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 Puff tactics
I don’t know whether it’s the return of central heating or the ever-lengthening nights but, recently, I’ve been waking up to a face more lacklustre than Britney’s dodgy VMA performance. With eyes this baggy and skin this grey, I can’t afford to pile on products that are all puff (and don’t de-puff). When you need to fake a full eight hours sleep, and fast, reach for skincare spritzes and gels - not only do they rehydrate, their fresh textures instantly cool and revive flagging faces.
Kim Parker
Lost baggage
Miracle eye-reviver: Vichy Oligo 25 Eyes, £9.50 (escentual.co.uk)Best face spritz: Jurlique Chamomile Soothing Mist, £14 (spacenk.co.uk)
Brilliant brightener: Benefit That Gal Brightening Face Primer, £19.50 (benefitcosmetics.co.uk)
Ultra-cooling mask: Origins No Puffery, £16.50 (origins.co.uk)
Instant karma
‘When people discussed tonics, pick-me-ups after a severe illness, she kept to herself the prescription of a quick dip in bed with someone you liked but were not in love with. A shock of sexual astonishment which could make you feel astonishingly well and high spirited.’
From ‘Not That Sort of Girl’ (1987) by Mary Wesley (1912-2002)
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In Town Last Night
The glitziest events
A host of European aristocracy, along with tiny Mary-Kate Olsen, attended a dinner in honour of artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. More party pictures 
Good news Saturday October 20 is National Stocking Day. We know, we know, the hold-ups fall down and the suspender belts dig in. But girls, they work, and - I’m prepared to stick my neck out here - they work without fail, rendering any other item of underwear superfluous. So do the decent thing and give him (or them!) a thrill.
Bad news For a piece of ‘coral’ or ‘ivory’ jewellery without the guilt, why not pick up one of these very pretty and dead cheap Leju bracelets, made from vegetable ivory (they also do necklaces and earrings). From £14.
The Big Issue: Why Jonny and co are truly scrummy
Now that England might win the World Cup with Jonny Wilkinson’s boot of destiny (he’s lovely), I hope rugby players everywhere get a bit more bedroom action. It’s never seemed fair that footballers are regarded as sexy and rugby players as brutish - even though I’ve been guilty of the same error myself. Why, at university, surrounded by fabulously fit young men with corrugated stomachs, I chose to go out with skinny, chain-smoking English graduates. Little did I know that the window of opportunity for sex with hard-bodied sports gods was closing fast. They lose those thighs of steel pretty fast
putting in 14-hour days at Goldman Sachs. Anyway, back to rugger. You wouldn’t catch this lot wearing sarongs, or getting highlights - well, not most of them, anyway. The best story to come out of the World Cup so far was the moment when a certain team member, about to be outed by the tabloids back home, came out as gay to his team mates. The lads weren’t that fussed - they’d sort of suspected - but one of them did pipe up, “In that case, can I have the wife’s number? It’d be a pity to let that boob job go to waste.”
Laura Tennant
Bonkers health In need of downtime in your own private meditation room? For $5,900, you can buy what designer Monica Forster calls The Cloud, a portable, inflatable, white nylon room which blows up into something resembling a large and very earthbound pupae...
Ready, Steady, Shop
T-licious designs
Wardrobe Mistress
Stylish sportswear
This season’s messy bun may look easy but, trust us, if you want to look like a ballerina, not Mrs Mop, take advice from the pros
elleuk.com
Going out? The Place
Marco
Stamford Bridge
Fulham Road
London SW6
020 7915 2929
The posh nosh pit stop is already de rigeur in department stores and museums. Now, thanks to Marco Pierre White, they are invading sports stadiums. Banish all thoughts of greasy half-time hot dogs and lukewarm lager: Chelsea FC has a swish new in-house eaterie which serves souped-up French cuisine in sexy granite and marble surroundings. Named Marco, after MPW’s second son, it’s got MPW’s sizeable personality stamped all over it. Match days see a more classic true Brit menu with staples such as organic shepherd’s pie and smoked haddock with Welsh rarebit glaze. Finally, somewhere seriously glamorous to hang out when it’s all over.
Gabrielle Strachan
Read Me
English- woman Sarah Long has been exiled in Paris for 10 long, hard years, but at least she’s managed to parlay her experiences among the frequently insufferable French into fiction. For her third literary outing she’s invented an alter-ego, Hortense de Monplaisir, a bon chic bon gens Parisienne whose interests include ‘le scrapbooking, painting on porcelain and organising holidays in Verbier, St Barts and the Ile de Re’. When Hortense is forced to relocate to London with her banker husband she realises, after initial horror, that it is her duty to compose Le Dossier: How to Survive the English (£12.99, John Murray) for the benefit of her fellow ex-pats. As Long intends, Hortense’s take on London life tells us more about what the French think about the English than about the English themselves. According to Hortense and her fellow Frogs, the English are rubbish at sex, dress appallingly, know nothing about food, drink to excess, are dull conversationalists and, moreover, ‘irredeemably middle-class’ to a man, while the French are precisely the opposite. Keep this by the bedside, so that if renovating a French chateau ever seems like a remotely appealing prospect, you’ll have the necessary antidote.
Laura Tennant
This week’s new books 
