Only Passing Through

View this post on the web at [link removed] My book is well and truly launched. London, Paris and now New York, where I spoke at a certain women’s club to a room full of formidable ladies who understand the importance of hairspray, sensible shoes and a properly folded napkin. Moral support came in the form of my niece Angelica [ [link removed] ], whose brilliantly irreverent work gently sends up the world of fashion. She was charmed by the whole scene. In the evening I spoke at the New York School of Interior Design, hosted by the Royal Oak Foundation. Alexa Hampton sat in the front row. My father, David Hicks, had mentored Alexa’s father, Mark Hampton, early in his career, long before Mark went on to become one of America’s legendary decorators. Alexa has inherited her father’s plain-speaking approach: “It’s a dress, not a gown; it’s curtains, not draperies.” My friend, the actress Kate Walsh, also came. We had begun the day at hot yoga together, where there must be an alarming number of verrucas just waiting to be caught, but with the heat sending your heart rate somewhere into outer space, I felt oddly reassured having Dr. Addison Montgomery from Grey’s Anatomy sweating beside me. If anyone was going to recognise a medical emergency, surely it was Kate Walsh. Three of my boys also joined, arriving with varying degrees of punctuality. We finished with dinner at the newly opened, gloriously maximalist Maxime’s, Robin Birley bringing his inimitable English sense of style to New York, organised by ELLE Decor’s Elisa Lipsky-Karasz, herself every bit as stylish, exuberant and mischievous as the rooms around us. This September also brought a rather lovely collaboration with Penelope Chilvers. Penny and I have, in many ways, grown up on the edges of the same village. Our mothers were friends in Oxfordshire long before our own lives began to overlap. There is something very special about friendships that stretch across generations, and lovelier still when they find their way into something creative. All here. [ [link removed] ] Together we made a small collection of things I would actually wear: a field boot equally at home on muddy paths, gravel drives or city streets; a border skirt that moves happily from garden to drawing room; a green hedgerow sweater, the sort of thing one reaches for without thinking; and a dark cherry-coloured satin slipper that slips into an evening bag. In the weeks to come I am joining Edge Escapes in San Francisco and Greenwich CT, for two ‘ENTERTAINING WITH A SIDE OF CHAOS’ book singings held in the Hudson Grace stores [ [link removed] ]. Afterwards there will be cocktails, lots of them, conversation and a very intimate dinner, with just ten places in each city: San Francisco on October 22nd and Greenwich on October 24th. Edge Escapes are good at curating highly personal trips that feel more like being invited in than passing through. Rather like the woman at one of my talks who, after hearing that my mother had been born in Barcelona by accident, said her father had been born somewhere off the New Jersey Turnpike but he always insisted, “I was only passing through.” P.S For more about those dinners click here [ [link removed] ]. Or simply come for the book signing. INDIA HICKS. An Unexpected Journey. is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Unsubscribe [link removed]?