She's Gotta Have It
Fashion, beauty, shopping, social life and things that make you go hmmm; come scroll with us for the She's Gotta Have It guide to girlitude
Suddenly Single
The adventures of a divorcee-about-town 
Agony Sisters
Advice from the women who know
People
Window Shopping
Hot or Not?
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On Beauty Firm foundations
In 1937, make-up maestro Max Factor created a solid foundation for the advent of colour films and, 70 years on, they’re still big business. Maybe it’s because a skin-enhancing base is like the Holy Grail of cosmetics. The elusive ‘perfect’ foundation, once found, inspires the kind of fidelity that marketing bods can only dream of. And if it fits neatly into your purse? Well, that’s the icing on the (pan)cake. Kim Parker
Great for dry skins: Max Factor Miracle Touch Liquid Illusion Foundation, £11.95 (from November)
Brilliant shine stopper: Chanel Mat Lumiere Luminous Matte Powder Make-up, £29
Beautiful glow giver: Guerlain Parure Compact Foundation (left), £33
Instant karma
A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience.
From ‘Confessions of a Wild Bore’ (1965) by John Updike (1932-)
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In Town Last Night
The glitziest events
Matt Damon, Julia Stiles and Kimberley Stewart braved the rain for the London premiere of The Bourne Ultimatum. More party pictures 
Good news It’s official! The smock is over, and Dior’s New Look is back. That means an end to phantom pregnancies and a return to a silhouette that flatters the female form. Think cinched-in waists, full skirts and dainty heels. Bad news We love sexy, mouthy, and really rather talented Girls Aloud. So yah boo sucks to uppity little madam Kate Moss, who had Sarah Harding and mates thrown out of the VIP tent at the V Festival, after throwing a Croydon-girl hissy fit and screeching “Who are these people? There are too many of them. I’m not going in there, no chance. Get them out!”
The Big Issue: Mirren’s mighty mojo
National treasure Helen Mirren has revealed that it’s actually easier to be naked on film and stage as you get older because you’re no longer a sex kitten, just a person with no clothes on. It’s very sweet of her to be so modest, but the truth is that what makes this famously alluring woman so attractive is that she’s moved from sex object to sex subject. That is to say that, having spent years getting a kick out of being desired, she’s now the one doing the desiring - witness her remarks on footballers (David Beckham for companionship, Thierry Henry for sex). It’s sort of
what men do, so (bear with me on this one) maybe blokes have something to teach women of all ages. Maybe you don’t have to be Helen Mirren to take charge of your own mojo. Obviously, it takes a bit of practice, so start small by checking out the fanciable men on the street - Italian women do it all the time - and when you’ve gained confidence, progress to full-on predation of your friends’ husbands. Or, more responsibly, plateau at incorrigible flirtation. Et voila, Mirren-like glow is assured.
Laura Tennant
Bonkers health Geri Halliwell’s new six-pack is apparently down to kettlebelling, which involves swinging a large weight (the kettlebell) around one’s head and body, Victorian strong-man style. Expect to see it in your local park very soon.
Win an organic cookery holiday in Tuscany
Street Seen
Brown is best
Going out? The Place
The Kitchin
78 Commercial Quay
Leith
Edinburgh
0131 555 1755
Edinburgh Festival may be a cultural banquet, but finding a decent place to fuel up between shows is notoriously tricky. Avoid the theme eateries that line the Royal Mile, hail a cab and head to Leith. Once home to dockers and junkies, it’s now awash with loft-conversions and hipster hangouts. Tom Kitchin’s Michelin-starred outlet is the area’s gastro centrepiece, serving up Modern Scottish fare in stylish surroundings. Kitchin has worked with some of the world’s best chefs, and his pedigree shows. Fish lovers will go weak at the knees over the choice of fresh, wild produce and culture junkies can savour the theatre of the lively open kitchen.
Gabrielle Strachan
Read Me
Publishers’ blurbs for fantasy genre novels always raise the biggest laughs round my way: ‘When Akakak son of Okilydokily discovers he is actually the spawn of dragon queen Sandra, he must leave the city of Vmmt and make his way to the Outer Land to gain his dragon wings and fulfil his destiny as the ruler of Fschlllum.’ And so forth. But should you wish to venture into the realm of fantasy (and if you secretly rather love Philip Pullman and are still in recovery from a childhood addiction to Narnia, you probably will) Paul Park is your man. He’s followed up his acclaimed literary sci-fi with a more romantically-minded three-parter which kicks off with A Princess of Roumania (just published in Britain, Pan Macmillan, £6.99). It concerns the adventures of Miranda, the princess in question, whose ordinary Massachusetts adolescence is interrupted when she is hurtled through the space-time continuum (or something) into an alternate, magical, Roumanian world. Excellent reading for bad weather.
Laura Tennant
This week’s new books 
