I am at a show and I know who the designer is

Security is really tight at Carolina Herrera-a show I am particularly excited about not only because I know who she is, but I can also pronounce her name (just about).

The strict ticket and bag checks gets me all excited and my journalistic senses tell me there's huge names inside awaiting the veteran Venezuelan designer.

But in the tent is more than Miss J from America's next top model and I've seen him twice already.

More exciting is the third row seat I've blagged myself into; next to legendary NY writers Lynn Yeager and Judy Licht. Unfortunately I don't know who I am sitting with until they get up and leave and I read their seat signs, but I sensed they were somebodies. They, in turn, sense I am a nobody. They also know I am not Dee Poon- the person assigned the seat. She is a chic Chinese boutique owner, so quite a hard one for me to pull off.

But thanks for being a no-show Dee-you made my day. I have a great view of the brush stroke print dress that's opened the show and makes way for a whole host of English inspired Lady of the Manor looks; Floppy wools hats, super high waisted belted wide leg pants, high necked ruffle blouses, big shoulder pads and swing wool coats in a palette of rich red, chocolate and camel. Oww, it's yummy! High end daytime glamourama. I am even more excited now as I already own a floppy wool hat.

Herrera is showing us the kind of lady who drinks Claret the colour of the collection's palette at midday and likely has a rampant painkiller addiction. She also wears metallic brocade in the day.

And here comes the fur. Oh. A lot of fur. In capes, as a trim and on it's own in vests.

When not showing us unapologetically what she can do with fox or six, Herrera gets back to her Latin roots and throws in flamenco ruffles on skirts and on bolero jackets over washed out watercolour florals for her eveningwear looks.

Back to the fur and I just realised why the strict checks. They were clearly looking for anyone from Peta with a pot of red paint. I do not have any paint, but I do have a deep need for the red trouser suit and matching hat in the collection. I'm adopting the bonkers lady of the manor look immediately.

I'll just be leaving the fur where it belongs... on the estate.

No room at the in-crowd

So Welsh Alien is locked out of her first Fashion Show. Welsh Alien is now referring to herself under this moniker and in the third person.

This is because Welsh Alien is being extra fashion today, wearing an asymmetric dress, wedge lace up ankle boots, an ironic necklace, a fash pack oversized scarf and cherry red lipstick. Maybe Welsh Alien needs to fash it up even more like this lady in order to get in?


Her effort today did not prevent Welsh Alien getting denied admission to Christian Siriano due to what we will refer to as 'Lazy RSVPing'

In Welsh Alien's defence, organization is not her strong point and the whole rigmarole of getting a ticket to a fashion show is multi layered (to use a fashion acronym). It involves you applying to attend to a show and then if they say yes, you an invite, but then you still have to RSVP-even though you said you wanted to come in the first place.

So Welsh Alien sits forlorn in the reception area of the tent drinking her limited edition fashion week Diet Coke watching the former winner of Project Runway's clothes whizz by on the small screen.



Welsh Alien's cherry red lips are pouting.

Fashion Avenue's fur clad cycling Grandma

Yesterday while rushing to the Toni Mess-o-rama show in Chelsea I was stopped in my tracks.

There she was. The fur wearing Jamaican grandma that my taxi nearly knocked over last week. Unmistakable, draped in top to toe mink and wobbling up 7th Avenue on a bike to small for her ample frame.

This time she was riding the wrong way on Fashion Avenue-in the opposite direction of the traffic. Very, very slowly.

She rode without regard for the rest of New York. She was doing her own thing amongst the hub bub and noise. Oblivious to the self regarding importance of the Fash Pack around the corner.

"Are you going to go my way?" I could hear her silently call.

Hell yeah.

Arctic flunky

I was warned about the New York winter. I didn't really listen.

The American used to drone on about the temperature for years while I listened via SKYPE from the comfort of my centrally heated thermostat controlled house in Cardiff.

"Honneeee it is 22 degrees here in New York! 22 degrees!"
"Is it darling?"
"Honneeee, do you even know how cold that is?"
"Umm, not really, are we talking Celsius or Fahrenheit?"
"Fahrenheit Em-ma."
"Right. Yeah. Which one is that?'

I am still not really sure now. All I know is that when it hits '70' in the summer it's hot. And '0' in the winter is really cold. Freezing in fact. It's not my fault I was taught metric in school but suffered parents who still talked imperial. Therefore I am a hybrid of both. How wide is that? About 2 metres and 5 inches I'd say...

So when it came to the NY winter I just thought The American was being a drama queen because he spent the previous decade of his life in California, bathed in year long sunshine. Now I see he had something of a point. Every day he tortures himself by checking the forecast on the West coast:

"Honneeee. It is 70 degrees in LA today."
"That's great babes" I say as we face the biting headwind wind along 7th avenue.
''70 degrees!"
I t least know that means hot.
"So what is it here?" I ask
"IT. IS. Twent-teeeee Twoooo fucking degreeeees!"
"And that is below freezing?"
"Uh yes Honnee! Thir-teeeee Twooo is freezing. IT. IS. Twent-teeeee twoooo."
He likes to spell out the stats like that. It adds weight to his suffering.

Not having a car is the kicker. Back in the UK I would go several metres from my front door to my car and then several more from the car to work, preferably by parking illegally somewhere near a BBC entrance. Admittedly my W reg Fiesta would take a while to heat up, in fact it would usually only kick in by the time I was pulling up to Broadcasting House.

Here you walk everywhere. And it's way colder. When the headwind hits you is face palsy freezing. It makes me want to wear a balaclava. As a fashionable substitute I often leave the the house with headphones and sunglasses and hat and scarf- looking something like a rapper about to explore the Arctic.


Here there are two options to keep warm. Real fur or a duvet coat. Being as I am not about to throw my principles out the window, it looks like I will have to throw my fashion sense out instead. Let me explain to those of you fortunate enough not to be familar with a duvet coat. Think puffa, but less puffy. Literally it is a duvet-with down inside and the fabric outside. The fabric is usually nylon, so possibly more like a sleeping bag? Anyway, yuck right? Do I need to add pounds at any time of year, let alone the winter? Do I want to look like the Michelin man while strutting my stuff around New York? Do I want to hark back to my puffa wearing rave days of the early 90's now I am a grown up? No, no and no. So I tell myself ''Emma. You will freeze rather than wear one of those hideous things."

I have scoffed at the duvet coat for years of visiting New York. What I didn't realise is that not only have I not visited in January before but have never lived with extreme cold day in day out.
What I was forgetting is that what New York demands, New York gets-and New York wanted me properly bundled up against the cold. This city had made me succumb to flats after years of being a die hard heel wearer. Who did I think I was trying to fight?

So I found myself playing with the idea in my head. Could I? Should I? I watched other duvet coat wearers and scanned them for signs of style. Could It be that even the fashionable were donning these too? In secret I logged onto some department stores and browsed the duvet coats. The models seemed happy enough, they didn't look like anyone was forcing them to wear duvet coats under duress.

Then on a snowy January 2nd The Teenager, The Boy and me are shivering in Madison Square Park waiting for a famous Shake Shack burger. In front of us are two stylish looking girls wearing duvets. They are cool and warm.

''I want a duvet coat." says The Teenager
"Me too."

So we find ourselves in Macys coat department and there's a whole sub section of duvet coats and everyone is buying them and it all seems quite reasonable and normal and what's this? Betsey Johnson does duvet? And Calvin Klein? Oh. They can't be that bad then.

The Teenager has the Betsey on and it's not hideous. In fact I might go as far to say it looks funky. I tell her I'll buy it for her as duvet-coat-by-proxy seems like a less painful way to initiate myself. She makes an 'I'm not sure' face and says she needs more time.

And then I am trying one on and it actually looks ok on me too. Then I am trying lots on and I find a navy one which is more sort of horsey that council estate chav and the duvet pattern is quilted, like a Chanel bag. And it's $80 down from $240. This excites me even though I know the full price is a con in the perma-sale world of Macys.

It's by Tommy Hillfiger, which just makes me think of pretty blond preppy girls in navy polo shirts frolicking in sunny parks with frisbees. Which seems like a nice image in the depths of the bleak mid winter. I am ignoring the other half of me says Tommy Hilfiger? Tommy frigging Hilfiger? Have you lost your mind woman? Next you'll be hanging out in malls.



So I remove myself from Macys and go home to stroke some vintage clothes and forget the duvet coat ever happened. But the coat has got to me. I toss and turn that night and stare at the Macys extra 20 extra percent of sale voucher on my bedside table. Sleep comes in the early hours but it is disturbed, peppered by dreams of duck feathers chasing me.

Then the next morning I find myself back in Macys and a woman is packing up the Tommy Hilfiger duvet thing and I am handing over cold hard cash that could have paid for something far more beautiful and far less practical yet I feel strangely excited and compelled to leave the store wearing the coat like I am six again.

So I bundle my vintage velvet number into the carrier bag and I put on the Tommy and I step onto 34th street and I feel no cold. I catch sight of others and realise that no one looks slim in a duvet coat, so there's a kind of great democracy in duck feathers.

I was warned about the New York winter but I didn't really listen. Next time I'll remember the city is the boss of things, not me.

Either that or I'll do as my friend here suggested and get a fur burka.