Predicaments of a Fashion Lover: Two Single Girls, One Big City

There may have been a lack of Jimmy Choo’s and cosmopolitans but a combination of luck, wine and smiles lead two girls into one of London’s secret restaurants. Disguised as a shadowy and dingy bar just a few, few streets off Piccadilly Circus was a restaurant that highlights just how diverse London is.

The style was 1920’s American flapper meets French Renaissance. London is still doing fushion, but it’s moved on from food to décor. Or perhaps the girl from way up North is just behind on the fashionable times. Who knows? The walls were embezzled with gold leaf wallpaper, the ceiling high with marble pillars and there was a Big Ben Rolex watch staring at you as you walked in. A walk to The Host was met with my friends gasp at the beauty of the building. It was exquisite. How did we get here? We were two students who had somehow struck gold in a city of wonder and Brit business. This wasn’t an average meal in TGI’s, but something more cooked up in a fairy tale.

This fairy tale was going to end in a happy ending involving wine, laughter and a table for two. Moving with surprising ease, I opted for my best slow accent; after all, I’d been told throughout the past year I spoke too quickly for some to understand, being linked to a puppy with a Scottish accent. Here, I would be calm, cool and collected. My hair was it’s most messy, my eyes were painted black, and I looked like a good boys nightmare in a tight skirt and leather. I looked like I ate Chelsea boys for breakfast and I was the girl your mother warned me about. And I was going to own this if it killed me. We were going to eat here, at the most ridiculous restaurant I had ever seen. And we were going to adore it as two broke students in Britain’s most lavish city.

The Host was a Chelsea London boy himself; slicked back blonde hair, fantastic jaw line and just enough power around him to show he knew his napkins from his serviettes. In London, it’s who you know and what you know. One false move and you’re tossed aside. The air itself tastes of opportunity, hope and something I can only describe as a smirk of how much you’ll get caught up in the London lifestyle, and how much you want it all. Here, all I wanted was a table and a bottle of wine. Having it all could wait until tomorrow.

Strolling up, I asked for a table for my friend and I in my most flirty manner. Maybe in hindsight I was drunk on the thought of eating in this secret hide away, but The Host had just told three women they would either have to wait two hours, or leave. And really, if it helps getting a table, what’s the harm? It was already seven o’clock, we had the possibility of not being seated until nine, I had too? So I did. I not only flirted with The Host to get a table, I did it in the most tongue-in-cheek way possible so I wouldn’t be caught out.

The Show itself began with a smile on both sides, carried on with a giggle on my part and a few misplaced stares on his, a hair toss, lips licked before ending with a wink and a swaying walk away to the bar. 2 hours my ass. We got 45 minutes and a server ready to give us a table at the earliest moment’s notice. Cheap move on my part? God no. Flirting is a human response and something you shouldn’t cast aside. When you think of how you can use something you didn’t choose (being made sexually objective) into a thing you can take back and make it your own, it’s a powerful feeling. Plus its fun. It’s like when Shania Twain comes on unexpectedly on the radio and suddenly you’re screaming how good it feels to feel like a woman, you’re totally carefree and owning the song because damn, it DOES feel good to feel like a woman.

Back in London, we were feeling good being woman in a place unknown. There were people to goggle and ogle at, soft jazz playing and a glass of wine in front of us both. Sure it might have been on of the cheapest on the menu, but they didn’t do cosmopolitans so really, what’s a girl to do in an alcohol emergency but order a bottle of wine? Popcorn was placed in front of us and now and then we’d eavesdrop on two female fashion editors, chatting and laughing over a bottle of gin at the table next to us. They were dressed head to toe in a mixture of YSL, Isabel Marant and the blonde had a delicious looking Mulberry on her shoulder. (FYI, keep an eye out for the November issue of a popular magazine; it’ll be interesting and one you might fall in love with).

Getting in to a restaurant purely on luck and a few chosen actions can make you feel invincible. I was sitting next to two women who had the job I’d aspired to have when I was 14, with some of the most drool worthy clothes by geniuses I had studied of this summer. Seeing a Mulberry handbag in the flesh is like seeing a Lola’s bakery unexpectedly; there’s the shock then the happiness, until you’re drooling over the soft edges and the creamy colours. Much like a cupcake, it’s hard not to reach out and touch, to caress the fine tailoring or the beautiful embezzled metal, before picking it up and buying in a guilt filled 10-minute window. Like a girl on a sugar free diet, I could only sneak glances behind my wine glass or iphone and try not to moan out of want.

As we drank our second bottle of wine and ate our desserts, it occurred to me just how truly amazing this moment was. I had my best friend across from me in a beautiful French restaurant I had managed to blag us into, in the most vibrate city I’ve ever been in. As fairy tale this felt like, this was my life right now. We had launched ourselves into the unknown and found Nirvana. We had a band in front of us playing French jazz softly enough I could still hear it, but not so much to overpower the conversation. There was a waiter on the edges of my view in the most subtle manner, that I only registered him when he refilled our glasses or took our plates away. It was the intimacy of it all, having so much around you yet feeling in a bubble of your own creation. I had someone I had bared so much of my soul to, and she to me. There was no falseness, no drama and no bitching of people or situations. All there was in this moment was her laughter painting the room warm yellow and music soft enough to match her heart.

In this wonderful world, there is so much we can get caught up in; our thoughts, our social networking, our fears, our actions or inactions and our hopes for the future. We spend so much time tangled up in things in our heads that when a moment so beautiful happens, we either don’t register it or we let ourselves be sucked into the joy of being present. I urge you to let yourself be submerged in the present, when the moment is so perfectly fairy tale. Take a moment to sip your drink and think just how wonderful it is to be experiencing this moment; let it wash all over you and mark you forever. Give up on your fears, your hopes and your emotions to the moment in front of you. Be reckless, be free with your heart and open up to things you haven’t addressed quite yet because of fear. Let yourself experience so much the world has to offer and detach yourself from the things you’re holding purely for the sake of holding. There is never a good enough moment than the moment of realisation to give in or up to the things that surround you.