Subscribe now

I’ve never had much in the way of a kitchen. In my first grown-up flat - a tiny walk up in central London, the kitchen was no bigger than a toddler’s play mat. There was no oven, no washing machine, just an old microwave and a chipped Butler’s sink which used to drip all night long.

When my husband and I bought our first home together, the kitchen wasn’t much better. This time it was a tiny postage stamp space that ran 6ft by 6ft. You could only ever have one person in at a time, and if you liked to cook, as my husband liked to do, the dirty dishes had to be piled on the sides and the floor.

Because of this I have always had romantic notions about kitchens. I have always longed for the sort of space where friends can gather around a long oak table whilst I cook and sip red wine. (This, despite the fact I neither drink red wine, cook, or have enough friends to fit along a long oak table.) In my eyes a proper kitchen is the sort of place where there are copper pans hanging from the ceiling, Japanese knives in the drawer and Kilner jars filled with dried pulses on the shelves. A true adult meanwhile is someone who knows how to cook with all of the above.

I thought I might become that person one day. But life has panned out otherwise. Firstly, I’m no cook. I lack the patience. I can spend hours slaving over a garden border but I lose interest in any dish that takes more than 30 minutes to cook. My husband is the one with the foodie knack. He is able to get excited about steel pans and treacly balsamic vinegars, as well as communicate his love through a 6-hour coq au vin made with four different types of alcohol.

Still, I do adore kitchens. I love their warmth. I love their promise. I love how when I’m away from home the first thing I do when I return, almost as a reflex, is walk into the kitchen, pop the kettle on and then rummage through the fridge.

So anyway, last year I decided I wanted a proper kitchen.

Our previous kitchen was pale grey. I believe I had been inspired by one of Gwyneth Paltrow’s many kitchens in an issue of Architectural Digest and then found the cheapest person in Kent to make it. I didn’t know anything about kitchens back then. Thus we had a standard, fitted kitchen with teeny tiny drawers that were completely impractical, and white kitchen sides that look like belonged in a hospital.

I am 47 now. Tastes change. I love ceramics nowadays. And natural materials- marble, brass and wood. Lots of wood. I also wanted a kitchen whose drawers and cupboards fitted my life rather than the other way round. A place for everything, so everything could be in its place. (Oh how I have dreamed of clear sideboards for most of my life.) The only answer then was a bespoke kitchen.

I am lucky. When we first moved to this corner of Kent I discovered a very talented local carpenter called Ben via the late restaurateur Russell Norman who lived nearby. He had made some beautiful doors for Russell and so I asked for his name.

Over the years Ben has transformed our home. He has replaced our tired old 80s bannisters that we inherited with the house with a swish Danish-inspired oak one that I love running my hands up and down. He has made me wardrobes and tables, a floor to ceiling set of walnut bookcases, a beautiful handmade stable back door and even a writer’s desk for my husband’s 45th birthday. He also makes very beautiful kitchens.

I watched for years as Ben made kitchens for other people (all shown on his very swish Instagram). There were bespoke knife drawers, a cupboard especially for spice bottles, glass cupboards made my old fashioned ‘wobbly glass’ and even a miniature bar for one lucky recipient.

So one day last years, after years of scrimping and saving, I made the call.

‘Ben, we are ready for our new kitchen…’

The thing about going bespoke is that you need a vision with which your maker can work. I’m lucky in that Ben knows I’m a complete pedant and fastidious about every last detail. (Given he is the same way things can get colourful!) So I went about making Pinterest boards that could show him my thinking.

I loved two design styles: Japanese and Danish minimalism. But I also live in the Kentish countryside, so Ben suggested we also try and incorporate some British sensibility too- a little Arts and Crafts perhaps. Shaker doors. Handles that felt distinctly British country.

The end result is far better than I ever imagined. And also a little different- in the best possible way. That’s the thing about bespoke, you can’t ever quite imagine what it’s going to turn out like, which is why you have to put so much faith in the maker doing the work. Ben convinced me on things like tambour doors, curved edges, moving the sink just a fraction to the left so we got acres of extra work surface space (I don’t know how he did this, but it felt like magic) and cupboard handles that are almost invisible.

The funny thing is there are no copper pans hanging from the ceiling, no Kilner jars filled with pules and certainly no long oak table for friends to gather around. Which just goes to show how mistaken we can be about believing what we want in life.

Then again, I do have a kitchen drawer filled with Japanese knives. And still don’t know how to use at least half of them.

So anyway here are some pictures of the finished thing along with a few bits I’ve learned along the way.

Share

Read more

Subscribe now

6.30 am is the golden hour in my garden. It is the moment when the sun catches the buds on the Cornus tree outside my bedroom window. At six thirty in the morning the bird song is still meek and there are droplets as round as sea peals on the edges of the ferns in the shady borders. There are little curls of fox poo on the ground too- my favourite midnight interlopers; and in the hornbeam bush I can hear the gentle rustle of the four female pheasants I have been attempting to domesticate over the last two months. (It’s going very slowly.)

I head out alone most mornings, my favourite ceramic mug filled with hot tea. The dogs are old now and rarely follow me out, instead preferring to stay inside by the warmth of the radiator. I walk its length and breadth several times, examining the borders, taking notes, seeing which flowers are gently unfurling from the ground.

I have a deep attachment to this garden. It’s not love exactly, more like a deep, nourishing friendship developed over a number of years.

When my husband and I first bought the house almost 13 years ago I knew little about gardens. But it was long and wide and big enough for a trampoline and maybe a football net for the children we then planned to have. The racing green Aga and the sun lit conservatory sold the house to me (both now long replaced); the garden however was a mere afterthought.

But then life changed. Work became hard and long. My husband and I decided that a family was no longer to be the path for us. I ached for something that allowed me to escape my own mind. That’s when the garden whispered to me.

We had bought the house off an elderly couple who were both long dead by the time we moved in. There was a Stannah Stair Lift in the hallway and instructions desperately scrawled inside every cupboard- put the pans here!; don’t leave butter there! These were people for whom a garden played no role.

But it was clear somebody had loved this garden before, for beneath the bindweed and the couch grass there were flowers of exceptional taste: amber-hued tiger lilies, white scented phlox and bright orange Chinese lanterns. There was a giant Philadelphus that had grown large and unwieldy but which made the entire garden smell of sugared bon bons late into the evening. One morning, as I was clearing under the giant Elaeagnus hedge, I found a shoal of quivering lily of the valley flowers, as well as a magenta pink quince. Neither flower not shrub is native to this part of the country; instead somebody had chosen to plant them there; somebody who had loved this garden very much.

There was just one problem: I wanted to replace everything. As a novice gardener I had neither respect nor tolerance for someone else’s vision. I didn’t want orange flowers, instead I wanted a pale pastel hued garden. I didn’t want undulations of white phlox in my borders, which at the time felt fussy and old fashioned. Instead I wanted dramatic box balls and towering topiary hedges and huge cloud like hydrangeas like you see on the cover of Hamptons Life magazine.

And so I tore out the Chinese lanterns and all the amber lilies. I took down the Philadelphus as well as the Elaeagnus hedge and an old cherry tree that struggled to give blossom in the spring. I saved only two Amelanchier trees (‘excellent trees in every season’ my friend Jo told me, and boy was she right) as well as an ancient apple tree that gives little fruit but whose trunk is thick and gnarled and serves more as sculpture than tree.

For the first two years the garden lay bare. In my haste to eradicate any trace of the previous owner- and because I knew nothing about plants, I erroneously dug up dozens of bulbs- scillas, narcissi, snowdrops; thinking them giant weeds. As a result, that first and second summer, we didn’t have much in the way of a garden at all. Just a scrappy patch of lawn that the dogs had half butchered and a pond in which yellow crested newts like to sunbath.

And so I got to work.

Share

Read more

Subscribe now

This week’s essay is free for all to read. If you like it I’d love it if you could give it a little ‘like’ or share at the end so that others can read it too. And if you want more essays like this every week, as well as my recommendations then why not become a paid subscriber by hitting the button above. Thanks for reading.

When I thin…

Read more

Subscribe now

Advice is pretty cheap nowadays. You can tune into any podcast on any day of the week and you’ll find someone, anyone (I mean literally anyone) dispensing wisdom about how to live your life.

I tend not to listen to these people.

Instead the best advice I have taken over the years has come from watching people whose characters and way of life I admire. I would say, on average, this has served me well.

I will, for example, never forget the maths teacher who saved me from public humiliation by telling me I had flunked my exams in the privacy of a back room - she had led me there on the pretence of needing some books to be carried, rather than doling out the news in front of my classmates. Shame, she clearly realised, being the ultimate slayer of childhood confidence.

Neither will I forget the female CEO whose advice to me when I became a boss myself was simple and powerful: do what you have to and I will take the heat if it comes our way.

I’d wager neither of these individuals has any idea how their behaviour touched my life, but touch it and change it they did.

So anyway, this week I thought I’d take a step back and share some of the good stuff I’ve picked up along the way. Who knows, it might change your life too.

Share

Great networkers give more than they ever take

Firstly let’s all agree that the phrase ‘networking’ is up there with ‘circling back’ ‘reaching out’ and ’cross functional’ as one of those words/phrases that has no place in the English language.

The problem is, growing up the only advice I was actually ever given by those well ahead of me in the game was to network, network, network. This was both terrifying and, I have since discovered, very bad advice. Because networking relies on you having something others want: status, power, the ability to be useful. When you’re 21 few of us have any of that stuff.

But here is what I have found and seen after thirty years in the workplace: great networkers are simply people who give far more than they ever ask. In fact really really good networkers never ask at all. They shore up such a bank of good will that people actively want to help them. So give. Don’t ask. And always give without expectation too. Somehow the good you put out into the world finds its way back to you.

By limiting your choice early, you expand it later on

When you’re young it’s easy to believe you can do everything. But at some point you have to make a call about the thing you want to do most of all. And that’s hard, because making a choice feels like giving up on all the other options around you. I learned this from an academic many years ago. He, like me, had wanted to to do everything when he was younger- write, paint, speak publicly, play music, but at some point he was forced to make a choice. And he chose academia. For years he concentrated on nothing else until the very point when he was so good at the thing he had chosen, all the other opportunities he believed he’d left behind, swam back into view. But, he told me many years later, they only came back because he’d become so good at the one thing he’d chosen, suddenly the world was interested in what else he could do. I suppose what I’m trying to say is this: in trying to do everything we fail to do anything with impact. And impact counts far more than you think, especially when it comes to opportunities. So choose one thing, do it well, and then, maybe many years down the line you can take a breath, look up and see all the things you thought you’d left behind find their way back to you.

Read more

So it looks like everyone’s preference for the final writing course will be March 8th at 11 am-12.30am GMT. For those who can’t make it and would like a recording let me know.

The vast majority of you said you’d like to cover the writing basics as well as Substack essentials so we will do a little of both as well as some extras I will thro…

Read more

Wellness. It’s such a vast concept isn’t it? It is it your body? Your mind? Your soul? Personally I reckon it’s a little bit of all of the above, and believe me when I say that I’ve spent years trying to figure out how to keep all three in some form of equilibrium. I’ve been gym crazy (not as kind a concept to your body as you’d think); swallowed just a…

Read more

Subscribe now

What is it about gardens? someone asked me recently.

How long have you got, I wanted to reply.

Gardens came to me, or perhaps I should say I came to gardens, at a frantic time in my life. I was 34 and editor of the biggest glossy magazine in the country. Being young and relatively inexperienced I doubted every decision I made. I agonised over everything. I let my attention ricochet between the small-can the entire team here the quiver in my voice when I speak; to the existential- at what point will I be fired and have to rethink it all? My point is, by the time the weekend came around I was a drained cup of a person.

It was only when I stepped out into the garden-gloveless, trowel in hand, mud patches on my knees, that I could escape. It is hard to describe the way a garden can lift you out of the present and into an entire new spectrum of time. You are always moving between the past, present and future when you are in the garden; for a garden is best enjoyed when planning it, remembering it and of course, being fully, truly immersed in its world of scent, colour and shape.

Gardens built by oneself therefore are very special. But gardens built by others offer equal magic and awe as they gently fold you into someone else’s idea of beauty. Nothing is demanded of you in another person’s garden other than enjoyment, curiosity, and hopefully the offer of a cup of tea and a slice of cake at the end.

This year I have decided to revisit as many of the gardens I have loved over the years as possible. I think of it as the antidote to what will be a busy year at work. (I have just taken on a new role as the Head of International for this very platform). Perhaps you have a heavy year ahead too- in which case a wander round someone else’s garden may be the very thing you need.

Of course not all gardens are that easy to visit, which is why I’m doing this post on a cold, wet February morning. You have to be organised. Get tickets in advance. Plan your travel. Figure out when the private ones will be open. And maybe who you will take with you. Now is the perfect time to do that as the UK’s National Garden Scheme -a charity initiative which helps hundreds of special private gardens across the country open up throughout the year; will be releasing its dates this month. (Keep your eyes on their website, which you can find here.)

So anyway, here is my all-time favourite lists of gardens to visit. Some are public, many are private (but open to the public every now and then-I’ve put essential details below so you don’t miss out)and all are thoroughly magical. Happy planning!

Farrah x

Read more

Hello friends! It’s been a while, I know. But further to all your wonderful suggestions last year I’m now doing this as a monthly little dispatch (more when I have stuff I simply have to share with you, obviously). Anyway SO much to tell you about this month. I’ve mainly been on the road with work, hiring brilliant new minds to come and join us at Subst…

Read more

Subscribe now

When I was 19 I bought a beautiful, single breasted blazer from a Joseph sample sale for £50. Fifty pounds was a lot of money back then, especially for me who made my money by folding jumpers in French Connection on Hampstead High Street. But I wore that blazer to every party, every job interview, every social get-together and every date I had over the next decade. That blazer walked with me through moments in my life when I had no idea of who I was yet, but had a very clear idea of who I wanted to be. And so for many years that blazer acted as a sort of bridge whilst the interior me tried to catch up with the exterior me.

So who did I want to be at the tail end of the 1990s? Like most young women, I wanted to be seen as smart and interesting. I wanted future employers to feel I was an asset. I wanted strangers out a drink parties to look and me and think I was someone worth talking to, even if I didn’t have that much to say because you know, I was 19 years old and who has anything that interesting to say about the world at that point in your life? And so what I really wanted, more than anything else, was to be taken seriously by the world before I’d even opened my mouth.

Fashion allows you to do that, which is one of the many reasons why I love it so much. In the absence of language, fashion steps forward to tell your story exactly how you want it told.

Share

That’s why teenagers, crippled with insecurity love designer logos and handbags. (Oh how I loved a knock-off Gucci bag when I was at school.) And why newly minted girl bosses reach for Issey Miyake. It’s why men careening through a midlife crisis buy the leather jackets of their boyhood, and why older women who still fizz with the punk and energy of their youth dye their hair red and wear purple glasses.

When there are no words, fashion speaks our truth for us.

All of which is to say I found myself at Copenhagen Fashion Week this past week for work, where I barely knew a soul. As the Head of International for Substack much of my job involves meeting strangers in cultures from around the world. They know little about me other than I work for this platform, and so often the clothes I choose to wear are the first impression they get of me. And so once again fashion offers me a bridge to communicate to a roomful of strangers who I am.

Trying to communicate who you are, as well as who the company you represent is tricky, especially when dealing with people from different cultures and countries. I always think you have to toe the line between professionality, cultural respectability plus choose clothes that are memorable without being distracting.

Because dressing for work can be fraught. You need clothes that convey style, whilst also communicating competence. You need outfits that are remarkable but not ones that draw attention away from the other people in the room. Conveying confidence is good, conveying arrogance, not so much. High fashion then- all shapes and angles and bold colours, doesn’t really have a seat the ‘work’ table. But elegance does.

I think in this way it helps to set a ‘vibe’ for how you want the world to see you. And vibes rarely come from high fashion. Instead they come from choosing a colour palette that people associate with you; softer shapes that reflect openness and quiet confidence, and maybe one or two interesting accents- bold earrings, say, that can spark conversation in the absence of introductions.

Over the years I’ve watched other women I admire own rooms with what they say as well as what they wear. And I think that’s the crux: the two should go hand in hand. Fashion can walk you into a roomful of strangers but after that it falls to you to back it up. That’s when things feel right: when you have clothes that fall in line with a person’s essence.

Over the years I’ve worked hard to perfect this. And this week, as we gave dinners and breakfasts and masterclasses to rooms full of strangers eager to learn more about Substack, my wardrobe helped me deliver.

For me- and it may be a little different for you, it boils down to a very simple formula. And it goes something like this…

Earrings

Never underestimate the power of statement earrings to convey soft power and style. Something long that grazes the shoulder is always very elegant, or even wearing just one (or even mismatched statement earrings) works beautifully too and acts as a great conversation point. (I bonded with one of Paris’ most esteemed fashion PRs over dinner because we both wore earrings by the same brand- Completed Works, in case you are interested.) Pearls are very good, but so too is gold or silver in a bold, structural shape, paired with a simple black dress or tuxedo.

Soft Power Shoes

Nothing disempowers a woman greater than shoes you cannot walk in. And yet a heel does wonders for projecting power and confidence. Thankfully, after literal years of trying every designer and high street stiletto you can think of, someone has mastered the ‘comfortable heel.” Step forward Nomasei’s Gattaca heels which have all the requisite details an elegant work shoe requires- closed toe, a small heel, a little bit of foot cleavage and they come in black patent leather which is my favourite finish for evening shoes. The best shoes I’ve worn in a very long time.

Read more

Subscribe now

Things change as you hit your forties, and I should know. I’m 47 now. My hair is thinner than I’d like. I have aches and pains in places I didn’t even know were places. I’m suddenly a fan of public benches (very good for a wee rest when out shopping); and I totally, finally, get the entire point of fine point tweezer, because you know, chin hairs.

So this week is a little run down of how my beauty and wellness routine has changed over the years. And as ever, please add to the conversation in the comments because I’m sure you have a wealth of knowledge to share too. And sharing is caring, after all…

Much love as always

Farrah x

PILLS

I take pills. Not loads but some that I have found to be essential for making me feel that bit perkier. Magnesium just before bed for sure, but also this new brand whose packaging alone justifies the place on my bedside table but which also makes me feel completely rested and mellow. I also take CBD pills just before flights because the older I get the more antsy I get, and they take the edge of absolutely everything- screaming kids, the self service bag drop, obnoxious passengers who refuse to use headphones for their entire family Face Time.

HAIR SERUM

I have always had thick hair. I know, Asian genes I guess. But in the last couple of years, most notably last year, things have started to change. My ponytail is noticeably slimline whilst there are slithers *gasps* SLITHERS of scalp on show when I pull my hair back. Friends tell me it’s the same since they hit their forties, in fact one said she no longer brushes her actual hair for fear the comb will take half of if it with her. I’m starting to feel the same. Anyway, I’ve been trying this new treatment called Hair + Me for the last three months. You do a little online consultation where it asks you what’s been happening with your hair, how you look after it, what you’ve used in the past yada yada… to try and fix it. This is then looked at by their dermatology experts before they then send you a magic little vial of what looks like serum in the post every month. You then apply said serum all over your scalp (it’s not sticky or icky in anyway, which is a relief) at bedtime and that’s it. And so far, it’s working. Honest to God my hair is noticeably denser. I’ve been religious about using it every evening and my hair, especially along my hairline is coming back. Losing your hair is SUCH an emotional issue, so I’m very keen to share what I have found works- and this genuinely does.

#AD: The lovely team at Hair + Me are offering all subscribers to Things Worth Knowing a special trial offer for £4.99 for month one and then £14.99 for months two and three is you use the code FARRAH at check out (saving you £30). Use this link to get started.

GADEGTS

I’m not big on gadgets but I’ve talked about the ZIIP Halo a bunch because it’s my one concession. As I’ve gotten older facials just don’t work in the way they used to (still love the massage bit though) and so this just adds a bit of oomph to everything by using microcurrent technology to lift and tone. Anyway it’s fabulous and I use it every of couple of days.

MASKS

I swear by masks, largely because things- feet, hair, nail cuticles, you name it - tend to get a little parched. So here is my list of go-tos: after a flight, or even a long week I love Sam Bunting’s Flawless Revival Mask which gives skin its glow back within 10 minutes. No lie. Phillip Kingsley’s Elasticizer is still the closest thing to an in-salon hair gloss that I’ve found. There are also so many eye masks out there (most are just good fun and made to be worn on Instagram in a hotel bathrobe), but the only ones that truly make a difference to my eye bags are Shisheido’s Vital Perfection eye patches.

JAPANESE MANIS/PEDIS

I am not a fan of colour as I get older. And honestly can’t stomach the idea of gel on my poor nails. Instead I think crisp, shortish nails which are buffed to within an inch of their lives look very good on mid life mitts. Some forward-thinking salons now offer a ‘bare’ manicure (and if you’re in the UK the chain Townhouse is very good and do this well). The ultimate buffed nail experience however is a Japanese manicure where nails are clipped and filed and then buffed with a special paste so that the sheen lasts at least a week. I have been having my done at a cute little salon in East London called Wild Beauty, which is a complete pain to get to for me, but worth it for Yoko’s magic Japanese manicure.

Read more

Subscribe now

Sometimes I worry that I’ve forgotten what boredom feels like, certainly the type I experienced as a child when I’d mooch around the house declaring to any one who would listen: I’m bored! What can I do?!

Of course the entire point of boredom is to do nothing except perhaps to create a little space in your soul. Sitting, thinking, walking, resting - these are things I actively try to make room for in my life nowadays, because good things happen when you’re bored. Important answers swim to the top.

I realised this last year when, after a bout of bad health that left me with what doctors now believe is vagus nerve syncope(I basically faint a bunch like those Victorian ladies in tight corsets, which is terribly inconvenient when on British Rail) I took myself off to the Norwegian wilderness. My days were spent lighting fires, taking forest walks, pouring baths and just sitting in the complete stillness of the world around me. It did not cure me, of course, but it did help. It recalibrated my thoughts and it made me comfortable, nay appreciative of the nothingness.

So today I wanted to share with you my favourite round-up of the best boltholes to do exactly that in: nothing. I have been to many of them, and those I have not been to have I have bookmarked for visiting at a later date. Because it’s me I’ve not put any deserted cabins in here where you have to fetch your own firewood and there’s no flushing toilet. Not my thing, as you probably know by now.

Anyway, have a wonderful, still Sunday (even if it’s just for ten minutes) wherever you are in the world.

Farrah x

Seine Loops

When I close my eyes at night and imagine the dream home it’s not unlike Velvet House’s first outpost in Normandy, Seine Loops- a storybook thatched cottage with a row boat, a wooden deck for reading, a floating sauna to chase up a morning dip in the lake- and of course, no neighbours. Gaspard Konrad is the stylish Parisian reimagining what the country house experience looks and feels likes in France with his new holiday rental company-Velvet House. The concept for all his properties is the same: they must be within 2 hours of a major French city, have chic interiors and every home must be bathed in nature. Seine Loops looks insanely restful and sleeps four in total- though truth be told, when a house is this good, who wants to share it?

Sail Loft

The private island of Eilean Shona on the west coast of Scotland has been on my hit list for years. There are several cottages to choose from and not a dud amongst them. A couple of the cottages such as South Shore Cottage are completely off-grid for that total Robinson Crusoe feeling but my favourite would be Sail Loft which sits on the edge of the water with panoramic views out to the loch. There is a Nordic sauna to warm you up after a wild swim and a balcony to drift to sleep on in the summer months. (Sleeps 4)

Read more

At 43 and half I gave up on everything I knew in the workplace and started all over again in a place where …

Read more

Just before Christmas a young woman messaged me on Instagram. I did not this woman, but I know plenty of women like her. She was looking for a mentor, she …

Read more

Subscribe now

I have never been to Paris at Christmas. I have never seen the Avenue Montaigne lit up by thousands of fairy lights, or seen the Eiffel Tower turn green. I have never watched Parisians carting Christmas trees about in the streets or buying bundles of mimosa to fill their homes for the holidays. But last week I did..and boy am I glad.

Because as one Parisian friend told me recently, Paris is best at Christmas. Sure, it’s lovely in spring with the public gardens in full bloom; and it’s heaps of fun in the summer when every dog, man and teenager lounges along the banks of the Seine. But at Christmas Paris glows. As the nights draw in the buildings- the Academie Francaise, the Louvre, The Pantheon, Notre Dame (I could go on) are bathed in light. Patisserie shop windows meanwhile are filled with bouches de Noels and marshmallows fashioned into the shape of Santa Claus; whilst window ledges are edged with spruce and ribbons and the words Joyeuses Noel hang from every lamp post.

So anyway, last weekend my husband and I took the Friday evening Eurostar and headed to my favourite city on earth. Here is how we spent a magical, deeply festive 48 hours in Paris.

The Hotel

I have stayed in many hotels in Paris, from teeny tiny shoe box cheapies to grand dames like Le Meurice and The Ritz Paris. So where to stay for somewhere Christmassy and romantic? There was only one place: The Saint James. I have wanted to go here for years, mainly because it is the city’s only chateau-hotel in the super smart 16th arrondissement, so when they offered to host me and my husband I said yes. (Disclaimer: I am very funny about hosted stays unless they are somewhere I have genuinely wanted to go to for a while.) It is also part of the Relais & Chateaux group, one of the last stamps of approval that I actually trust. (Every year when we bomb it down to the south of France Relais & Chateaux has always come up trumps with smart, dog friendly hotels with lovely restaurants and good spas.)

Anyway, the Saint James is a staggeringly beautiful grand hotel a fifteen minute walk away from the Fondation Louis Vuitton, which if you have never been to you must. It’s also in one of Paris’ quieter neighbourhoods, where smart Parisians tend to live which means there are lots of lovely cafes and places for brunch with few tourists.

The hotel itself is very romantic with several large conical yews lining the stone driveway which are all lit up like Christmas trees and a lovely sweeping staircase that leads you up into the soft fug of the hallway. There are chocolates waiting for you as you check in, and beautiful rugs and sofas to fall into.

The interiors are by acclaimed interior designer Laura Gonzalez and feature elegant chinoiserie, fabric on the walls and large heavy drapes at the soaring windows. Each room is decorated individually and ours was a lovely little duplex (room 12 I think) with an enormous sofa to lounge on after dinner, as well as a huge bathtub (rarer and rarer in hotels nowadays) with an abundance of Guerlain products to use.

We wanted a real retreat from the madness of central Paris and this was it. On Saturday afternoon, after a day of shopping, I grabbed my swimsuit and padded down to the pool and hammam (there is also a very elegant Guerlain spa). Whilst before dinner we took cocktails in the library bar, which is surely one of the most romantic rooms in all of Paris with its booked-lined shelves and spiral staircase.

They have a Michelin-starred restaurant too, which I feel silly I did not go to this time around, but we will be back for sure. Definitely one of my new/old favourite hotels in Paris from now on.

FOOD

The bad news is you can no longer take cheese and meat back to the UK from Paris so that put paid to my plans of taking a giant Mont D’Or cheese back. Still the Parisian chocolatiers come completely into their own at Christmas. I would get yourself over to Cedric Grolet’s freshly opened chocolate shop on L’Avenue de L’Opera, which, I’m told, is The Willy Wonker of chocolate shops. (Seriously, there are even ten golden tickets hidden inside his chocolate bars this Christmas.) I am also a big fan of Cyril Lignac, especially his marshmallow teddy bears which make lovely gifts. I bought a tin of the assorted bears which you can only find in store. (Take a peek here.) I also have a soft spot for Paris’s oldest chocolate shop A La Mere De Famille where everything comes wrapped in a beautiful orange paper bag. There are many locations across the city and if you want something traditionally festive and French then go for a box of the papillottes which are lovely praline-filled chocolates with a joke inside.

Read more

Subscribe now

Occasionally I like to share people that I love- and who I think you will love too here. So today I wanted to introduce you to Antonia ‘Nina’ Parker. Being a complete francophone I have had the biggest crush on ever since I bought her very first cookery book , Nina St Tropez. (It is a very good book a…

Read more

So here we are..the (almost) end of the year. I don’t know about you, but I am gasping towards the holidays. 2025 has been a funny old year for me- lots to celebrate (a new job, a garden that has finally come into its own) but also one of complications (a bout of bad health) and occasional sadness (2025 seems to have been the year of deaths). So I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you for being here. This Substack has been such a constant in a year of perpetual flux and I feel incredibly grateful for the wonderful community we have built here.

This is the last Things I only tell my friends for the year. Ive been doing this weekly now for almost 6 months and I’m wondering if it’s too much on top of the Sunday post. I’m thinking maybe it becomes a bi-weekly thing. Do let me know if this sounds good to you- I would adore the feedback. Truly. TELL ME!

Anyway, here are my last little bits of intel before we wrap this up. Enjoy!

And remember, i’ll still be posting up until Christmas on Sundays starting with a special guest this coming Sunday with a perfect recipe to take to friends over the holidays.

Happy Friday wherever you are

Farrah

A very good stocking to buy

If, like me, you have images of tripping downstairs on Christmas morning to a heaving stocking hanging languidly over the fireplace then you are going to need a er…stocking. There are so many on the market right now and if I had children I would be a fan of several little striped ones hung across the mantle like sausages. (I notice that the bed linen company Piglet In Bed do very good ones that you can find here and there is 25 per cent off right now. ) But the one I have just bought for myself and my husband is this lovely patchwork number from Toast. It goes with all home decor schemes and is roomy enough for a bag of chocolate coins, a tangerine and multiple books.

Fashion sale of the century

Many of you know I am a fan of an estate sale- mainly for the gawping, but occasionally there’s something that catches my eye that I might just bid on. (And yes, I did bid on several of Joan Didion’s bits and pieces in her recent estate sale and lost every single thing.) Anyway this one is the estate sale of the late, great fashion editor Grace Mirabella, who oversaw American Vogue before Anna Wintour. ( Funnish fact: when Wintour started working at Vogue, Mirabella famously asked her what job she wanted to do next, to which Wintour answered: yours. A few months later Mirabella was ousted and Wintour was the new editor-in-chief.) You can see the whole sale here but highlights include a stunning walnut writing desk, lots of lovely Tiffany writing pens and a bunch of Helmut Newton original prints.

Read more

Subscribe now

The party season…a delirious smattering of parties and drinks and family get-togethers that sends even the most fashion literature of us into paroxysms of panic.

I used to attend a party a night back in my younger and more sociable days. There were end of year drinks parties; parties to celebrate Christmas trees (the Claridges Christmas tree no less); office discos and neighbourly canapé get-togethers. But nowadays I like to keep December alot quieter. There’s a weekend Christmas shopping in Paris with my husband in mid-December (long overdue and yes, I will give you all the details and need-to-knows from that trip); an important Cotswold escape with my family happening this weekend; a work party in a giant pub as well as a few choice dinners here and there. That is enough for me these days.

But my point still stands: dressing for these things is tough. So here’s how I’m keeping it simple and elegant.

A Black Dress

I like a black dress in a fancy fabric- silk, velvet or taffeta, say. I like said dress to catch eyes but not turn heads, because a head turning dress will always be remembered and that means you can’t wear it on rotation, which is the entire point of black dresses. I have this one from Rixo which looks just as good by itself as it does with a little polo neck worn underneath. It’s very flattering, as I have found all Rixo dresses to be, and it’s a touch gothic which I always think is a very good look for the party season when everyone else is sizzling in mini dresses and sequins. I would also recommend some big platform sandals to go with - Sezanne do some excellent ones called the High Marjolaine sandals which you can team with a pair of sheer black socks or soft gossamer-thin cashmere ones, both from Caldezonia to give it all a bit of Miu Miu twist.

Read more

The tree is up, my cards are ordered and I’ve just been seduced by the idea of a Rose Uniacke panettone (true thing- check it out here). To help you get in the Christmas spirit and I are throwing a pre-Christmas get-together LIVE tonight at 8pm BST.

To join you simply need the app or keep an eye on your email where you’ll be emailed the moment we start. We shall we talking about how we prep for Christmas (Skye has a family Christmas, I have a much quieter affair), as well as talking about her lovely new book The Christmas Companion.

We will also answer all your questions either live (though it’s easy to miss them so always better to do in advance) or any questions you care to put below.

Paid subs will be able to talk with us and ask live questions, free subs will be able to watch only. As ever if you want to ask questions and chat with us you can upgrade below AND get access to all my hundreds of essays and recommendations.

See you there!

Read more

Stuff. It’s easy to be dismissive about stuff in this day and age isn’t it? But some stuff counts. It bring us joy. It helps us express ourselves where words fail. Stuff can connect us to others (a thoughtful gift can often be a wonderful expression of friendship)and sometimes the utter frivolity of stuff can be the exact medicine we need.

So anyway, this week I bring to you a small compendium of stuff that has helped me this year. Some frivolous, some not.

Also speaking of essentials tomorrow at 8pm (BST) I’m going to be going ‘live’ with the wonderful where we discuss all things Christmas. Inspired by her new book The Christmas Companion we’ll be chatting about how to throw your own perfect Christmas with lots of practical tip and tricks as well as wherever the evening takes us. If you have a question for me or Skye then pop it in the comments below and we’ll do our best to answer it. Hopefully see you tomorrow. And here is the link to join. (Anyone can join but only paid subs can comment live and get the recording later on. Also if you have downloaded the Substack app you will be notified when we go live, as well as receive an email to join).

Anyway…STUFF!

Work overalls

You may scoff, but if you are the sort of woman who is into gardening, laying your own stone paths, tending to your own fruit and veg, tinkering with the car (it does happen) and basically just into spending more time doing rather than thinking (the very best thing I learned to do this year) then you are going to need to look cool. I have just bought these work overalls from Zara Home, after being inspired by a super chic farm lady who I spied in Provence this summer. She looked like Andie Macdowell, had a nose ring through her nostril and wore an almost identical set of work overalls to the ones above. She was also my style crush of 2025. I am hoping these will have the same effect on me.

Beeswax Candles

I’ve gone nutty for these things. They not only smell incredible (I find it hard to stomach the synthetic scent of even the most expensive candles nowadays) but they give off the warmest, gentlest, most romantic light I’ve ever seen. I buy mine from a few places but going local is always best. I recently discovered The Sussex Bee which is very reasonably priced for beeswax candles and love the shorter half dinner party candles.

Suri toothbrush

I have waxed on about the SURI toothbrush all year long, so of course it made it into my top 10 investments of the year. Not only is it exceedingly good looking but it makes cleaning your teeth a genuine spa-like experience. I have used electric toothbrushes for years but they’re either all too heavy or the battery life too short. SURI (pronounced soo-rie) is light as a feather and has a battery life of over a month. What’s more the little plant based cleaning heads are all recyclable for free if you return them back to SURI. Anyway, it’s complete heaven and as such I’ve bought one for my husband and friends. (You may think a toothbrush is a deeply unsexy gift, I say it’s the gift they didn’t know they needed.) And of course, as it’s Black Friday I thought I should alert you to the fact that they have a special offer on their site on right now, plus if you use it in conjunction with my special code FARRAHS, you’ll get even more money off on their site. (I have two now- the black one for home and a cream one for travel but they do lots of lovely colours.)

Monogrammed shirts

Bear with me here….but there is nothing nicer in life than a nice, slightly oversized crisp white shirt. And the only thing better is having your initials sewn onto said shirt. I have The Tomboy shirt from Sezanne in various colours and they offer a complimentary monogramming service on all shirts. I find the most pleasing combination is a white shirt with dark green monogramming. Very smart.

Read more

Subscribe now

According to Vogue magazine, this is what an IT girl is: young, hot, a dabbler in the creative arts, a ‘vibe’, a smirk, a head-turner of epic proportions, quasi subcultural- a techno DJ say, or a model.

‘It’s an internal ‘f**k you’ and an internal ‘I love myself’,’ one of Vogue’s freshly anointed IT girls explains. ‘IT girls just know that they’re it!’

Hmmmm…

Really? Honestly? (And for the record, as a former fashion magazine editor myself, don’t these sort of lists feel both depressingly reductive as well as deeply un-fashionable?)

Still, I was intrigued.

The women who made the list were all lookers. Of course. All young. All in the arts. They are DJs and presenters, a bunch of models, one nepo baby whose achievements I am still unclear of and a couple of writers who I actually quite like -Sydney Lima being one.

But beyond that? Well, it was all hopelessly unclear.

The IT girls of yesteryear were Twiggy, Edie Sedgwick, Kate Moss and at a push Alexa Chung at the turn of the century. These were women who embodied the culture of the time. That they were genetically blessed with a shit hot wardrobe was secondary to the fact they possessed a lifestyle that somehow embodied the culture of the day.

The problem is we no longer have one unifying cultural hymn sheet to sing from. The internet put paid to that. There is no general agreement on what is cool and where culture lives. Culture can be anything where there’s a half decent community: gorilla gardening, Ikabana floristry, cake-making, wood working, clubbing, shape rotating. Which means the entire concept of a culturally agreed-upon IT Girl has gone the way of the Miss World pageant and pinching bottoms at parties: woefully outdated.

But also this: cool is no longer smirks and smoking. It’s not bad manners and insouciance. It’s not sexy and it’s definitely not rude. All these things are so hopelessly contrived, and contrivance is the death of anything remotely IT.

That said, it is true there are certain people who we are compelled towards. Women (and men) who, rather than light up a room, can smoulder away in the corner radiating the sort of white hot heat that means everyone gradually makes their way towards them.

And so I’ve been thinking long and hard about what would make an IT Girl today. A list based purely on the handful of women I have met over the years who genuinely have that special secret something. And so here’s what I think makes an IT Girl in 2025.

• She never blow dries her hair (understanding as she does that a bit of frizz can look very 1970s Charlotte Rampling)

• She is deeply ‘off-line’- no Twitter, no LinkedIn, an Instagram accounts that’s for friends and family only…

• …but she probably has a Substack

• She design her own wedding ring (that’s if she can be bothered to get married); and kitchen. And garden.

• She is nice to absolutely everyone. The doorman, the cloakroom girl, your mum, her mum.

• But she pleases no one but herself

  Share

Read more