Local Restaurants This Month

Le Relais de Venise L’entrecote , 120 Marylebone Lane W1, 020 7486 0878

The landlords are putting a lot of effort into Marylebone Lane and it’s developing as a quirkily interesting little shopping street. Of the many small restaurants, one offers a French version of fast food……..a sort of Michelin star McDonalds, on the back of a formula that’s worked in Paris for 50 plus years. This is a useful local restaurant though not one I rush back to despite the lengthy queues that form around 7.00pm - you can’t book.

It’s a set meal of salad – with a secret dressing recipe, steak with a secret sauce recipe & chips, and one of those meals that despite enjoying it whilst eating, at the end I feel no desire to repeat it. That may just be because I forget to decline the second helping they hold off to the side. Service is Parisian.

Invisible Haircuts?

A full page article in last week’s Evening Standard talked about a ‘new’ way of cutting which avoided the chunky lines and choppy steps created by most ‘try hard’ stylists these days. The Invisible Haircut. Initially I thought someone was at last catching on to something we have stood by for years, just beautifully refined and understatedly perfect haircuts.

When the article continued on to say how it was vital to hold some hair and make quick upward snips at three times per second and miss bits out to achieve the ‘metodo’ (Italian for method), I knew I was reading yet more gimmicky marketing by someone that doesn’t understand the principles of a achieving a great haircut.

Great hair never has screamed, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ at the expense of the owner. Great hair helps the wearer look beautiful and feel confident, and an observer shouldn’t instantly know why. It may occur to the observer that the hair looks gorgeous. It may then appear that the haircut and style is just right. If they continue to wonder, they may conclude that a very talented hairdresser has been there. In that order it shows good taste. Less professional hairdressers want their creations to shout from the rooftops. The very best hairdressers are happy for their work to play a vital supporting role to the real star, the client.

One of my high profile television personalities, whose diary doesn’t always link in with mine, once said to me, “You know Michael, when other people cut my hair it feels like I have something on my head. When you cut my hair, it just feels like it’s part of me.”

I thought that summed it up rather well.

LFW: World Peace Through Personal Beauty

I often find myself in the middle of a conflict between prospective apprentices, desperate to go into hairdressing, and their concerned parents wanting them to take a more serious career path like law, medicine, accountancy or banking. “Well let’s face it…..isn’t the fashion and beauty industry along with those other creative types, a bit……… shallow?” My feelings of indignation passed years ago. I feel what we do with personal grooming and visual health is important individually and socially, and exceptionally skilled. It engenders higher self esteem and is aligned to proactive self care and wellbeing, so also links in with the healthcare aims of medicine, but without the gory bits. People who look good feel good. People who feel good do good. I rest my case m’lud.

As for ‘serious careers’….being able to express ourselves in our own version of beauty is also vitally important to a healthy self image which in turn affects how we relate to others. When this freedom is suppressed, it can ferment a deep discontent with potentially tragic consequences. You only have to look at the world’s war zones, where there is no formally established fashion and beauty culture. As far as I’m aware there is no Iraqi Cosmopolitan magazine nor Afghanistan Vogue and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Perhaps the UN planes should be flying teams from London Fashion Week into the world’s conflict hotspots.