Baz Luhrmann’s campaign for Erdem’s collaboration with H&M; pieces from the collection

“We went to Hampstead Heath. It was beautiful. There were russet leaves and everything” victim of the Flaunt Police is Alicia Vikander, who, having recently wed Michael Fassbender, stands accused of ‘showing off’ her wedding ring. As someone who got married on the lowdown in Ibiza, flaunting is so not Alicia’s style. They call it flaunting: I call it Walking Through an Airport with the Temerity to have her Left Hand on Show.

#HASHSPAG Avocado, begone. There’s only one food to be seen shovelling into your mouth on Instagram this month, and that’s pasta. Not squid ink pasta or some obscure pasta in the shape of a unicorn that you can only import from Tuscany whenever there’s a ‘p’ in the month — just your bog standard spaghetti. I’m baffled. Has Chiara Ferragni (left) suddenly fallen on hard times and had to substitute her lucrative designer partnerships with paid-for posts by the International Association of Carbs? Do these willowy influencers even eat the heaps of spag piled up before them, or do they push them out of the way, shuddering, the minute the pic is nailed? I reckon it’s a cheekbone thing. No matter how jowly your face, slurping spaghetti gives you cheekbones. Spagface is the new duckface, I declare.

HOT Sofia The most popular girl’s name in the world, appaz.

NOT 4pm darkness It’s that time of year again…

03.11.17 es magazine

THE most WANTED Dolce & Gabbana Star & Moon mules, ÂŁ645, at harrods.com

Star light, star bright: when Harrods and Dolce & Gabbana join forces on a collection, the results are spellbinding PHOTOGRAPH BY Natasha pszenicki STYLED BY sophie paxton

03.11.17 es magazine

FLASHBULB! Party pictures from around town

Katie Keight

by FRANKIE M c COY photographs by james peltekian Leaf Greener

Charlotte Stockdale and Caroline Rush

Lily Fortescue

Gal gala Kensington

Boris Becker

Caroline Issa

Charles Jeffrey

Happy, sparkly people at 5 Hertford Street for the BFC’s Fashion Awards nominees announcement with Swarovski, where a blonde, pigtailed Matty Bovan, nominated for the British Emerging Talent Womenswear award, soaked up advice from previous winner Molly Goddard — while Neelam Gill had a little lie-down on the sofa.

Matty Bovan

Daisy Hoppen

Pam Hogg

Fashion prizes Mayfair

Danny Minnick

Girl power ruled at Albert’s Club for The Bardou Foundation’s International Day of the Girl Gala, where the oh-so-woke Idris Elba presented Anya Hindmarch an award before lapping up the rather excellent Ombra di Pantera Prosecco.

Sabine Getty

Laura Bailey

Molly Goddard

Malaika Firth

Neelam Gill

Lola Ross

Idris Elba Sabrina Dhowre

Marissa Montgomery

Luke Champion and Jade Harwood

Laura Jackson

Mona M Ali

Amy Thomson

Lauren Field

Hot hormones Carnaby Street

Sabrina Percy

Richard Sloan and Henry Holland

Lily Worcester

Natalie Salmon Melissa Hemsley

Over at Sweaty Betty HQ on Carnaby Street, Farm Girl café was a hotbed of hormones. The glamorous gathering celebrated the launch of Moody, a new digital wellness platform for optimising your hormone health. The Freya Birch Spirit and Fever-Tree tonic was flowing while Melissa Hemsley and celebrity nutritionist Lola Ross gave advice on becoming your happiest self. And it wasn’t just the gals who were opening up about hip hormones — Henry Holland was spotted in the crowd munching on courgetti bowls. Totes emosh.

Julia Hobbs

Moody is supported by ‘ES’ editor Laura Weir

GO TO eveningstandard.co.uk / ESMAGAZINE FOR MORE PARTY PICTURES

03.11.17 es magazine 11

‘I am an absolute feminist!’ Love him or loathe him, Piers Morgan has become an unmissable part of morning television with seemingly every one of his interviews making headlines. Polly Vernon spends a morning in his inflammatory company PhotographS BY Louise Haywood-Schiefer

Getty Images

t’s 6.30am and I am in the gallery of the Good Morning Britain studio watching legions of coffee-addled professionals attempt to keep Piers Morgan on the rails. Morgan — Twitter provocateur, close friend of Donald Trump, the country’s most unruly TV anchorman — is live and on-screen, capable of doing anything between now and the 8.30am end credits. Only the ultra-sharp put downs of co-host Susanna Reid and the messages the gallery relays to Morgan through the earpiece (which he might remove at any moment) can stop him. Right now, for example, he is asking Alison Saunders, director of public prosecutions — who is on the show to discuss a rise in the reporting of sexual harassment — how she would feel if he wolf-whistled her… Ah, but it’s okay! Saunders is blushing and saying she’d rather like it. Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain is a challenging proposition. You can’t work out if you want to cringe, laugh or scream at the screen, or smack yourself because you just

agreed with that last thing Morgan said. It is exhausting, exhilarating and embarrassing, and viewers adore it. He is currently on a three-week break until next week and people have been wondering online where he is. Since Morgan joined in October 2015, the show’s audience share has risen 24 per cent (it now regularly peaks with 1 million viewers). Why? I ask him when the show is finished. The two of us sit on a sofa to the side of the studio. He’s taking up a lot of it, one of those rare celebrities who isn’t smaller in real life. He is 52 years old, 6ft1in, broad-shouldered and tubby — though less tubby than he was (he’s got a £5,000 weight-loss bet on with his pseudo arch nemesis, Lord Sugar, over who can lose the most weight by the finale of The Apprentice in December). He is booming, brash, a shameless example of that raddled old cliché about masculinity: the alpha male. I first met him 11 years ago when he was living in LA, reinventing himself as a judge on America’s Got Talent, having been sacked from his editorship of the Daily Mirror

Power pair: Piers Morgan with his friend Donald Trump in 2010

03.11.17 es magazine 13

Morgan with co-presenters Charlotte Hawkins, left, and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain

in 2004 after publishing fake photographs purporting to show British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners. I liked him immediately, even though one’s not supposed to. Piers Morgan is all those awful things you think — but he’s also funny, fun, generous and game. Also, by all accounts, a natural on breakfast TV. ‘What you’ve got to remember is, it’s theatre,’ he tells me. ‘If it’s serious news, if it’s trivial nonsense… We’re basically in a theatre and you want to make everything revealing, dramatic, entertaining. Theatre!’ This would, I guess, account for the onscreen scrap he had the day before with George Monbiot, writer and environmental activist, who was on the show to promote veganism (Morgan pointed out he was wearing a leather watch strap), or the time Ewan McGregor pulled out of an appearance last minute because Morgan was hosting. Morgan promptly turned McGregor’s no-show into a story in its own right.

Rex Features; Alamy

o one, Morgan tells me, is more surprised than he to find himself doing this. ‘Never appealed to me. I thought the hours would be completely brutal. And they are.’ He was originally asked to fill in on GMB for a brief week in 2015. ‘Helen Warner, who was running daytime, rang and said: “Would you consider a week?” I said: “I’d rather shoot myself,” which would have been ironic, given my gun stance. Then I thought about it, said: “What can go wrong for a week?”’ What indeed? ‘Within one hour, we had to issue a first apology for my behaviour, which led to an Ofcom ruling. We had a French guy... and he kept saying something that sounded like the F word, only we thought it was a French word — but it wasn’t. And I kept laughing.’ Much of the awful, compulsive brilliance of GMB is derived from the unusual dynamic Morgan shares with co-host, Susanna Reid. The pair tease, snip, snipe, fall

“We’re basically in a theatre and you want to make everything revealing, dramatic, entertaining. Theatre!”

Morgan with his wife, Celia Walden, at the GQ Awards

out and fall back in again, like raucous siblings. Did their relationship show instant promise? ‘No! She thought I was absolutely horrific. This beast comes in, cracking terrible jokes… She was very much queen bee on breakfast TV for a long time, I was very alpha male, and you’re putting an alpha male and a queen bee near each other… Let the entertainment begin.’ Morgan’s week of filling-in evolved into a threeday-a-week commitment, and two years later — having enamoured himself to Reid (‘my jokes, she now gets’) and negotiated with ITV so that he might roll into the studios at 5.30am rather than at 4.15am with everyone else — he has just signed up for another year. Are they paying him extortionate amounts?

03.11.17 es magazine 15

Rex Features; Alamy

“I don’t think it would matter to Susanna if she found that I was being paid more, because she would be the first to accept that I’ve slightly redone the wheel here”

‘They pay me what I’m worth.’ Which is? ‘A lot.’ More than Reid? ‘I have no idea what she’s paid. I don’t think it would matter to her, even if she found that I was being paid more, because she, I think, would be the first to accept that I’ve slightly redone the wheel here. I bring a completely different kind of feel. I think she’s brilliant, worth every penny ITV gives her… But I don’t know what that is.’ Does he fancy her? ‘Of course. Who doesn’t?’ Does he think Reid secretly fancies him back? ‘Absolutely not.’ Morgan has a complicated relationship with women. I’ve never had any doubt he likes us; and not just because he’s a fan of our aesthetic. Heaven knows, he is: in his first week at Good Morning Britain, co-presenter Kate Garraway reminded him live on air that when she’d married lobbyist Derek Draper, Morgan had sent a wedding message saying: ‘If I’d known the bar was set so low, I’d have had a crack myself!’ Yet at the same time: the first time I interviewed him, he told me he thought women make

Reinvention: below, at the Mirror offices in 1998, and with the GMB team at the National Television Awards in January this year

better journalists, and he’s proud of how many he employed as a newspaper editor. ‘I think I’m an absolute feminist!’ he tells me now. ‘I’ve only had battles with the more radical end of feminists over stuff like The [2017] Women’s March, which wasn’t a genuine march for equality but just Trump bashing.’ Right, I say, but Trump advocates the grabbing of women by the pussy… ‘I just felt [The Women’s March] didn’t advance women’s equality one iota. I still think that.’ Who wears the trousers in his marriage (his second, to the writer Celia Walden, mother of his five-yearold daughter, Elise)? ‘She does!’ He romps through some of the big political and cultural stories of the day. ‘Opinions are my job,’ he says. The Weinstein revelations have just broken — Morgan, who has known Weinstein for years, swears he had no idea. ‘I knew he had a temper, but not this…’ The Las Vegas shootings are barely two weeks old. Morgan is passionate about gun control. He covered the Dunblane shootings in 1996 while at the Mirror, ‘the single worst story I ever covered, I had reporters ringing me in tears’. In 2012, while he was hosting his own nightly CNN news show, Piers Morgan Tonight, in the US, he became vocal about reducing gun access in the wake of the

03.11.17 es magazine 17

Clockwise from above, in CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight studio in 2011; Morgan larger than life on Times Square billboards; with Ant and Dec at last year’s National Television Awards

Morgan with Susanna Reid at last year’s TV Choice Awards in London

Sandy Hook shootings — a stance w i dely b el i e ve d t o h ave contributed to the cancelling of that show in 2014. How does he square that passion with his friendship with the US President, who is doing nothing to reform gun control laws? ‘I’ve got lots of friends with different points of persuasion. I’ve got family who are far more right wing than Trump. It doesn’t mean I disown them.’ Morgan met Donald Trump in 2007, when he won the US Celebrity Apprentice, which Trump judged. ‘Trump has always been someone I would consider a friend, who I’ve known for 10 years and speak to at least every three weeks.’ Even now? ‘No, because he’s the President. I get the odd note from him.’ What did the last one say? ‘Come and see me.’ What form does a missive from Potus take? Text? WhatsApp? Does he slide into Morgan’s DMs? ‘He prints things out, either stuff he’s read… Or if you send him an email, it’s printed out and he writes on it. Handwritten notes, which they scan and email back.’ That’s actually… sweet. ‘I wouldn’t have voted for him,’ he says. Would he have voted for Hillary Clinton? ‘No. I don’t like Hillary. Joe Biden’s my kind of politics. Trump… I do like him personally. He was very loyal to me when I left CNN. He rang me a few times just to check I was okay. The number of people that did that in America, you can count on one hand. They move on — bang, you’re out of there, you’re gone. Trump was good.’ I wonder what kind of a father Piers Morgan is. He has three sons by his first marriage, to Marion Shalloe: Spencer, a journalist; Stanley, a Lamda drama student; and Albert, ‘my youngest [boy], who is at boarding school. We’ll talk for hours about all his problems and he’ll emote to me to his heart’s content.’ Which Morgan is fine with, ‘between me and him. If he was doing it in public, I’d feel slightly uncomfortable,

I’d say: “Come on, mate.” I watched Prince Harry and Prince William, and they’re very admirable guys and I get why they’re doing this… But they never stop! At some point, this public emoting… It has a slight limitation to it.’ Stanley, meanwhile, ‘voted Corbyn. He said: “Father, you missed the Corbyn surge,” as he drove to Tooting to cast his vote. I went: “What’s the Corbyn surge?” He went: “You’ll find out tomorrow.”’ How do his kids feel about their father’s bullish public persona — not to mention all the flak he gets? ‘I always say to them, if you get stick for stuff I’ve said, you should simply make the point that you are not me, you might have been created partly by me, but…’ He tells me that nights at his Kensington home with Celia are characterised by the two of them sitting around; him tweeting, her telling him to stop. ‘Celia doesn’t get Twitter, but I don’t get her obsession with eBay. I’ll be tweeting and she’ll be outbidding herself on 13 dresses, and I’ll be like: “You are aware of the irony of you saying I’m addicted to this stuff?”’ I ask him if his experience of now being a father to a girl is different. ‘God, yeah! You feel massively more protective. She goes to a little school, and… the boys with curly hair, the taller ones, the cocky ones, you’re like: “You may only be six but already I’m parking you in the Watch At All Costs category.”’ We wind down. It’s nearly 10am, Morgan wants to go back to bed, and frankly — having been up since 4am — so do I. I have one last question. Given that he has already screwed up/been sacked from two jobs of a lifetime — the editorship of the Mirror, and the CNN show — does he think he’s inevitably going to screw this up, too? ‘Screw what up?’ he asks. I nod over at the empty Good Morning Britain desk. ‘This,’ I say. Morgan sighs, looks at the desk, then back at me, and laughs. ‘Probably,’ he says. ‘Good Morning Britain’ is on ITV weekdays, 6-8.30am. ‘Serial Killer’ with Piers Morgan, the final instalment of ITV’s Crime and Punishment season, airs on 16 November at 9pm

Wenn; Alamy; Getty Images

“If you send trump an email, it’s printed out and he writes on it. Handwritten notes, which they scan and email back”

CYBERJAMMIES pyjamas, £45 (johnlewis.com)

style notes What we love now EDITED by KATRINA ISRAEL

OLIVIA VON HALLE pyjamas, £380 (olivia vonhalle.com)

FOR RESTLESS SLEEPERS pyjamas, £1,144, at boutique1.com

Creature comforts

Now that the clocks have gone back it’s getting harder to part with our PJs. Here’s our edit of the snazzy sets just asking to be worn beyond the bedroom.

Above, The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech. Left, the designer in the city

DESMOND & DEMPSEY pyjamas, £130 (desmondanddempsey.com)

Moroccan musings

The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech has just opened in the ochre city that captured the iconic designer and his late partner Pierre Bergé’s hearts. Designed by Studio KO, and located a stone’s throw from the couple’s Jardin Majorelle home, it is now a must-see on the tourist map. For an armchair visit, All About Yves (£35; laurenceking. com) is a new tome similarly dedicated to the couturier’s design legacy.

This is a swathe of dummy text that can be used to indicate how

DONNA IDA pyjamas, £325 (donnaida.com)

ASCENO pyjama top, £160; bottoms, £150 (asceno.com)

InSTARglam

Off the cuff

CÉLINE boots, £740 (020 7491 8200)

London jeweller Pascale x James’ tactile Orogenesis collection is a sculptural exploration of organic forms.

GANNI boots, £355 (ganni.com)

Everyone’s a fashionista these days. Including designer Natasha Zinko’s son, Ivan, who’s the industry’s latest mini-me style crush. Here he is with Off-White’s Virgil Abloh, naturally.

@thegoldenfly

ISABEL MARANT boots, £590, at matchesfashion.com Pascale x James Molton bangle £515 (pascalejames.com)

Bright IDEA

Louis Vuitton AW17

Curio Noir candles, £90 each, at Jessica McCormack (020 7491 9999)

High noon

Calvin Klein AW17

Natasha Pszenicki

Our latest discovery is New Zealand candle line Curio Noir, now stocked at fellow antipodean brand Jessica McCormack’s Mayfair flagship, which is relaunching its bijoux website this autumn at jessicamccormack.com.

TOPSHOP boots, £72 (topshop.com)

The Wild West is encroaching on the metropolis this winter with Calvin Klein, Céline and Louis Vuitton all championing rodeo-issue boots that are just made for walking.

03.11.17 es magazine 21

MEN’S STYLE What to buy now

Big Ben’s bit on the side

by TEO VAN DEN BROEKE, style director OF esquire UK

Optic verve

cubitts St James collection frames, £425 (cubitts.co.uk)

The glasses market may once have been dominated by major international groups, but in recent years a host of independent eyewear brands has been putting the big boys through their paces. One of the most interesting is Cubitts. Founded in 2012, the brand has just opened its Jermyn Street atelier, which, uniquely, offers its high-rolling customers the opportunity to customise a pair of 18k gold spectacles. Handmade in London, with up to 89,000 possible combinations from which to choose, the made-to-order frames start at £425, with regular frames from £125.

Return of the mac

uniqlo x JW ANDERSON reversible trench, £99.90 (uniqlo.com)

Christmas is looming large, which means that it’s time to prepare for the oncoming onslaught of inclement weather. The solution? High-style, super-insulating macs, which work as well as an outer shell on warmer days as they will layered up on colder ones. Here’s my pick of the season’s best...

Jonny Cochrane; Josh Shinner

Say it LOUD

Conspicuous consumerism is the name of the game right now, with global brands across the board splashing their logos over clothes, bags and shoes. Kris Van Assche is all over it at Dior Homme with his ‘Hardior’ webbing, while logo T-shirts for Gucci are not staying in stores very long. The latest label to enter the fray is Fendi, whose new vocabulary backpacks are adorned with bright leather panels reading ‘FENDI’, ‘HOPE’ and ‘THINK’. fendi backpack, Just the thing £1,590, at if you like your farfetch.com accessories with a side of personality.

Burberry reversible Donegal tweed and gabardine trench, £1,895 (uk.burberry.com)

Private White VC SB Unlined Mac 2.0, £780 (private whitevc.com)

Urban stroller Ben Machell on the joy of steps

spend quite a lot of time walking around. It is possible I may have mentioned this. Every day I walk three and a half miles into work, via my children’s nursery, and then back again. I always try, if practical, to walk into town: backpack on, laces yanked tight and the latest grime cuts booming through my headphones, by which, of course, I mean old episodes of Radio 4’s In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. Good old Melvyn. He’s been a constant companion on my sweaty treks around London, giving academics grief and going on about the Middle Ages. Why do I spend so much time walking? I’m a bit self-conscious that people might think I’ve deliberately set out to make this ‘my thing’. I never meant for it to be ‘my thing’. To be honest, I’d always hoped that ‘my thing’ would just be ‘being a cool ledge’. But the reality is that I am not a cool ledge and that I do spend half my life walking. So there you go. Still, there are big plus sides. You achieve incredible clarity of mind. All my very best ideas happen when I’m walking. The other day, trudging through Shoreditch, I had a brainwave: I could make millions by introducing hipsters to evaporated milk! Those guys love conspicuously consuming slightly kitsch, slightly blue-collar foodstuffs at exorbitant prices, so why not cash in? Imagine, a dedicated evaporated milk café. A licence to print money. I made a note and walked on.

“I’m a bit self-conscious that people might think I’ve deliberately set out to make walking ‘my thing’” There’s also a clear fitness benefit. Weaving through the oncoming foot traffic crossing London Bridge has given me dancing feet. I’m now, in my mind, one part Lionel Messi, one part Gene Kelly. I hardly ever barge into people any more. Plus I’ve become more social. You see the same people again and again. You nod. Smile. Or, in the case of my three-year-old and a friendly dinner lady who stands outside a school we always pass, exchange high-fives. Got to be careful though. Last week I saw a young schoolboy carrying a big model castle. ‘Nice castle!’ I thought, and then gave him a big grin and a wink. He looked afraid and scurried off. I later realised that I’d only complimented his castle in my head. If that was you — or, more realistically, your child — then I’m sorry. But it really was a great-looking castle. Bet Melvyn would have loved it.

03.11.17 es magazine 23

MISBHV shearling jacket, £1,563 (misbhv.com)

The rise & rise of

dua Lipa Her heartbreak bangers have soundtracked the year and propelled Dua Lipa into pop’s big league. Richard Godwin meets a singer playing the game by her own rules… and winning PhotographS BY luc coiffait stylED BY richard sloan

ua Lipa is perched on a wall outside a photo studio in south Tottenham, taking in the autumn sun, considering her rise to the pinnacle of British pop. And she has plenty to ruminate on. In 2017, the 22-year-old Anglo-Kosovar singer has released her first album, taken her Instagram following to 3.8 million, secured autumn tours with Bruno Mars and Coldplay, and just announced her own arena tour for 2018. Her single, ‘New Rules’, about the perils of ex sex — ‘If you’re under him / You ain’t getting over him’ — became her first No 1 in the summer on the back of a

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sisterhood-themed video that has scored close to half a billion views on YouTube. And today is just one of those precious days where all feels right with the world. It’s warm enough that some kids are having a water fight in the street. But perhaps I’m just falling under her particular spell. ‘You know what?’ she says. ‘I’d take sunny London over anything, anywhere, any day. It’s my favourite place in the world. Seriously… Even when I’ve spent time in LA and it was gorgeous, I’d find myself missing the rain.’ Lipa has had one of those self-willed careers that makes you think that if you had her determination — and possibly her eyebrows — you too could do whatever you

set out to do. It helps that she sings in a distinct, husky, low register and knows her way around a melancholic tune. She calls her music ‘dance-crying’ and feels it’s the undercurrents of sadness that distinguish her from the general popscape. ‘I find a lot of inspiration from heartbreak, I kind of thrive on it’, she says. She’s also strikingly on point, sitting here in her white Air Maxes, rainbow sweatpants and Palm Angels hoodie, and her sultry looks, combined with her alleged dating history, have made her a tabloid favourite. She has been linked to everyone from Calvin Harris to Chris Martin to Harry Styles — all fake news, she insists. In reality, she is dating Paul Klein, frontman of the

03.11.17 es magazine 27

JACQUEMUS jacket, £662, at matchesfashion.com. MM6 top, POA (020 7629 2682). MARTINE ROSE trousers, £608, at matchesfashion.com. CHRISTIAN DIOR choker, £240 (dior.com)

American synth band LANY. And no, ‘New Rules’ isn’t about any ex in particular. ‘Everyone makes mistakes once in a while and lots of people can relate to that,’ she says. ‘Sometimes, you keep going back to something that no longer helps you grow or makes you feel good. You know you’re comfortable with them. But you can’t live in comfort all the time. Life really starts outside your comfort zone.’ This could quite easily be Dua Lipa’s motto (Dua — pronounced doo-ah — is Albanian for ‘I want’ or ‘I fancy’, btw). She was born in north London to Kosovar parents. She had a happy childhood in Hampstead (she’s posher sounding than I had expected) and was all set for Camden School for Girls when her father Dukagjin, aka Dugi, decided to move the family back to Kosovo when she was 11. So, she spent her early adolescence in the tiny landlocked Balkan country, which had only recently gained independence from Serbia. ‘The whole population is less than two million people, so word gets around. Especially in Pristina, the capital, everyone knows everyone.’ Dugi now runs his own marketing and communications agency, but back in the day he had sung in a popular (and surprisingly good) rock band called Oda, so everyone knew her as Dugi’s daughter; now they know him as Dua’s father.

Getty; Rex

“when I realised no one was going to look after me or tell me to clear up my room or cook my food, that was a struggle”

Clockwise from left, with Ella Eyre on Topshop Unique’s front row; on stage in Milan; with Sean Paul at MTV Live Stage

master’s at LSE, and my parents knew her parents, so we managed to persuade them that I’d be able to live with her and everything would be fine. And everything was fine.’ She learned how to cook more than just scrambled eggs. She became ‘superclose’ with a small circle of girlfriends she made at Parliament Hill School in Gospel Oak. ‘Whenever I felt lonely or missed home, they’d come, stay the night, make sure I was okay.’ On Saturdays, she went to Sylvia Young Theatre School and had the ‘best time ever’.

ow did she cope at that age without her parents? ‘We’d FaceTime a lot. It would be like: wake up in the morning, tell It was a happy and supportive place to mum I’d woken up, have grow up, and she spent a lot of time dancing breakfast, tell mum I’d had breakfast, go to along to Pink and Nelly Furtado, and school… and so on. So it was very controlled. having rap battles in the park. But it didn’t But when it came to the point where I exactly seem like a place to launch a pop realised no one was going to look after me career, which was increasingly what she or tell me to clear up my room or cook wanted to do. ‘I used to go to a Saturday my food, that was a struggle. That was stage school in London but it was only when definitely me coming out of my comfort I was at school in Kosovo that I realised how zone. It played a massive role in making me much I loved performing. And there I just who I am. With my music, I realised I just didn’t feel like anyone was ever going to had to be confident.’ find me. So I decided to move back She took a pragmatic approach to to London on my own.’ her music — posting songs on She was 15 when she made this YouTube, buttonholing up-anddecision. The official plan was: coming producers to collaborate she’d go to London, sit her with her. Eventually, a cover of GCSEs and A-levels and go on ‘Cocoa Butter Kisses’ by Chance to university. But she says she Dua Lipa and Nick Grimshaw the Rapper got her noticed. ‘Then knew early on that she didn’t I wrote a song called ‘Hotter than really want to go to university. Hell’ with some friends of mine ‘There was another Kosovan called Ritual, just keys and a girl who was coming to do a

kick-drum, and that really kickstarted everything.’ She was signed by Warner in 2015, which then paired her with the Canadian producer Stephen ‘Koz’ Kozmeniuk, who helped realise the sad-disco sound that she had in her head. It helps that she has that deep resonance in her voice — she says she’s always had a hard time reaching the high notes. ‘I talk all the way down in my boots and that’s sort of really bad for you. I used to lose my voice really often when I was first touring. When I sing in the studio I have to remember to sing with a smile as it really helps lift everything. I had to get a vocal coach to teach me how to speak in a lighter way.’ I can remember sitting in a photo studio not unlike this one a few years ago interviewing another Anglo-Kosovar dancepop singer… Rita Ora: friend of hers? She smiles politely. ‘Our parents kind of know each other and I sort of know her sister, but I’ve only really come to know her now through music,’ she says. Like Ora, she has become prey to creeps with long lenses. In the summer, her family holiday (she has a sister, 16, and brother, 11) was tarnished when a photographer decided to hide out to take pictures of her sunbathing. ‘It’s f***ing bulls***. I hate it. It was intrusive. I felt a bit… helpless. I was on holiday with my family at the time and I didn’t know how to react. I guess one thing that’s kind of upsetting is that… well, when I’m on holiday with my parents, I don’t really want to make an effort. I just want to put my hair in a bun and go out to the beach. And when I saw the pictures, I was like: “God, I feel like I should be making more of an effort.” And I really don’t want to fall into the hands of that. I’m not here to put on a show for paparazzi.’ There’s a difference, she points out, between wearing revealing outfits on stage

03.11.17 es magazine 29

Left, SAINT LAURENT dress, £2,995; coat, £2,305 (ysl.com) Right, MARTINE ROSE shirt, £540, at matchesfashion.com. CHRISTIAN DIOR bralet, £620; choker, as before (dior.com). JOSEPH trousers, £445 (joseph-fashion.com). Hair by Sam Burnett. Make-up by Francesca Brazzo. Nails by Michelle Humphrey

and having her every appearance poured over. ‘I do wear bras onstage all the time obviously, but I like to be able to choose what people see and what people know about me. When that’s out of my hands, it’s not so nice.’ She also detects a misogynist tone to the fevered speculation about whether she’s dating this or that male collaborator, including Chris Martin, with whom she spent an afternoon jamming in Malibu recently. ‘They’re all bulls***! As soon as I broke up with my boyfriend [the model and chef, Isaac Carew], the second I was seen with someone it became a story. Even when I was with my boyfriend, Harry [Styles] and I just went out for lunch one day. And everyone was like: “They’re dating!” Can everyone just f***ing chill? It’s kind of sexist.’

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“I like to be able to choose what people see and what people know about me. When that’s out of my hands, it’s not so nice” She is, after all, of a generation that refuses to accept this sort of thing as part of being a woman in the public eye. ‘It’s a crazy time in the world. Women are the f***ing future. And we’re going to take over the world. That’s really what I think. I think if you’re not a feminist, you’re sexist. Both men and women. My idea of Dua Lipa fem inism is just wanting with her bandmates equality. It’s just wanting women to be treated the same and to have equal opportunities. I guess

we just need to teach the younger generation. Whatever I can do in my circle, however I can use my platform to get things out — that’s the most important thing for me.’ As she says goodbye, I notice the small tattoo on her hand. It says: ‘Patience’. ‘That was the last tattoo I got. I put it on my hand so I would always see it. Patience really is a virtue. It’s always served me well to wait and learn more about myself. And always be nice — that’s probably the most important.’ Dua Lipa plays Brixton Academy on 6 Nov, with a full UK arena tour scheduled for next April. Her self-titled debut album is out now

Pull up to the JUMPER patterns pending The Fair Isle has lasting appeal.

CALVIN KLEIN jumper, £555, at net-a-porter.com

all aboard The classic mariner is an enduring wardrobe staple.

mountain high Keep your cool in this alpine knit.

mellow yellow Go oversized with this chunky cable in XL.

snow brainer Winter white, or offwhite, is always an instant facelift.

blue wonder This OTT knit looks just as cool with floral or denim.

block star Make shapes this winter.

JW ANDERSON jumper with crochet sleeves, £940, (j-w-anderson.com) MULBERRY Melody mohair jumper, £480 (mulberry.com)

RAG & BONE turtleneck, £495 (rag-bone.com)

rug up Proving that mohair is as cosy as it is chic.

HUGO jumper, £220 (hugoboss.com)

fresh slant Trust us, diagonal lines are super flattering.

RAEY rollneck, £525, at matches fashion.com

VICTORIA, VICTORIA BECKHAM sweater, £395, at net-a-porter.com

M&S COLLECTION jumper, £35 (marks andspencer.com)

GUCCI jumper, £895 (gucci .com)

check mate Pair ‘plaid’ with faded denim and loafers.

BALENCIAGA AW17

a cut above Give them the cool shoulder.

BRORA jumper, £135, at johnlewis.com

sportmax aw17

LOUIS VUITTON AW17

oll up, roll up. After seasons of investing in beautiful but — let’s face it — slightly bland, fine-gauge knitwear, statement sweaters are heating up our wish list for party season. CHINTI & PARKER Ciao From supersized pullovers that multitask cashmere sweater, £295 as dresses (ideally teamed with the season’s (chintiandparker.com) thigh-high boots) to fancy Fair Isle jumpers that funnel mountain chic into the city, cash point bold jumpers are making waves from Bond Slogan sweaters get a Street to Barnet high street. JOSEPH colourful cashmere update. jumper, ‘Everyone should have a statement £275 (josephsweater,’ declares Chinti & Parker fashion.com) co-founder Anna Singh of AW17’s stand-out slogan and colourful ‘intarsia’ (that’s a patterned knit, FYI). She is a particular fan of the oversized turtleneck: ‘If like me, you prefer a cool, borrowed-fromthe-boys appeal to your knitwear, then a longer, chunkier style is TOPSHOP the way to go and is super flatUNIQUE jumper, £110, at tering.’ Raey designer Rachael net-a-porter.com Proud agrees. ‘They are perfect for “transitional-can’t-make-itsshape shift zip service mind-up-cold-when-you-leaveSwitch proportions Channel that the-house-boiling-on-the-Tube” with this longSeventies feel. weather,’ she says. ‘I have three!’ sleeved cropped Funnily enough, so does the ES H&M jumper, funnel neck. £59.99 (hm.com) team, who have to schedule wears of Proud’s dove-grey rollneck that’s already owned by three staffers and counting. Tufted and deconstructed styles also have serious pull from Boss to Calvin Klein, but for those whose bent is more towards JIGSAW jumper, the classic, Singh is also backing the striped £199 (jigsawmariner and Aran sweater. ‘Everyone should online.com) have a Breton sweater, because as much as it’s a cliché, it really is a timeless staple, and an Aran sweater for a textured effect during the colder months.’ On the high street, stop by Arket for the former, while everywhere from M&S to Zara has a take on the latter. split decision Here’s our edit of the best of the Show off your dual bunch. And as an added bonus: none nature in this will require a battery pack, pom-poms or two-tone sweater. even sequins to turn heads as we descend into Christmas jumper season.

32 es magazine 03.11.17

sew good This rollneck will stitch up any patent mini.

ALBERTA FERRETTI aw17

ARKET jumper, £69 (arket.com)

fendi aw17

This season’s trophy item? A statement sweater. Katrina Israel selects the best of the bunch

FRENCH CONNECTION jumper, £120 (french connection.com)

MICHAEL MICHAEL KORS jumper, £195 (michael kors.co.uk)

snaffle this Who knew ruffles also work a treat when knitted?

sleeve notes Grandma’s crochet has retro appeal — wide-legged trousers optional. ALEXA CHUNG oversized intarsia sweater, £270 (alexa chung.com)

eye spy Put your best face forward with this surrealist sweater.

03.11.17 es magazine 33

beauty by katie service

Body Builders

Heavyweight protein formulas to fortify dry, brittle hair

Clockwise from top, Label m protein spray, £14.95, at store.toniandguy.com. John Frieda Luxurious Volume core restore, £9.99, at boots.com. kérastase Resistance ciment thermique, £17.40, at lookfantastic.com. HIF Growth Support, £40 (hif.co)

PHOTOGRAPH BY aleksandra kingo STYLED BY lily worcester

03.11.17 es magazine 37

beauty

You beauty!

ON THE SOAPBOX

Cosmetic doctor Michael Prager on the face Londoners are putting out to the world

‘A

fter years in the business of seeing trends in Botox and fillers come and go, I’ve noticed that London has developed its own natural, more relaxed look. Think of it as the anti-LA face. We’ve all seen those frozen red carpet celebrities — you may as well be in Madame Tussauds. The London look, a trend I’ve noticed growing, is unassuming. It can move and it’s subtle. It also takes a certain amount of confidence, because you won’t be walking around completely line-free. I don’t believe in that. If it’s done properly it should say: ‘I can afford to have lines, because my proportions are, or have, been balanced.’ Dermatologists can help do this with very exacting amounts of Lines aren’t the filler, tweaking the enemy details of the face by using small amounts like a make-up brush — highlighting here and there and taking out the dark shadows that form naturally as our skin ages. Lines aren’t the enemy. Ridiculously frozen and bulbous faces are. Most of all the London look is about laughing and expression and movement of the face. When it’s done well, it’s youthful and happy and up. The point is to enjoy your face — not freeze it.

Josh Shinner; Alamy; Natasha Pszenicki

’ Headspace

Annabel Rivkin finds her perfect bronzer

Love a Friday night soak? Dunk one of these pink Himalayan bath salt hearts into the tub — the 84 minerals they contain help unknot tired muscles and loosen cramps. And, relax. spa find Pink Himalayan Salt Rocks, £9.95, at shopforspa.com

o there I was sitting in the office wearing no make-up at all because I often go bare. I darted to the loo, rubbed on some Tom Ford Bronzing Gel and came back to my desk. Stealthy as anything. ‘What have you done?’ said someone narrowing their eyes at me. ‘Oh, just slapped on this Tom Ford Bronzing Gel I wanted to try,’ I said, nonchalant as f***. ‘Really?’ she asked. ‘Nothing else?’ So suspicious, as though I’d just had a facelift in the bathroom. ‘No concealer? No highlighter? You’ve definitely put something here,’ she kind of stabbed at her cheekbones with a finger. Women hate it when other women lie about what they eat, what they wear and whether they have make-up on. ‘Nope,’ I responded breezily, typing away like Julie Andrews; utterly irreproachable. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘You just look a bit more… gorgeous.’ So, naturally, like any normal human woman, I drifted back to the loo and had a good look. And you know what? I did look just a bit more gorgeous (this is all relative), rested and, oddly, thinner, too. You can, should you choose, dot this gel on cheekbones and forehead and the bridge of your nose like a conventional bronzer. But, frankly, why bother when you can just shove it all over your face in three seconds and harness the power of the lightweight, radiance-inducing, glowy formula that veils as it goldens, blurs as it enhances. I am absolutely delighted with this. Tom Ford, eh? He just… bottles it. Every time. Tom Ford Bronzing Gel, £36, at selfridges.com

Read your stars by Shelley von Strunckel at standard.co.uk / horoscopes /today

03.11.17 es magazine 39

beauty

Getty Images

Let’s talk about

flex

or the past few years fitness has been big. Not just in terms of athleisure and general #fitspo — but also in terms of its scope. With multiplying Ironman races, marathons, Tough Mudder events and the There’s more to fitness than torching calories like, the vibe has tended to be, ‘go hard or — a new wave of classes focuses on tiny go home’. Perhaps it’s natural, therefore, that things are now shifting. Experts are adjustments that make all the difference to focusing on working small but important strength and flexibility, says Rebecca Newman muscles and previously unsung parts of the body such as the tendons and fascia to After a careful analysis of my strengths While Wylde’s book focuses on DIY work, improve strength and flexibility. This is not and weaknesses, Rich diagnoses a you can also visit her at Triyoga in Camden some kind of hair-shirt, for-the-greatermisalignment in my hips, and together for an assisted stretch session. After careful good approach. The ‘micro movements’ we do specific work to loosen hip flexors analysis she moves my legs with her hands, and a focus on proper alignment that make (the collection of muscles used in lifting asking me to push back against her. ‘If I up this new fitness frontier will make you your knee toward your body) and activate move your leg the smallest distance out feel and look fantastic. my glutes. Exercises include me lying on from of its normal pattern of motion, you ‘Subtle movements that work on core and my back over a raised box, lifting and have almost no strength,’ she observes. postural stability, as well as aiding mobility lowering one leg while keeping the other Though the movements feel gentle, I am and flexibility, should be a fundamental part pulled to my chest. stiff afterwards from the effort. I also feel of any well-designed exercise programme,’ ‘If certain muscles are tight, they may taller, more open across the shoulders and, says Jonathan Wreaves, physiologist at inhibit other muscles from kicking in, and oddly, emotionally renewed. ‘You carry Harley Street preventative health clinic that way injury lies.’ Historically every tension in your fascia,’ she smiles. ‘You Viavi. ‘Over the past decade this important time I train, injury has kicked in, and this would be amazed how powerful and area of exercise has often been neglected, feels like a viable way to cathartic it can be to let that tension go.’ resulting in a growing trend of The psychological letting-go that chronic injuries.’ “‘Once we learn to break the vicious loop. The notion of movement accompanies muscular release is one of the Recognising this, Ten move better, we release is also integral to reasons Kensington’s Core Collective gym Health & Fitness recently can build muscle as the work of Suzanne Wylde, recently launched its 55-minute Stretch launched Pilates classes led in the right way” heralded as a ‘stretchpert’ class, a floor-based combination of active by a physiotherapist in groups for the improvements she and passive stretches. of four or less, designed to brings to clients, including Premier League ‘Muscles contract when you are stressed, teach ‘better movement’. ‘Ten is all about footballers and business CEOs. Wylde which makes you feel still more tense,’ says moving more mindfully and precisely,’ says pioneered a new kind of resistance Core Collective COO Heloise Nangle. ‘And its head of fitness, Neil Dimmock. ‘Once we stretching that targets the fascia, the men are particularly bad at doing anything learn to move better, we can build muscle dense, connective tissue that encases our about this. The class will encourage the in the right way. It can lead to longer, muscles and that, like muscles, can grow release of endorphins, which provide a leaner limbs with less risk of injury.’ tight and knotty. ‘So many clients come sense of tranquillity and wellbeing.’ Elle Rich, the Perth-born to me hunched or in pain,’ says Wylde, Certainly my experience suggests this physiotherapist I meet in Ten’s airy who has published a book on her unique targeted yet holistic approach is compelling. Fitzrovia studio, explains that the classes approach, Moving Stretch. ‘They are It’s exercise that brings physical and she leads are entirely bespoke: ‘I take each amazed how quickly and how visibly mental rewards that will enable you to client’s pathology into account and create their body can change.’ use your body better for years to come. a programme specifically for them.’

03.11.17 es magazine 41

feast

grace & flavour Grace Dent discovers the highs and lows of the Bahraini cuisine at Villa Mamas

“Saleh seems very much a pupil of the School of Women Getting S*** Done, which I’ve got untold time for”

Ambience food

Jonny Cochrane; illustration by Jonathan Calugi @ Machas

’m by no means a Bahraini cuisine expert. Before booking Villa Mamas in Chelsea I think I’d stored Bahrain’s dining habits in my brain under ‘Sort of delicious Levanttype wotnot’. Tabbouleh, fattoush and grilled things… probably. Clearly my geography is as skew-whiff as my 2am beehive. Forgive me. There’s not a lot of Khaleeji food troubling London’s food scene. Yes, it’s there. People baking saffron rice and flinging pomegranate about on the Edgware Road and in a thousand London home kitchens, but the Bahraini community is possibly quite relieved to have never had its cool, en vogue, ‘Guys let’s all cook tahcheen!’ moment. Chef Roaya Saleh has snuck into London and opened her second Villa Mamas — the first one is in Bahrain — long before two blokes called Quentin and Casper could inevitably begin bastardising sabzi and serving it at festivals from a repurposed horse box, accompanied with a whimsical tale of their post-Harrow travels and cooking bromance in Arabia. Saleh, instead, spent her childhood between Bahrain and Iran. She was the first female director of an Islamic bank, before side-stepping that to cook and build her empire. To me, Saleh seems very much a pupil of the Martha Ortiz, Asma Khan, Selin Kiazim School of Women Getting S*** Done, which I’ve got untold time for. Saleh’s London debut has appeared on Elystan Street in Chelsea, just along from chef Phil Howard’s place. Elystan Street is a definitely elegant, slightly out of the way back road, but its slight obscurity is its beauty. It’s an oasis of wellheeled London loveliness. And if you’re spending OPM (other people’s money), more’s the better.

Villa mamas 25-27 Elystan Street, Chelsea, SW3 (020 3034 0777; villamamas.com)

Kaskhe bademjoon

Machbous deyay

£19.50

Lamb sabzi

£20.50

Today’s salad

£8.50

Elba

£6.50

Muhallabia rice pudding

£6.50

Saffron ice cream

£6.50

Large still water

£3.50

Glasses of Barbera Monferrato £48

Total

£7.95

£127.45

Villa Mamas has pitched up for business with a gorgeous little terrace of wooden benches outside and pretty blankets to snuggle in while picking at warek enab — vine leaves stuffed with rice, tomatoes and herbs. Or mathrooba, a chicken and cracked wheat stew served with goat’s ghee. The crowd when I visited was a little bit ‘young gorgeous Bahraini things’ drinking Coke, demolishing chicken pilaf and gossiping, plus a little bit ‘earnest middle-class academic’ and, of course, ‘Sloaney-types who couldn’t be bothered to cook’. Service is bright and effusive. After one bowl of kaskhe bademjoon I was already probably Villa Mamas biggest fan. This ‘eggplant explosion’, as it’s subtly subtitled on the Villa Mamas menu, is soft aubergine layered with sweet heavenly caramelised onion, chopped walnut with a milky whey sauce. Yes it’s £7.95 for a relatively teensy portion but this is aubergine at its very highest self. I very, very much regret not ordering the tahcheen, which began tormenting me from other tables the moment we opted for the machbous deyay, a fragrant, hearty chicken pilaf. Yes, this pilaf was indeed great. Soft and warm and in places sweet. But the tahcheen looked wondrous, somewhat shepherd’s pie-like in appearance: a cake of fragrant saffron rice with chicken, pine nuts and barberries. You are not allowed to eat another diner’s dinner. I know this now. But I will go back. The lamb sabzi, which again for £20.50 was the sort of portion one might absent-mindedly eat while waiting for dinner, was a pleasant enough herby stew of basil, mint, coriander and Persian watercress armed with kidney beans. The puddings tasted disappointingly premade and felt rather loveless. We tried three in a search for greatness: a fridge-cold rose water rice pudding; some saffron ice cream with ‘candyfloss’ that my guest remarked resembled back-of-thesofa fluff; and Elba, a Bahraini crème caramel so stonkingly perfumed it will knock those with a flimsy British palate onto one’s arse. It was hit and miss at Villa Mamas but I’ll be back as I’m already hooked on the high notes.

03.11.17 es magazine 43

feast

tart london Jemima Jones and Lucy Carr-Ellison dish up deliciously wholesome bowls of salmon and fragrant brown rice

Pick a peck of persimmons: Lucy harvests sweet treats in sunny Mallorca

Jemima Jones (left) and Lucy Carr-Ellison

Josh Shinner

omforting, wholesome, heart-warming bowl food — that’s what this dish is all about. It’s unfussy and pretty good for you, too. Even better, there’s hardly any washing up and the whole thing is ready within 20 minutes. We love this sort of cooking: a pot bubbling away on the stove while we potter about at the end of a long day before curling up in an armchair with a good glass of red wine. It is feelgood food designed to nourish you. We’ve recently discovered Georgina Hayden’s lovely book Stirring Slowly, dedicated to rejuvenating bowl food and proving that comfort eating doesn’t have to mean a four-cheese pizza or a greasy burger — it can be good for you and eaten leisurely, without guilt. Meals should be that way. We all lead hectic lives in London, rushing to meetings squished on the Tube or stuck in traffic, with barely a moment to grab a sandwich. To be able to come home and have a moment to ourselves, switching off before bed with a delicious bowl of something warming — that’s so important to us. If you can achieve this, you are well on your way to a happy, balanced life. This dish is great for kids, and don’t feel you need to add the egg — it’s perfectly delicious without it. If you’re nervous about poaching the eggs, simply soft boil and peel instead as a fail-safe alternative.

Makes 2 large bowls

SALMON AND brown RICE ONE POT

For the green sauce 4 tbsp crème fraiche 1 tbsp olive oil Small bunch of parsley Small bunch of dill Small bunch of chives Handful of watercress Zest and juice of half a lemon 1 garlic clove Salt and pepper, to taste

First make the green sauce by blitzing everything in a food processor. Set to one side. For the soup, melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat and add the leek, garlic and fennel. Sauté for 5 minutes until it starts to caramelise then add the rice and stir to coat. Pour in the wine and stock and add the bay leaves. Put the lid on and cook for 15 minutes until the rice is al dente. Then add the salmon and cook for another 4-5 minutes. Take off the heat, season to taste and carefully stir in the dill and lemon juice. Bring a small pan of water to the boil and add the vinegar. Crack in the eggs and poach for three minutes, then remove to a bowl of cold water to prevent further cooking. Divide the soup into bowls, drizzle over the green sauce and carefully top with an egg each. Dust with a little lemon zest and dig in.

For the soup Knob of butter 1 leek, chopped 3 garlic cloves, chopped 1 bulb of fennel, chopped 100g brown rice 250ml white wine 750ml chicken or vegetable stock 3 bay leaves 450g salmon fillet, chopped into large chunks Small bunch of dill, chopped Juice of 1 lemon Salt and pepper, to taste 2 eggs 1 tsp white wine vinegar Zest of 1 lemon, to serve

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Lilium Blu dessert plates (set of two) by La DoubleJ, £65, at libertylondon.com

HOMEWORK BY lILY WORCESTER

Giallo fiore coffee pot by Imolarte, £89, at maisonnumen.com

Velvet cushion, £895 (gucci.com)

bloom or bust

Gone are the days of a demure autumnal palette — this season is about high-octane florals. Take your lead from Alessandro Michele’s debut homeware collection for Gucci: his rich eclectic aesthetic is perfectly suited to the world of interiors’ new vibrant mood. And don’t be afraid to layer contrasting prints, or pair hothouse florals with bold colours (check out the new Bicester Village pop-up from artist Luke Edward Hall, the master of colour clash, for inspiration). And for bedding, look no further than Preen Home — its floral quilted eiderdown is double sided, finished with a silk frill trim and is the perfect addition to any maximalist bedroom. Forget subtle: this season, more is most definitely more.

Tamsin dining chair by Liberty for Anthropologie, £118 (anthropologie.com)

Our Flora Peony vase by Krehky Gallery, £284, at store. wallpaper.com

Mirror by Seletti Wears Toiletpaper, £17.50, at saatchi store.com

Wonderlust teacup and saucer in primrose by Wedgwood, £50, at amara.com

MIU MIU AW17

Eiderdowns and cushions, from £175 (preenbythorntonbregazzi.com)

Getty Images

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MARNI AW17

Tray, £7.99 (ricebyrice .com)

Yasmin porcelain basin, £760 (londonbasin company.com)

Luke Edward Hall’s Bicester Village pop-up

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escape

Beak of luxury:the Parrot Bar at Beaverbrook

EDITED by dipal acharya Pile in: Holkham Hall

Alamy

Holkham Hall, norfolk

Wrapped within the grounds of the Palladian masterpiece Holkham Hall, you’ll find unique properties that have been recently renovated to create elegant and cosy self-catering retreats. Guests will arrive to find every creature comfort they can think of, plus a fridge stocked with a delicious hamper from the nearby Norfolk Deli and everything needed for a roaring log fire. Don’t fill up before a visit to Victoria Inn — the seafood is divine. Just a short walk from each lodge, guests can enjoy all of the attractions of Holkham but, best of all, the beach (left) is only a 10-minute walk away. Rent bicycles from the main house and spend hours winding your way through the pretty narrow lanes of north Norfolk before stopping at a sand dune of your choice and enjoying the incredible views of one of Britain’s most beautiful coastlines. Lodges from £176 (holkham.co.uk)

Dip into history: the pool at Cliveden House

Beaverbrook, surrey

STATELY AFFAIRS

With rambling gardens and colourful histories, these grand country piles are the ultimate quick getaways for Londoners

Suite dreams: the Lady Astor room at Cliveden House

Once the home of press baron Lord Beaverbrook, this storied stately home has been transformed by designer Susie Atkinson of Soho House fame. Banish any thoughts of a dowdy, drafty Downton experience — unexpected luxe details abound. The menu at the Japanese restaurant features Wagyu beef and miso seafood ceviche with fresh ingredients sourced from the estate’s garden. Hole up in the Twenties-style Parrot Bar sipping a Pacific pisco sour or hunker down in the art deco cinema, with movies curated by director Alan Parker, while the kids are entertained in the magical tree house on the grounds. Rooms are named after the estate’s most famous guests — from Winston Churchill to Ian Fleming — and boast Bamford toiletries, Apple TVs and your own bottle of Sipsmith damson vodka to enjoy. Channel your inner Rapunzel and bag one of the Turret rooms with a private terrace and breathtaking vistas of the rolling Surrey hills. Rooms from £330 (beaverbrook.co.uk)

Cliveden House, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE Is there any house in Britain more beautiful or as steeped in history as Cliveden? Surely not. Set in 376 acres of incredible grounds in Buckinghamshire, the house — once home to the formidable Nancy Astor, the first female MP to take her seat in the House of Commons — is now a five-star hotel replete with original wooden panelling and portraits of many of the great and the good who have stayed there over the centuries. Best of all, they have just given the spa

a beautiful facelift. Life doesn’t get much more thrilling than swimming outdoors in November in the same (now heated) pool in which John Profumo spotted 19-year-old model Christine Keeler swimming naked, setting off the scandalous Profumo affair. Or why not have a bespoke Sarah Chapman facial in the spa? Don’t miss the cream tea, and run off any surplus calories along the pretty riverbanks below the house. Rooms from £445 (clivedenhouse.co.uk)

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my london

Katie grand as told to lily worcester

Home is… A house in Tufnell Park with my husband [Steve Mackey, the Pulp bassist], his son, Marley, and the dog, a Hungarian vizsla called Dogwyn. Which shops do you rely on? Prada for clothes: the furry slippers (above) are pretty essential. And a deli in Tufnell Park called Meat. It’s very good for mustards, oil, ham, cheese. Oh, and dog bones. What do you collect? Magazines, I’ve got quite a great archive of magazines from 1984; we’ve got a library at the house.

First thing you do when you come back to London? Go to the gym at the Metropolitan Hotel and see one of the trainers. My office is in Clerkenwell so then I come into work and usually go out near there, to Luca, St John or Zetter Townhouse. What would you do if you were Mayor for the day? I think Sadiq is doing a pretty good job. I’m a huge fan. Biggest extravagance? Clothes, definitely clothes. I kind of have a problem. My husband said either the clothes go or I go, so I bought a twostorey building to put my clothes in.

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The stylist and Love editor works out at the Metropolitan Hotel, eats Dover sole at J Sheekey and has a second home for all her clothes Best London discovery? Highgate Wood (left) is very good for dog walking. When it rains it’s really beautiful and because it’s foresty you’re quite covered. And it has a great coffee bar, so I quite often walk Dogwyn with Luella Bartley, Jane Bruton and their dogs. The three of us do quite a lot of dog walking there.

If you could buy any London building, which would it be? Buckingham Palace, of course! Nice central location, easy parking. Good security. I’d keep the decor traditional but if they don’t have a swimming pool I’d like an Olympicsized one, and a really modern gym. And a running track outside would be kind of nice.

Favourite club? I quite like The Scotch of St James, it’s really cosy and there’s something quite oldschool London about it, which is nice. I usually go with Steve, Giles Deacon, Tim Walker and Gwendoline Christie. It’s a bit small for Gwendoline but she copes. Where would you recommend for a first date? Maybe Luca on St John Street. It has really good cocktails, does a very good negroni and has a really good wine list. Giles is very fond of it: he introduced me to it and I’ve taken a lot of people there since. I’ve been on several dates there. Best piece of advice? Miuccia Prada (left) once said to me: ‘Don’t be polite, I don’t pay you to be polite.’ ‘Love’ 18 is on sale now

Rex Features; Getty Images; Alamy

Best meal? I quite like the comfort food at J Sheekey (above), like the Dover sole with a side of mushy peas. Mushy peas aren’t on the menu any more but they usually find some if you want them. They do a good French 75 — that’s gin and champagne. It’s a cocktail that was invented during the First World War.