A Note and A Coat

A thank you letter, and a dry-wax coat.

Darling readers,

I have to thank you once again for sending P.S. up the wazoo! It means a lot to hit #1 on the Rising Bestsellers here, not just for me but for everyone I am writing about, whether it’s their books, their clothes, their salt or their wellies. I feel like you are all enjoying my ‘lane’ – and I intend to keep writing about my fascination for the crossover between style and society, and finding ways to bring you some of that style and glamour within budget. And I mean that. I love glamour, but I’m on a budget like most of us, and there are plenty of ways to bring a sprinkling of fairy dust to our lives without breaking the bank. I do a lot of research for my stories - I’ll never get away from my Vogue training on that front, where every single story has to be based on hard sartorial evidence - and I try pretty much every single piece of clothing or item I write about IRL, as I have to confirm and believe that something is absolutely worthy before I write it up. You can’t always do that by just looking at it on a screen. So I’m a bit less prolific than some of my esteemed peers (I don’t know how Emily Sundberg isn’t dead she is so prolific), but my point is, you have to kiss an awful lot of fashion frogs before you find your princes, and there’s a lot of product out there that is frog-esque.

I have some fun stories in the works that I’m excited about. I have just interviewed the incredible stylist and designer Tabitha Simmons, and I will be putting that story out as soon as its ready. She talks to me about her own style, the iconic Vogue stories she has worked on, and the brilliant clothes and shoes she is designing right now, at a price. I’m hoping to cut the interview we did into a podcast as well, if I can figure out the tech of audio editing. She speaks so intelligently about fashion that I know many of you will want to hear every word she says.

I’m also working on a ridiculously, some will say absurdly, early Christmas gift guide for obsessive planners/control freaks like me. The photos are done, the items are selected, and the pub date is set – early November.

After that there is the film coming from Substack that they shot at my farm in the Cotswolds, and I’ve just heard news that it will be out around November 20^th, so I’m working on a story to go alongside it which I hope will be as funny as it is informative.

Right, and finally, the coat I am dying over. I was in Stow-on-the-Wold yesterday. I’ve got terrible flu, and am so prone to pneumonia that my lovely doctor ordered me on the meds straight away.

I went to this sweet little chemist in the main square, Badham Pharmacy (in which most of the customers seemed to be chic Americans, of course, this being the beating heart of the glamorous end of the Cotswolds) and they said it would take them an hour to fill my prescription as the pharmacist was so busy giving flu jabs (which reminded me that I now had flu because I’d forgotten to get a jab.) Anyway, off I went for a stroll round the gorgeous market square, and soon came upon an outdoorsy, equestrian-vibe store, Fairfax and Favour, which I’d heard of but had never really investigated. I popped in and before I knew it, had spied a dark khaki waxed coat with a sort of 90s Helmut Lang cut and feel, and a light wool herringbone lining. I tried it on and reader, I felt like I’d found my kind of country coat, with a look that is totally rural and suitable for country weekends, but with a narrow cut. A lot of country coats are bulky, too wide and don’t have the ‘edge’ that gives you that feeling of excitement when you put it on. This one does, especially when worn with a tartan scarf by Carole Bamford in the photo below. And the girls in the store told me Fairfax and Favour are on tour in a bus full of their wares in the US…

The Edith Wax Long-Line coat from Fairfax and Favour. Don’t you just love it? I’m wearing it in a size 8. The cap is Purdey and the boots are classics from Spice London. The first pair I had from them lasted ten years. The gorgeous tartan scarf is by Bamford and is the most beautiful mossy green.

And, thank you again, dear readers, for reading.

XXX Plum