Courting moguls and mobsters

I mentioned that my folks run our press clipping service. Only, we haven't got any, so they save stuff about other people for now, that may be of interest / inspiration.  One such article saved from the weekend's Sunday Times Property Section concerned Leon Max, the Russian-born American citizen billionaire clothing designer. He has just restored a grand old house in England in preparation for the expansion of his retail empire in the UK. I was a regular at his Max Studio stores when I lived in LA, they gave me a VIP card no less: they know how to make a lady feel special. The equivalent over here might be Karen Millen - where you go for a classy party look. So after the leaden news was delivered, and Mark pronounced he was off to get plastered, I made like a mini cab and dropped my parents off at their classy party at the House of Lords (a Diamond Wedding celebration) and went home to strategize. The article mentioned that Mr and Mrs Max are connoisseurs of architecture and that they used to have a fine modern house in Pasadena. Googling the company HQ gave me a Pasadena number - I figured I was on the right track (have recently been reading Raymond Chandler, another Dulwich kid, so if a sleuthy style seeps like a bloodstain on a plaid car rug, the one hurridly stuffed behind the spare wheel of the two-toned Buick Roadmaster, you'll know why). 
A young woman answered the phone and I pictured her at a desk in a tastefully grand reception area, temperature controlled to the perfect nuance in long sleeved fine knit over silky shirt to repel the chill of the air conditioning that was itself fighting the midday Californian heat. Despite that ongoing conflict, it was calm and quiet in the back ground. She gave me her full attention as I explained how I would appreciate so much (fluent as I still am in West Coast) if she could let me have an e-mail address for somebody who could convey correspondence onto Mr Max. She regretted that she could not give out his e-mail. I totally understood, but if there was a personal assistant perhaps, or some other executive even with whom I could communicate - essentially, anyone whom I might address personally, who was not an "info@", who would be kind enough to forward my message on, that would be simply marvellous. 
"I could be that person," she purred. 
Lawanda, she now revealed, was her name. And to me, at that moment, she was La very Wonder(ful).
I duly crafted my cold calling introduction to Mr Max and tried to explain in three paragraphs who we are and what we need and that if there was the slightest chance he might be interested to see some designs they could be sent for his appraisal prior to his hauling us out of the pooh with a golden winch.


The weekend hours went by, I sang at a wedding party, France played Romania, the temperature soared back up in London and the sky turned Pasadena blue. By Sunday night there was no reply but I had sent it at 4.55pm Pacific Coast Time on Friday evening. I stuck my head in Facebook. 

Now, back in January, Mark and I were in New York City to launch a collection he had worked on. Through the a propos connections made for us by our friend Brian we were invited to present ourselves at #4 Times Square, to wit, Condé Nast head quarters, yes, to Vogue magazine its very self. Stepping out of the Chelsea Hotel - where we had taken the Sid'n'Nancy suite (see photo above), scene of her violent demise - Mark dived into the deli next door for a pack of nervous smokes (don't let it be said that nothing good came of smoking). We got talking to a gentleman who was waiting on his tuna melt, we petted his little lap dog and he introduced himself as Chris Capone - scion of Scarface HIS VERY SELF. Dressed in a sheared mink jacket, he offered to take us for a shot of courage in the bar next door and would present us with a signed copy of his autobiography. Forward a few fashion months and Mark designed some drop crotch gangster striped strides with mogul-mobster fur collared jackets in honour of the meeting, part of the dandy criminal theme for Autumn-Winter 2011 - obsessive compulsive criminals are often fastidious in their attention to personal appearance after all (not wishing to suggest that Signor Capone or any of his line were obsessively involved in anything other than the benevolent redistribution of liquor). Criminally debonair or simply insanely stylish - so sue us for that. Chris is liking this article on how Prohibition gave Capone the publicity that made him a star:
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2010/10/11/boardwalk_empire_al_capone
Incidentally, when my grandma spent a lot of time in Philadelphia during the Roaring Twenties, they had a hooch still in the basement of their house on Walnut Tree (or was it Peach Tree?) Avenue, just off Rittenhouse Square anyway, and the Chief of Police would call round with his flask to be refilled.
Sunday night I saw that Chris had posted an hilarious trailer for a show about his roots and I was suddenly reminded to show him a picture of the suit, hoping it would please him although it may not now get made. He wrote back with the same positive, life-enhancing energy he had exhibited when we met him. How wonderful, he said, that I should tell him all this just as he was considering Capone Clothing. How much money, he wondered, was required?

Relative wealth

Mark has internet at last and so we talked on Skype. Surely that is one of the most benevolent companies in the world? Distributors of free joy. Facilitators of communication. Mr Skype I salute you. If you are about to tell me that you know for a fact that they exploit kittens and use the technology to pollute drinking water then don't, please. Come at me with that another day, because this one brought enough disappointment. Mr Wesley was hyper-productive and positively charged after his I.T. triumph, showing me new designs and a first draft of his monogram stamp (see above) that I love (because he has been resistant to using his own name and this shows him starting to approach that. It looks like a brand, in the old sense of seared with ownership). What's more he was a gnomic vision in a funny brown wooly hat.

Then one of our potential investors called to say he was minutes away. I got myself together, went out to the street and fed his meter for him. But once inside, he declined my offer of refreshments and that, I sensed,  didn't bode terribly well. He got out the CF, P&L and haha BS spreadsheets. But they sat unconsulted on the table. He said it was not good news, he was afraid. The JV for film production they have ("JV??" I asked. "Joint Venture," he replied) has made a lot of progress very suddenly and they will be needing all money and focus for that. We are unfinanced. He hadn't wanted to say it on the phone, it was better face-to-face he thought.
"Should we talk with Mark?" I asked, "We can Skype."
No need, he considered, and then was gone.

I went back to the computer. Mark appeared instantly, but not wearing his funny gnome hat now, looking rather super fly. I had to tell him. We talked it through. He said he needed to go for a walk. I did too, and walked over to the garage. Tonight was a crazy roll-over jackpot on the Euro-Lottery - over one hundred million pounds. That would cover a couple of sample sets. I thought it was a pound a line so when the man asked for two I didn't have enough money. I begged him not to throw it away and said I would run back to the house and come back with the rest. Then I discovered I'd walked out without door keys and was now locked out. I stood ringing the bell to no avail. I luckily had my phone so called and that my father did manage to hear. Back at the garage, I triumphantly handed over the extra coin.

Later on, I checked the numbers. I shrugged and was about to screw up the paper. But then I read down the page - you didn't have to have EVERY number, you can just have a few and still win something! Who knew?! Holy Macaroni, Mr Wesley had two numbers and a star, which qualifies as the first rung of cash prizes. We are now funded to the degree of Six Whole Pounds and Eighty Shiny Copper Pennies! We are on our way.

raw fish, raw data and nerves of the same suit

"You sound like you're underwater," Mark said earlier. I think he meant the phone line was bad, but I had to wonder how I made it home this evening. It did feel like walking on the bottom of the sea. Talk about a cue:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ejhIZZvDgw
The message was clear - "No trudging! Flip your heels and gargle a cheery song through a megaphone!" What it actually inspired me to do was eat some raw fish to avert a dead faint and go straight to bed for a nap when I got in. Now I've woken up and can address the shameful gap in postings.

Since the end of last week it's been all about the "cash flow model". My beloved old friend Dibble said he would do it but I had to give him the "raw data". Obviously. That involved pricing up collections over two years from prototypes to full production runs - figures completely at the mercy of a zillion variables - and budgeting for agents, PR, photo shoots, travel to factories, trade shows, office admin, anything I could think of and a ton I bet I forgot.

Anton has got back to us with some suggestions for PR companies. I liked the sound of one operation where the founding execs had backgrounds variously in First Division Football and a well-known sex shop. So Mark will hate that. (Not).

It's now Paris Fashion Week. Carolyn was duly at the Kenzo studio over the weekend til late every night. It's their 40th anniversary so their show will start with a retrospective. When not required for styling she was taking refuge at her desk and going through time lines with me - when stores place their orders, what month they pay up, how many times we need to visit the factories a season. Were we doing a Cruise Collection? Er, not quite yet, a Booze Collection maybe. So that information was all passed back to Dibble who then decided we probably ought to present the investors with a two-year illustration. That way the pattern of dips and peaks is clearer and it's not so alarming when all the money required to cover production leaves the bank account. Then I realised Holy Crap I'd been saying "wholesale" when I meant production costs, so we worked that out and bingo, he hit me up with a spreadsheet each for Cash Flow, Profit & Loss and the BS. Balance Sheet. My pa got out a bottle of champagne to give him as a thank you for being such a wonderful, numerate friend. Dibs refused to accept it. He said as and when the deal was done we'd drink it then. Are you getting the "beloved" bit now??

A recently rediscovered gem of an old pal, Chrissey is on stand by down in Brighton, primed to do the "parked" website (remember? So there is at least a home page with contact information). She deigned the flyers for my old West End club nights. I am anxious not to have more people give up their love and talent until the light goes green. But it's a damn fine feeling to know they're poised.

Heard back from the factory broker that Tim Bailey provided, kindly saying to use the LK Bennet name. It worked. Bulent Alkanli wrote to say he would be in London this week and so I went along to meet him at their London HQ. In the Woolworth Building on Marylebone Road his English colleague, a designer called Samantha, joined us and I was with them for over an hour. Li-Fung have eighty offices around the world and source from many hundreds of factories but would aim to keep all our production in Turkey. If, said Bulent, we can get there, to Istanbul, next week, for the first of three or four trips required for this collection, he could have delivery of samples by Christmas. They are used to clients ordering thirty-odd sets of prototypes, we are looking at three, maybe four. Due to that, he explained, costs for prototypes would be three times - not twice as I expected him to say - the price of the production costs. Which skews the figures of course. I factored in TWICE. Holy Crap, again.

After the meeting I made my way to Marble Arch. My computer bag felt heavy. I was trying to explain screen printing set-up costs down the mobile to Mark (who knows very well all about that as he has run that business for years) and was getting in a muddle. He didn't think it could be right. He started talking about laser printing and I walked into River Island for some respite from the shoving of Oxford Street. He was worried about the triple cost thing. We still have a bunch of other people, and factories direct, offering us their services, but there was such an air of competent efficiency about the place today, without being at all sterile. They do a lot of work for River Island. I stared at a sweater and peered at the legend on the label at the neck. "What is obtained through love," I read, "is retained for all time." How I do hope so.

I called one of our investors to see if he had a response to the P&L, CF and, haha, BS. It went to voicemail so I sent an e-mail as well. Harriet intercepted me on Bond Street. Waiting for her, I popped into Browns again and said hello to the menswear buyer - must take care not to make people nervous with over-zealous dropping in. Mark's little boy was home from school by now and had opened his birthday presents. "You bought me POKÉMON cards! They are my favourite!" he said down the phone.
"Did I get the good ones? Hope so!"
"Yes! Yes!" he answered. Keen to get back to his haul, he gave me back to daddy.
"Have the investors got back to you?" he asked.
"Not yet," I replied.
"I've got to take him birthday bowling now," Mark changed the subject.
"Don't forget to take your thumb out," I offered.
"You're meant to say 'Hope you win!'" he informed me.
"I hope you win. You will tell me tomorrow that you did."
Harriet ordered me a glass of wine before promptly leaving for an appointment so I sat there drinking alone, a bit shakey now. I paid up and walked down Bond Street, which reminded me tomorrow is the deadline to put a painting of mine up for auction. Christies and Bonhams are both keen to have it. I made it to Piccadilly, but feeling quite faint cut into Soho for sashimi. "DON'T HAVE RICE," hectored my nutritionalist (yeah right) Taffy down the phone, "just protein, rice will bring you down."
It got me home. I got into bed. The phone went.
It was one of the investors to say they were looking at the P&L, CF and, er, BS, tonight, and that he will come over to see me tomorrow to discuss.
Holy Bowling Balls.

Cyber-rights and sybarites

Late yesterday afternoon I received a communication from our potential investors. They had had their own meeting with Mr Dell, the broker of agents, and reported the same confidence in him as we had. Now they require a "cash flow model" from me to move along. These are not words that are ever going to leaven my heart but one of my oldest friends has offered to help once I have all the "raw data". I was instructed to factor in salaries for Mark and myself. I looked that word up in the dictionary and have to say I am rather taken with it. I rolled it round my brain for a while and then it knocked on the inside of my skull to beg the question of who is employing who. And so I was minded to double check that the original proposal for the structure of the company, which we had found untenable, had been revised. I am being a little circumspect here but I am sure you can appreciate why that would be so.

Meanwhile, Mark's little boy is excitedly awaiting the arrival of some Pokémon cards I have sent him. The lady in Hamleys assured me that they were the very newest set and if they are new to her, I am trusting they have not yet reached the playground half way up a mountain in Provence. Mark told me he is trying to explain to his son that he will be holding a high value hand. Because he is so little, he doesn't understand what they are worth and so trades at a disadvantage with the bigger boys.

Rolling with the theme of ownership I registered earlofbedlam.com via Google, thinking that if you do that via them it might speed up "recognition" by their search engines. Later I was reliably informed that it makes no bloody difference. Anyway, Google actually divert you to Go Daddy. So as they were a little cheaper when you go to them directly I decided to grab up the rest on their site and got thoroughly swept along registering .co.uk; .org; .net; .info and adding on all sorts of gadgets to instill confidence in us as the latest residents of Cyber Street. I went nuts protecting this, privatizing that and certifying the other. I was looking for Go Daddy to "park" the site for us temporarily, until we build a proper one - just a page with a logo and contact details so that you have enough presence for people to confirm you exist - but all I could see were packages for full-on hosting. I didn't know what I was doing. Then I saw the total in my "cart" and emptied the lot in terror. There is something to be said for relinquishing ownership and having someone else pick up all the bills. Lord knows there will be plenty of others.

Blessed our we with our mates, for we have our own web wiz on hand. I found Howard on his hands free, driving home after a long day at work dealing with grotty people who are too stupid to figure out their own domain problems (ooops). He stayed on the line, talked me through registering earofbedlam.co.uk with his favourite one.com and said we could worry about all the other permutations later down the line. He cautioned me not to fall for "up-selling". I certainly nearly did Ollie. So thanks to Big H, I spent around twenty quid, instead of two hundred, securing a small webspace for twelve months. Twenty quid is coincidentally the amount Mark was try to convince his dad to invest in getting the internet connected at their house in France. "TWENTY QUID?!" he exploded (allegedly),"A MONTH??!! I'd rather have a shed."

I also spent some time trying to secure a small living space  - shed's considered - as we need somewhere of our own in London. My saintly godmama had guests arriving from Romania and I have vacated our frosted glass refuge. I am quite exhausted from moving around, grateful as I am to those angels who accommodated us. There is a new tower at the Elephant and Castle. I never thought I'd want to live in a tower that wasn't in the middle of a forest and bound about with ivy but this one has had me fascinated - its top looks like an owl with three eyes and little pointy feather ears. It is a sign of great unsophistication to need to anthropomorphize things I understand. I hope to view an apartment there in the morning.

Every now and again I applied myself to the gathering of "raw data" and asked two friend for quotes for photographic shoots. Marj's work is supremely feminine. Sometimes the mood is soft and misty, the models like nymphs, Naiades, Dryades and Oreiades - beautiful spirits of the rivers, woods and mountains; in other shoots the girls are glossy goddesses, sophisticated sybarites. She won the Best Fashion Photo prize as judged by Karl Lagerfeld a few years ago and is excitedly preparing her new studio in Paris. Because Mark's work is strongly male, I can imagine it might work, the yin and yang, and she has started doing menswear as well. Take a look: www.marjolijndegroot.com 

Another candidate is my godbrother Piers' project, more commercially orientated:

www.surfacia.com 

Other business:

We have had a couple of complaints. One from our readership in Los Angeles (hello Cynthia!) and one from the Control Centre at the V&A that the white print on black is killing their eyes. So you may expect sweeping changes tomorrow. For yes, the rumours are true - it gives me huge pleasure (HUGE) to now confirm the appointment of David Miliband, no less, as our reader care interface executive. It will be his job to implement any reasonable suggestions that you care to put forward. I'm sure you join me in welcoming David. 

Pip pip for now.

Sleep deprived in Piccadilly and serendipity in Hanover Square

Spent a fretful night, fretting. Had fallen asleep by 9pm when Claire, our friend and feretter outterer of vintage bits and handy people called to say "You MUST buy these buttons!" http://ifoundgallery.com/online/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=623

So then awake I called my ma and ended up wound tighter than a metal thread on a steel bobbin. Cos it goes like that sometimes. Couldn't get back to sleep for hours as worries jack-hammered my brain. Must've finally dropped off but was awake and nasty by six. So reheated the spat with my mother then had ridiculous phone call with Mark. I hung up on him as he said "I don't want to talk to you like this. Let's speak lat..."

I e-mailed back and forth with a Turkish lady who has offered to be our broker with factories there. She responded to an alert Mark sent out on LinkedIn. Facebook's fine for mucking about, but LinkedIn is for serious grown up professional runnin's. Now it seems the UK is beyond our means at this point, I have put out the word to friends to recommend people. Tim Chapman has just come back to London from a big design gig in Turkey after being at French Connection but his top tip was for Portugal; Tim Bailey was going to ask his LK Bennett team for ideas; and Mark Campbell has asked his River Island colleagues for leads. People  - and not just friends either, some of these are busy people I hardly know too - are being extremely kind and generous with their time and advice and connections. 

Next I sent an e-mail to David Bradwell whom we met at my friend Nile Rodger's concert some weeks ago. He is MD of StockingsHQ and we mentioned our handcuff motif and he said wellwhaddyaknow, they had a new product with just that arriving any day! This morning he wrote back immediately to say how nice it was to hear from me and how funny, as he had just been thinking about us, sat as he was with (not in) the new handcuff embellished hose. "Please just let me know if there's anything we can do," he wrote. Gee, even my grinchhead was being softened up by such sweetness. The night of the show David was with his friend, a Mr Swash, who simply will have to own one of our Swash Buckler jackets.

Then I corresponded with Mr Dell regarding how many sample collections he would need (maybe one for Ireland he said, which had never even crossed my mind. Now it has I must, as an Irish citizen, discuss with accountant Colin any benefits to creating the company there).

My darling friend Michele woke up and wrote from New York to tell us a) she had been to see the new "Wall Street" movie and how proud she is to be broke doing something she loves (writing) that at best adds to the world but at worst does no harm than to be a rich "success" by using or worse, destroying, other people and b) about a new bar with which for reasons obvious we must be acquainted:

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2010/09/bedlam_bar_loun.php

I was now sufficiently palatable to be allowed out and walked down Oxford Street (urgh) (not the shops but the shuffling pavement purgatory) to my opticians on the Tottenham Court Road, having broken both pairs. As I reached the entrance, two cop cars screeched up at the curb. Police pounded through the doors and, hanging back just slightly I followed them in. Got to the counter just as my phone started to ring. Saw it was Mark. "Miss Butler?" he asked. 

"Maybe." 

"You are under arrest for being grumpy, the police have been informed and will be there any moment." Turned out they had been called to cart off two shoplifters but once again the cherub of mirth had smiled upon Mr Wesley. 

More serendipity lay ahead. As I walked back to Arlington Street an arresting figure caught my eye. That lean, elegant silhouette could only be one man - Ozwald Boateng. Thankful that I had at least put a foxy coat on, a Moschino leopard, I told him we had witnessed his models boarding the bus outside his shop and he asked well why had I not come to the show in that case?! It was in Leceister Square and had, he told me proudly, something of real magic about it. I replied I had imagined it was by invitation and he gallantly said well of course it was but "for you!" all necessary accommodation would have been made. I couldn't help myself from touching his coat and then confessed this new venture to him. He offered congratulations and again confirmed himself as being not just fitted out as a gentleman but the veritable deal from his head to his toes which is a considerable distance let me tell you. I told him we had seen the cream dream cruiser on Savile Row and that I had even popped in on my walk today to ask the assistants what it was but no one could tell me. Neither could Ozwald. It was nothing to do with him, he said, some guys had hired it.

My mood was mellow as butter now but it took this to make me melt: an article on one of my most favourite lines, from whom I must buy more than any other company, Toast:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/8018867/Spreading-Toast-a-fashion-success-story.html

They have just launched their first menswear collection and how I love that they rebuff the hoary "who is your target customer" question -

"There is no Toast man,’ Jamie [Seaton]  insists, no notional customer that he designs for. The Seatons’ tastes define the Toast aesthetic or ‘handwriting’, as they call it; a combination of the bohemian, the relaxed, the handmade and the unlikely."

My parents are acting as our press service, clipping out relevant articles - with real flair in finding what's helpful, useful, inspirational - saving magazines and catalogues and newspapers. There's a bit of a backlog and I spent some time looking through it all as I ate dinner. From Sept 17th in the Daily Telegraph is a piece that should encourage investors, about the House of Commons report, the "Value of Fashion":

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG8008413/London-Fashion-Week-Why-British-fashion-is-worth-21-billion.html  

I rang my ma again to say thank you. 

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG8008413/London-Fashion-Week-Why-British-fashion-is-worth-21-billion.html

Vacancy in Cell 5E

Mark left for the South of France today, checking in the huge portfolio as outsize baggage, and London suddenly felt wintry. A season has rolled on, and, where only recently it seemed we had lots of time in hand, we have to get things done, made, samples to see and touch, or be running to catch the Autumn / Winter 2011 orders.  After I got back to flat 5E, I exchanged a little conversation with the doormen before strolling on my lonesome up Piccadilly. To counter the cold I had my raccoon flying hat on, ear flaps down. We bought one each from a Frenchman who has a menswear store, Conquete, opposite the Chelsea Hotel in New York. He has them made to his own spec. and they are great.

I cut up Bond Street - noting people huddled at the bar in Cecconi's, the tables deserted outside that were thronged a few days ago - and hiked across Regent into Soho. On the corner of Greek Street and Soho Square, at the laudable establishment that is St Barnabas Hostel for Fallen Women (membership fees go to help the homeless), I met our lovely mates Chris and Lee Dyson. Chris works at Universal Records and Lee is an astronomer-musician-digital-design guru. Aside from being a brilliant bloke, he always delivers what Mark is after lickety-spit ("No, Bono, you'll have to wait," he says quite sharply - this is how I imagine it - turning back to our unpaid request). As we were on our way to Heathrow he sent through the Earl of Bedlam logo with its new lettering. Even on the little Bananaberry screen it looked really cool - cos you have to think about how images and other id's will look shrunk onto clothing labels and swing tags. So wotchafink? He's going to play about with a few more versions of it. We'll post them in a couple of days and hone the winner.

Carolyn called from Paris, checking in after a week in Hong Kong visiting factories that manufacture for Kenzo. She is our distinguished knitwear wiz-consultant and had practical advice after an English manufacturer's rep in Berwick Street last week pronounced an innovation of Mark's "impossible". To use that word is to show a lamentable lack of imagination. I said nothing is impossible, we've put men on the moon (we've seen their footprints through Lee's telescope too), at which the tailor conceded it would be "prohibitively expensive". Carolyn counselled to get used to that sort of reaction, but push against it, as many manufacturers have their machines set in one groove and if you ask them to move an inch left or right they get all freaked out and wibbly wobbly, parroting "Oooh can't do that!" Yes you can. You can.

At Terminal Five we got out of the car park lift and I noticed Matthew Williamson crouched on the curb having a smoke. He looked quite fragile, wispy as his moustache. "Did you see who that was?" I hissed to Mr Wesley. "No. Who?" he asked, performing the instinctive unsubtle turnaround that makes it obvious to the celeb-subject that their presence has been remarked. To apologise for my gauche attention drawing, I turned round too with a smile for the designer and he returned it in a most charming way, quite shyly. I hoped maybe he would be on Mark's flight to offer advice.

We had wanted so much to get the line made in the UK but the prices are really brutal we're trying to persuade other people to put their money behind us. We received an e-mail from a gentleman in Turkey this morning, offering his services as a broker, so I shall reply and see what he has to say.

I grumble at Mark for having the telly on loud but the apartment seemed so quiet when I got home that I put it on and turned it up.

The "S" in our post code is important to us - Mark is Catford's own living landmark and I grew up in Dulwich. We wear our South London loyalty on our sleeves and it makes our temporary accommodation even sweeter that we can just maintain it. But yesterday we crossed the demarcation line of Piccadilly into W1 to visit our accountant, Colin Young, he of saintly patience with his roster of creative clients. We wanted to go through money stuff with him - the least enjoyable but utterly crucial component. If you can't deal with it, find a man who will. Colin imparted a sense of can-handle calm. He can register the company for us - which takes about three days, and get a VAT # - up to three weeks. I said to hold off a few days while we try to muster the money to cover the admin costs and his fee. He said something that I found very wise, that experiencing failure is an important part of the process and that no one should enter into a creative venture, from which ever side of the table, expecting a straight trajectory. Corners are part of the journey.

On the way "home" we went into Liberty, #1 best store if London in Time Out magazine's list of said. I wanted to visit haberdashery (# 6 in my personal Top Ten list of words) on Third but we were both in a bit of a daze - talking about money has that effect on us - and didn't figure that the man already in the lift had made his selection already and stepped out like lemmings on Lower Ground with him. But that was a happy accident as I could ask for the contact details of the Menswear Buyer. He wasn't in attendance as Wednesday was fellas' day at Fashion Week. Yesterday, after our meeting with Mr Dell, we presented ourselves to the friendly Menswear Buyer at Browns on South Molton Street. Immaculate in grey CdG waistcoat he said the store was as committed as ever to supporting new designers. Mark said - afterwards, to me - that an order from Browns would make him prouder than any other. He first dream-shopped there when he was fourteen and it has always remained his favourite. I won't put the buyers names as you have to do a little bit of work yourselves.

We wandered on in the sunshine - I tried to take a turn at carrying the portfolio. It's very big, and our artist mate Big David Taborn (www.davidtaborn.com) was heap big kind to lend it to us. But the moment I put it down for a rest, Mark took it back even though his fingers were blistered from carrying it. As we made our way down Savile Row, male models were coming out of Ozwald Boateng's shop to board a coach. Meanwhile, a completely fabulous cream dream of a cruiser was waiting to ferry someone worthy of such fabulousness to their event in Leceister Square (I imagine). I have never seen a car like it so could not tell you what it was and neither could Mark. "Shall we get one of those some day?" I asked him. "Deffo," said Mark. "But oh no!" I had spotted an existential roadblock, "We won't know what to ask for!" So maybe I can ask Ozwald, whenever our paths cross again. I got to know him many years ago when I was running club nights in the West End, most (in)famously in the VIP bar of Heaven. We gave a stage to musicians and singers. Some were famous, most were not, some were very good, and some were very, very bad - but those traits can be equally entertaining as X-Factor auditions demonstrate today. Anyway, Ozwald would show up to watch sometimes and one afternoon he even came to tea at my parent's house. My mate James Greenfield would later give him the Givenchy gig at LVMH. But James I know through my old school pal and honorary sister, Carolyn Randolfi. She graduated from the RCA and after working for Hugo Boss, Falke, Chanel, Lagerfeld and more, is now Knitwear Supremo at Kenzo. There, the current Artistic Director is Sardinian designer - Antonio Marras.

I told you our stories have corners. So, on the corner of Old Burlington Street and Burlington Gardens is our "works canteen" - Cecconi's. We take a table outside so that members of our focus group - Harriet, Jane, Andrea and assorted special guests - can smoke. Mark is trying really hard to give up smoking, in that, he is totally committed to wanting to, but this is kind of a super stressy time to be kicking away a crutch. At one point last week it seemed he was covered in patches, sucking on the gross lozenges the doctor prescribed and chain smoking at the same time. Anyway, the drinks ain't exactly pub prices here, but we have done enough pit stop research and figure that when you factor in the free fat olives and nuts - ie "free" dinner - and the priceless pavement show that passes by, you come out ahead. Only trouble is, the octopus is so good (and the courgette flowers) (and the bruschetta) (and, aaargh, dammit, just about everything on the menu) that we generally do order little plates of food too. So we have to make a success of ourselves to continue coming here. Also priceless are the waiters, who are always really nice to us, and tonight I asked one of them what part of Italy he is from. "Alghero," he said, which is where Antonio lives. Naturally I exclaimed, "No way! I don't suppose you know..." and he just about fell to his knees and genuflected at the name. When Carlo could speak again, he explained that Antonio is a hero in the town, the only person from there to achieve artistic recognition and an inspiration to them all. I said well, crumbs, next time he's in London, I shall bring him straight here for a drink (and LVMH can buy the crispy calamari rings! Whoo-hoo!).

Who and what you know matters - some will be famous, most will not, but when you make connections, not just in a naff networking way, I mean proper, human connections, it can reward the effort ten fold. Seeing Carlo's admiration for Antonio's achievements was really touching and inspiring, because it showed again that if you persevere with your dream, and succeed, other people are proud of you and emboldened for themselves.

But more prosaically, get people's names, take cards, don't lose them, follow up, maintain contacts and especially take the trouble to find out the marque of any completely fabulous cream dream cruisers you see cos you never know when you may be in a position to acquire one.