A very important thing that I've been worrying about for sometime...

Plus some lovely paintings by Gary Bunt, the genius of Craig Brown, is Sussex the new Cotswolds (??), and my new book...

I’ve been worrying about this for quite a long time. A few months, probably. And googling it. And then angsting about it all over again. And then I went to visit a very brilliant friend who’s just been treated for breast cancer in the Marsden, and we spent the whole time discussing the issue as she lay in bed and nurses came in and out and took her vitals, and I decided it really was time to do something about it.

Jeans. That’s what. What kind of jeans should I/we be wearing now? It may seem like a trivial question, but given how much time many of us spend in jeans, it’s also quite important. (Also, this is a fairly trivial newsletter. If you’re after something more highbrow, can I direct you to the Substacks written by the likes of Helen Lewis or John Elledge.)

For some time, I’ve been dimly aware that skinny jeans aren’t cool any more. Skinny jeans have had a good run, haven’t they? At least a decade or so. Two, maybe. Don’t ask me exactly how long. I’m not a fashion writer (obviously). The point is, skinny jeans have been around for a long time and my wardrobe is full of them. But when the crotch went through on my favourite pair of black skinny jeans a couple of weeks ago, I wondered if I should try something new because, as I said above, I’ve been observing for a while that people like Sienna Miller and Katie Holmes are no longer wearing them. Not that Sienna Miller and Katie Holmes are my absolute style gurus, but you know what I mean. For a while, I’ve been feeling like Old Mother Hubbard in my skinny jeans, because I’d become aware that they were out and other shapes were IN. Recently, it felt like only people left in the whole country wearing skinny jeans were me and the Princess of Wales.

But what other shapes? I started casting around and feeling quite panicked.

Flares seemed to be IN. Ok, flared jeans. Is that a good idea? What if it’s raining, and then you have to spend the whole day with the bottom two inches of your jeans sopping wet. I owned a pair of electric blue corduroy flares as a teenager, bought from Kensington Market (RIP), and I thought they were the coolest trousers going, but when it was wet, they would soak almost up to my knees, which meant I was then wearing two-tone trousers - navy below the knee, electric blue above the knee. I’ve been suspicious of flares ever since. Also, how does one get the length of flared jeans right? Either you can only wear them with flat shoes, or you can wear them with heels. You cannot wear the same pair with both flats AND heels because the hemline can’t be right for both. Flared jeans, in short, seem like too much hard work.

Barrel jeans. Apparently also extremely fashionable right now. Hmmm. I looked at the pictures of these but worried that, if I bought a pair, I might be mistaken for Charlie Chaplin.

Due respect to the Me + Em model but you’d absolutely have to do a comedy walk in these

Wide legged jeans. I did actually try various of these pairs, but there just seemed to be too much jean flapping around my legs. It felt like I was wearing a tent.

Albaray wide-legged jeans. Useful if you’re caught in a storm and small animals need somewhere to shelter.

Horseshoe jeans. I didn’t even know about these until last week. They seem similar to barrel jeans just…sillier? See the below. Yeee-haw. Handy for Montana. Less handy for south east London.

Citizens of Humanity horseshoe jeans. Anyone know where the nearest saloon is?

Bootcut jeans? Come on. Be serious. Apparently there were several pairs of bootcut jeans on the catwalks during recent fashion weeks but I can’t quite get over the slightly 1990s mumsy vibe of them.

And so on and so on. WHAT SHAPE?

During my conversation with the friend mentioned above, the one who was recovering from a very recent op in the Marsden where we managed to spend an hour on the subject of jeans, she told me the secret was to go to Selfridges denim studio, try on 50 pairs, and then have a look for them on Vinted. Work out what suits you, she said, and what brands you most like, and then have a hunt for them online.

It’s a good suggestion but the trouble is I can’t seem to get into Vinted. I like the ability either to be able to easily send things back, or to try something on physically in a shop (remember those?) and know that they fit.

Cut to last week, when I found myself in the Marble Arch M&S, loitering near a rack of jeans called Carrot jeans. (My sister recently told me that the former Topshop buying director now works for M&S which I did not know. Apparently she’s been there for two years. I can be quite slow with these things.)

Oh no, I thought, what fresh hell is this? Carrot jeans must be even sillier than horseshoe jeans (who is in charge of jeans names, by the way? I’d like to know their methodology.) But I grabbed a few pairs because I was determined to sort this pressing issue, and carried them to the changing rooms. The lady manning the changing rooms and I were quite well acquainted by this point, because I’d already done two trips into them. You’re allowed 8 items every time in M&S, and I did 4 trips in the end. Which means 32 pairs of jeans. Poor lady. But I did hang them all up again nicely after trying them on. I didn’t just sling them back on the hanger the wrong way, and without any buttons or zips done up like SOME PEOPLE.

Anyway, the carrot jeans are so-called because they’re loose fitting but taper ‘like a carrot’. Ludicrous, I know. They’re also high-waisted. I pulled on a pair with the usual foreboding that they wouldn’t work and they’d cling on all the wrong places and I might even get stuck in them and have to ask the nice lady for help to get out of them again and yet…these were the jeans! I loved them immediately. Flattering and loose without being baggy, and also wildly comfortable. They were also £39.50. God bless M&S. I would take a photo for you of the two pairs that I subsequently bought, but someone who will remain anonymous managed to smash the full length mirror in my bathroom the other day in a very dramatic incident. So no mirror. But look, here are the white ones on the model:

They also come in three different lengths, and four colours. Nice, no? I am late to the party because apparently LOTS of people know about them. Look, here’s a piece that Grazia recently did on the very pair:

But never mind being late. I am very pleased with them and have already worn both pairs several times. Shane Watson wrote in yesterday’s Mail that ‘the rule with jeans for now is slightly oversize, high to medium waist and occasionally tucked in.’ Whatever you’re wearing on top tucked in, I think? Anyway, the carrot jeans fit this bill.

Alternatively, you can ignore all the above and wear whatever the heck you like. Do ‘rules’ matter? Course not. Wear whatever you feel most comfortable in. Ironically, according to various pieces I read online yesterday, skinny jeans are also making a comeback. As far as I can tell, this is based on the fact that Kate Moss was recently photographed in a pair. Ergo, we’re all ‘allowed’ to wear ours again.

But if you fancy a change, if you fancy branching out, the carrot jeans are pretty good, so long as we can overlook their very silly name.

PS. I am also having a white t-shirt crisis. Why are all the white t-shirts high necked? Who makes a good scooped neck (NOT V-NECK) white t-shirt? All assistance gratefully received on this similarly vital matter.

Pictures of the week

Shortly before Christmas, I became very over-excited by an animation that the magnificent Gary Bunt posted on Instagram. It was this one…

At the time, I messaged Gary about this video and he sweetly sent me the above so I could share it with everyone on here, and also invited me to his exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery last week. It was called Marrows, Spuds and Onions, and I’ve never been to an opening night with so many red stickers. Pretty much everything was sold. Mum and I walked around mulling over which one we would most like to take home, and I was quite drawn to a tractor one, although really I loved them all. In almost every single picture, the dog has his teddy with him, which obviously I’m a complete sucker for. Bert, the old man’s called, and was originally a character Gary came up with based on his dad.

His work has become so sought after that the paintings now start at SEVERAL THOUSAND each, so Mum and I bought a set of postcards each for a tenner last week, and I’m going to frame my four favourites instead. I’ve just bought a set of A5 frames from Etsy for exactly that purpose. It’s cheating, slightly, but I don’t think Gary will mind (?) because he’s such a lovely man.

Is Dennis the puppy from the Christmas video going to make a reappearance at any stage, I asked him last week. Maybe, he told me. Here’s hoping.

Recommendations of the week

This suggestion may be more appealing to those of you who’ve read Ma’am Darling, about Princess Margaret, and/or the Beatles biog, both by Craig Brown. The rest of you may be thinking ‘Why on earth would we want to read yet another biography of the (late) Queen?’

I’ll tell you why - because Brown has, in recent years, been credited with ‘reinventing’ the biography. He writes them in chronological snippets, taking us through the lives of his subjects via vignettes, largely from the p.o.v. of other people. Do you remember a few years ago when Princess Margaret’s daily routine went viral? That, I think, was thanks to Brown’s book about her. Look, here’s a bit of it:

Anyway, he’s now done similar with her older sister and it’s howlingly funny as well as being meticulously researched and interesting. How he’s made a book about the Queen so absorbing when we already know quite a good deal about her is beyond me, possibly because it’s part social history, about us and how our attitudes have shifted towards monarchy, as well as being about monarchy itself. That makes it sound a bit dull but I PROMISE it’s the exact opposite. It’s worth buying for the chapter in which he tries to make sense of the corgi family tree alone. I haven’t actually finished it yet but I keep pausing to take photos of certain snippets, which I’ll paste below. They may seem less riotously amusing out of context, but on the way out to dinner on the Tube last week, I laughed so hard at the ‘disgusting manners’ line that a man shifted in his seat beside me.

It came out last autumn, and the paperback isn’t out until September, but the hardback is worth it, I think, and would also make someone interested in such matters a VERY good present.

Secondly, my mum, siblings and I went for lunch at The Swan on Sunday. This is a re-opened pub in the West Sussex village of Fittleworth that has recently been in about every magazine and newspaper as the hip new place to stay and eat, and even led Style mag to declare RG20 one of the country’s ‘hottest postcodes’.

This seemed v funny to me because I grew up about five minutes away, and Fittleworth has never been terribly hip. I went to Brownies in the village hall and used to spend my pocket money on sweets from the Happy Shopper (since replaced with an art gallery), and there’s now an excellent community village shop by the playground which sells my mum’s marmalade, but fashionable? Not exactly.

Except now the horrible old dive of a pub at the other end of the village has been done up and re-opened after a three-year project, and suddenly West Sussex is the new Cotswolds. So off we went for lunch on Sunday, for Mum’s birthday, to see if all the hype is deserved, and I have to say I think it is. It wasn’t a freebie, I would like to point out, because so many journalists bang on about places they’ve been to stay in, or eat at, simply because they’ve been given a nice weekend away there. But the owner’s mum, who I know a bit, happened to be there when we walked in and gave us a tour of the rooms. They’re all called after people who have stayed there because it’s a 14th century pub and all sorts have dropped in over the centuries - Elgar, Turner, Pankhurst, Kipling and so on. If you’re staying in Kipling, you get a lovely painting of a panther on the wall. If you’re in Constable, you get a framed picture of his scrawl in the guest book as well as a freestanding bath.

The food was great (my bro-in-law ordered the devilled kidneys and I was a bit nervous about trying a corner, but they were 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻), and the service excellent. There are two dog-friendly rooms with private gardens if you need one of those. Also, another room with a whopping telescope and a balcony so you can do some star-gazing if you’re into that sort of caper. It would make a perfect romantic mini break, although I hesitate to tell everyone to go there because - selfishly - I don’t really want West Sussex to be ‘the new Cotswolds’. But it is lovely if you’re after a weekend in the country which is just over an hour or so from London. Also, there’s a nearby shop which sells terrific marmalade.

Nonsense Announcement of the week

I stuck up the announcement of my new book on Instagram last week (you can read about it HERE), but I thought I should mention it today as well seeing as it’s the book that I am, selfishly, going to give everyone I know for Christmas. Abysmal to mention the ‘C’ word in March. Sorry. All I’m saying is there will be a very sweet and charming book (I hope) out in October if you need, say, a mere 10 or 15 copies to give to your friends and family.

The new book is called The Puppy Diaries, and it charts my first year of having Dennis. In my head, the title is slightly longer: The Puppy Diaries - How I was broken and mended by a dog called Dennis, because that’s what he’s done really over the past few months. Helped mend me post break-up, I mean, if that doesn’t make you want to barf all over your phone/keyboard.

I have had moments of wanting to murder him, obviously. I returned from the park one afternoon last week and immediately googled ‘dog trainer south east london’ after a particularly tiresome challenging walk where he WOULD NOT come back from the picnic bench area and its discarded sandwich crusts. But it’s funny how quickly one can go from white hot rage after, say, a sheep or sandwich crust incident, to loving them so furiously, too. Is it the same with children? Maybe it is.

Friends keep asking ‘is it written by Dennis?’, as in, is the book written from his perspective. No, it’s written by me, so think Adrian Mole meets Bridget Jones, I guess? That’s kind of what I’m aiming for, anyway. A diary of a funny old year of ups and downs with my small friend. October. OCTOBER. But don’t worry if you forget because I may mention it a few times between now and then.