THE summer shoe

Forget barely-there sandals as inspired by Chanel (a brave trend which essentially involves a completely nude foot) and instead go for a more relaxed vibe this summer with the deck shoe. Miu Miu’s are the ones to have and I have just bought the softly faded suede ones which I adore. (Go down half a size would be my advice.) These are selling very quickly but looks like there are a few sizes left. You can find them here.

Get Smart

You all know by now that I love a Create Academy course where I’ve learned pretty much everything about interior design, gardening, cooking and even art with some of the world’s best teachers (including amongst many others who are sadly not yet on Substack- but one can dream). Anyway I have just got round to doing their fabulous course with Retrouvirus founder Maria Speake. If you’ve ever dreamed of giving your home the ever-so-slightly distressed/salvaged look then this is the course for you. I watched the entire 4 hours in two sittings in the bath and now spend my days searching for copper light windows on Facebook Marketplace. You can have a watch of the trailer here I think.

A cheapie bag

The tote bag shoes no signs of slowing down and this is probably the best on the market right now. I have it in the blue and white stripe colourway as well as the red. Find it here. Fill it with books. Happy summer!

A book to curl up with

Speaking of interior design I loved LOVED this book by Berdoulet founder Patrick Williams, especially as it has a beautiful foreword by whose prose I would read even if he were writing about drains. This is for those of you who want a deeper understanding of what makes a period property come to life. I find most design books incredibly lovely to look at but always a little light on education- this book does both. Hurrah!

Nutritionist-approved doggie meals

As many you know I have old dogs (weep). My Goldendoodle Jones is coming up to 12 this month, whilst Parker, my Labradoodle is 14 soon. A while back we switched out their meals to a brand called Different Dog which friends had recommended, mainly because we are mad dog parents who whisper things into their ears at night like: give us till 17. Anyway, it’s a vet and nutritionist-approved meal delivery service where the meals sound like the sort of stuff you or I would eat -Turkey Fricasse, Braised Beef, and which the dogs absolutely love. But what we have really noticed about both of them is the change in their coats, especially Parker whose coat has literally turned to brown velvet. I don’t know about you but there’s something lovely about recognising every ingredient in your dog’s meal and seeing how delighted they are come mealtimes. No nasties, just fresh food and happy dogs. My dogs are pretty much my life so I wanted to share this with you and as always I have managed to get a discount for TWK readers if you’d like to try it too. Simply go to their website, which you can find here, and at check-out add in FARRAH40.

The LWD

The little white dress will be your friend for the months ahead and this is the chicest one I have seen in some time. It’s my one of my new favourite brands 440ME and has a slight trapeze shape which falls beautifully over the body- the cut is exceptional and its made from a mid-weight crepe which is a summer essential imo. Wear with bundles of gold chains and minimal make-up.

Style Statement

If you’re in the market for an accessory that is guaranteed to start a conversation then these earrings are for you. I was literally stopped in the queue for breakfast by a woman pleading to know where they were from.

CLICK BELOW FOR A BUNCH MORE OF THE GOOD STUFF

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I have fallen back in love with New York. Maybe it’s a spring thing. All those smoking sidewalks and soaring towers and locals who stride about in Lululemon and crop tops looking as though they’re about to murder someone.

I was there for work this week. Days really. A real in and out job. Just enough time to see a single friend, spend time with colleagues, work (a lot) and then zip back on the red eye.

But I thought I’d share a few new (and new-ish) places that I enjoyed this time around, as well as the five films that always get me in a New York state of mind. (Anyone else out there obsess about reading books and watching films set in the destination to which they’re travelling?)

Anyway, I’ll keep it short and sweet. Enjoy! Oh and before I forget, for those who have not yet joined our CHAT channel it’s absolutely worth heading over there as it’s basically now become Tripadvisor for this Substack. So many good chats and honest recommendations happening over there.

NEW YORK IN A HOT MINUTE…

Cafe Panna

I had to queue with about 25O Gen Z-ers talking about their eyelash extensions and brunch plans for thirty minutes in order to get an ice cream from this place, but it was absolutely worth it. They have a ‘soft serve’ of the week (check out their Instagram to see what it is- it was milk chocolate and peanut sauce when I stopped by) which is allegedly the thing but honestly, everything is incredible. You choose a base, a sauce and a sprinkle (Oreo crumbs, sea salt, sprinkles) and then add a ribbon of whipped cream on the top. Perfection.

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Hello hello and greetings from NYC where I’m on a 72 hour trip to the Big Apple. It’s hot, it’s sticky and it reminded me to remind you that there’s one week left to grab a free gift with the ZIIP Halo that I mentioned in my post last week about perfect skin- which you can find and read here.

I love this product and managed to get all TWK readers a special free hydrating gel with all purchases of the product. One of the many perks I try and offer all readers where possible. Anyway details all below!

Happy Thursday x

Everyone has gone a bit nuts for ZIIP Halo - the at-home facial device that I started using about 8 months ago- and with good reason. They sent me one last year and I’ve been using it religiously ever since. It is super easy to use, which is a huge plus point for me as I hate anything fiddly and complicated- and the benefits have been extraordinary. In fact I’d go as far as to say this year I’ve had the best skin of my life so this is definitely a staple for me. Yes it’s a little pricey but when you consider it’s the price of two facials at a spa, it’s actually very good value. You can use it in a variety of ways- in place of a facial as a way to make skin smooth and glossy (which I do before a night out) but also to target bigger, deeper concerns like texture and sagging. Personally I don’t use it for a snatched jawline but I do like a bit of a lift around the chin area, so I use ZIIP once a week around the chin and jaw area. They also have a very good app which sends one of the 17 different facial treatments in the device and then off you go. Some of my favourite treatments are for face lifting, collagen boosting, targeting fine lines and another that I like which concentrates on lymphatic drainage.

All readers of Things Worth knowing will get 10 per cent off a device AND get a free full sized Silver Conducting hydrating and plumping gel worth £69.99 to use with it if you pop the words ZPFARRAH in at check-out. If you do splurge let me know- would love to know how you get on. Use this link to get your ZIIP Halo and free gel. Enjoy!

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I never believed I would be someone with good skin. For thirty years of my life I waged a war with my body’s largest organ. I doused it in acids; attacked it with lasers, I picked at it and smothered it in foundations that were thick and suffocating. I dreamed of having anyone’s skin except the one I found myself in.

My problem was not so much acne as it was a weird, almost pebbly texture that plagued me from my teenage years right up until my late 30s. If I got caught under any sort of light -daylight, strip lighting, changing room mirror lighting- my entire face looked like a 18th century cobbled street. No one could fix it.

Instead I tried to excavate these tiny bump with finger tips, nail edges and on one occasion a scalpel I bought off Amazon. (Never try this at home please). The result was terrible scarring, pot holes and bumps that instead of refusing to go away started to meander down my face towards my neck.

In the early days of courtship with my husband I would drape my hair over my face in the mornings so that he would not see the scares and holes, fearing as I did that he would leave me once he saw the creature beneath the foundation. And in our wedding pictures, taken almost a decade later, my hair is arranged strategically across my cheekbones so as to minimise the (imagined) stares and gasps of those who watched me walk down the aisle.

By the time I hit my late thirties I had all but given up on finding any form of salvation for my skin. Besides, life seemed too short. Instead I trucked on with life and it’s many decisions: to have or not to have children? To embark on the ‘big career’? To roost in city or country? And my skin and all its woes settled to a soft, background little grumble.

And then, maybe around 42 something miraculous happened. Looking in the mirror one day I noticed the lumps had all but disappeared. (To this day I have no idea why, other than it must have been some long, drawn out hormonal issue.) And there, in its place was rather nice-looking, olive skin. Time had dulled the scarring and gentle pigmentation (which I think can look rather cute- like a little spray of chocolate milkshake caught on cheekbones) disguised the pin pricks. I had lines sure, but they were soft and fine and told of a life of gentle smiles and frowning concentration.

Today I often get asked about my skin. Which is bizarre to me. People enquire about the products I use, how much sun I take and whether I have ‘good genes’. (It is true I come from a long family line of good skin, which made having bad skin for the first three decades of my life so frustrating.)

I don’d do anything especially complex for my skin. A good cleanser. A reliable facial tool. Water. As much of it as I can remember to drink. And a few little potions and weird bits I picked up in Japan whilst on holiday there a few years ago- which you can find below.

But mainly we’re just on better terms nowadays. No grumbles. No Amazon scalpels. No hate talk. Just appreciation for the skin I’m in.

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My skin saviours

And here’s the things I use again and again…

An At-Home Facial Tool

Everyone has gone a bit nuts for ZIIP Halo - the at-home facial device that I started using about 8 months ago- and with good reason. They sent me one last year and I’ve been using it religiously ever since. It is super easy to use, which is a huge plus point for me as I hate anything fiddly and complicated- and the benefits have been extraordinary. In fact I’d go as far as to say this year I’ve had the best skin of my life so this is definitely a staple for me. Yes it’s a little pricey but when you consider it’s the price of two facials at a spa, it’s actually very good value. You can use it in a variety of ways- in place of a facial as a way to make skin smooth and glossy (which I do before a night out) but also to target bigger, deeper concerns like texture and sagging. Personally I don’t use it for a snatched jawline but I do like a bit of a lift around the chin area, so I use ZIIP once a week around the chin and jaw area. They also have a very good app which sends one of the 17 different facial treatments in the device and then off you go. Some of my favourite treatments are for face lifting, collagen boosting, targeting fine lines and another that I like which concentrates on lymphatic drainage.

All readers of Things Worth knowing will hey 10 per cent off a device AND get a free full sized Silver Conducting hydrating and plumping gel worth £69.99 to use with it if you pop the words ZPFARRAH in at check-out. If you do splurge let me know- would love to know how you get on. Use this link to get your ZIIP Halo and free gel.

A simple serum

I have banged on about this brand before but I will say it again: Emma Lewisham’s Skin Reset Serum is the best thing I have ever put on my face. It’s light but hydrating and leaves my skin dewy and fresh.

A detoxing mask

Of course there had to be one French product on here, since the French are so good with skincare. I love a mask that detoxes skin (I’m also partial to those terrible pore strips), declogging pores and leaving skin squeaky clean. Masque Vivant is a little pricey but works so well. Skin is left matte, firm and with every bit of dirt hoovered out of your pores. Dr Barbara Sturm’s Clarifying Mask is also very good- and the 20ml is cheap enough to give it a try.

For my other secret saviours see below

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Someone recently asked me to describe my style.

‘It depends on which day of the week you catch me,’ I replied.

You see my life meanders off into three distinct sartorial tributaries. For days in the office I lean towards minimal elegance- think The Row by way of (lots) of Cos. But when I’m working from home (a topic for a whole other Substack) it’s more casaulcore: Levis 501s and navy T-shirts mainly, along with those very cute shearling Birkenstock sandals that I am now addicted to. (Charvet also do a very good house slippers.)

But for me, the weekend is the most exciting time to get dressed. This is because I am a different woman from sunrise on Saturday to sunset on Sunday. For 48 hours I become a woman of the land: toiling in the garden borders, scaling ladders to fix bird boxes, seeding lawns and fixing fence panels. It is my idea of bliss and thus, one must dress accordingly.

I don’t know what you’d call this style of dressing: lumberjack chic? Graftwear? I think the closest name we have for it is chorewear, denoting as it does that this is the sort of clothing meant to do tough manual labour in- yet (thankfully) does not involve a pair of Caterpillar workmen’s boots and knee pads.

Anyway below I’ve listed the brands and the pieces I swear by. These are pieces that will take you from garden borders and farmers markets to pub lunches and even casual evening drinks. They also all last a lifetime.

Toast

I adore Toast. I love the homewares mainly- the bed sheets and slipware is especially lovely, but they also do a very decent range of slouchy trousers and roomy tops that feel a little louche and cool. This might surprise those of you who have known the brand for years and who think of its vast linen maxi dresses and scarves as the domain of the pottery teacher. I actually adore their dresses which are incredibly well made and will make you the most stylish woman at the market this summer. (I have this one which I think will be so stylish with white plimsoles.) But mainly I enjoy their chorewear- earthy-hued pieces that you can bomb about the garden in. This hat is on my wish list, as is this jumpsuit.

Finisterre

I stumbled upon this fabulous brand late last year when they did a collaboration with Amy Powney. I’ve since become addicted to their fleeces (I have this one and it is both chic and incredibly warm for early mornings in the garden- I can’t recommend it highly enough), their workwear trousers and their socks, which are hands down the best you will buy anywhere. A Cornish, deeply unpretentious brand that concentrates on durability as much as it does style, this is my go-to for cool, casual clothes that don’t cost the earth. (They also do excellent changing robes if you’re a wild swimmer.)

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Today’s post has been written in one, long breathless sitting. That’s because it’s about something I care deeply about. Or maybe I should say two things: magazines and journalism.

I spent the best part of two decades working in glossy magazines; whilst my husband, my sister, my brother-in-law and just about every person I know and love is a journalist. Or I should correct that: was a journalist. Most of them, like me, left an industry they loved years ago.

I’m bringing this up today because I just saw The Devil Wears Prada 2, which by the way is very good. For those of you who don’t remember, The Devil Wears Prada was the 2003 best-selling book by Lauren Weisberger, loosely based on her time as a miserable, under paid, underling at US Vogue under Anna Wintour. It was the same year I got my first job on a glossy magazine, except I was working on a magazine for the over 50s where the editor-in-chief called me Tara for 18 months and wore Jaeger rather than Prada. Still, I thought I had arrived.

Because in 2003 magazines still had power. And what I mean by that is they still captivated attention. I could tell you the exact day of the month all my favourite magazines hit the newsstand. And I gave each of those magazines hours of my time. That sort of devoted, unbroken attention just doesn’t exist anymore. But it did back then, and as a consequence brands, and the editors-in-chiefs who served them, became cultural totems, deciding everything from what you wore to what and where you ate.

Of course 2003 was not the heyday of magazines, which probably fell sometime between 1975 and 1995, meaning writers and editors like Vanity Fair’s Tina Brown and Cosmopolitan’s Helen Gurley Brown probably experienced the heights of it all. But in the early aughts there were still clothing allowances and private cars and mythical Chanel sample sales where you could buy a 2.55 handbag for £250. (True story, a friend of mine picked up a banana yellow one for a exactly that amount. I mean she’s never worn it, but that’s not the point.) But you get the idea: magazines still felt like Neverland for the playground’s Queen bees.

In the first Devil Wears Prada the protagonist-editorial assistant Andy Sachs is told, ‘a million girls would kill for this job’. And honestly, that was no exaggeration. Every time we put up a posting for an assistant’s job we were besieged. I had emails, emails from parents, one candidate even sent me a completely mocked-up magazine. Another sent me flowers with their application- which made me incredibly uncomfortable, especially given the starting salary of some of these jobs would barely cover their rent in London.

I couldn’t tell you if this was true nowadays, having been out of magazines for almost half a decade now. I hope not. Because anyone in their early 20s entering the magazine industry today would be in for a shock. They will never know growth. But they will become familiar with redundancies, closures and not being able to get their head around why word rates are the same as they were back in 2001.

What I like about The Devil Wears Prada 2 is that it is essentially about what happened to magazines over the last twenty years. And it gets a lot of what went wrong right: advertiser fall-out; digital cannibalisation and the end of editor as cultural sage. But also it doesn’t tell the full story which is a little more complicated…

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I know the drill by now: a couple of books, a manicure kit, my favourite bath oil decanted into a small plastic bottle, as well as half the amount of clothing I think I’ll need. This usually boils down to one pair of jeans, a jumper, a couple of T-shirts and a pair of trainers.

This is my solo travel kit, honed over the years for trips away alone.

I have …

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One evening last year I had the good fortune to find myself, cocktail in hand, discussing the merits of modern literature with a bunch of strangers under a warm Provencal sky. I was at La Gonette, a mythical home in the Luberon Mountains, once the home of famed interior designer Robert Kime and now home to nove…

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Some things are fads. Some things are classics. What separates the two is that the latter remains undiminished in its power to elicit some form of emotion. A scent that never dates. A book that always hits hard. A pair of shoes that always make y…

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I’ve never had much in the way of a kitchen. In my first grown-up flat - a tiny walk up in central London, the kitchen was no bigger than a toddler’s play mat. There was no oven, no washing machine, just an old microwave and a chipped Butler’s sink which used to drip all night long.

When my husband and I bought our first home together, the kitchen wasn’t much better. This time it was a tiny postage stamp space that ran 6ft by 6ft. You could only ever have one person in at a time, and if you liked to cook, as my husband liked to do, the dirty dishes had to be piled on the sides and the floor.

Because of this I have always had romantic notions about kitchens. I have always longed for the sort of space where friends can gather around a long oak table whilst I cook and sip red wine. (This, despite the fact I neither drink red wine, cook, or have enough friends to fit along a long oak table.) In my eyes a proper kitchen is the sort of place where there are copper pans hanging from the ceiling, Japanese knives in the drawer and Kilner jars filled with dried pulses on the shelves. A true adult meanwhile is someone who knows how to cook with all of the above.

I thought I might become that person one day. But life has panned out otherwise. Firstly, I’m no cook. I lack the patience. I can spend hours slaving over a garden border but I lose interest in any dish that takes more than 30 minutes to cook. My husband is the one with the foodie knack. He is able to get excited about steel pans and treacly balsamic vinegars, as well as communicate his love through a 6-hour coq au vin made with four different types of alcohol.

Still, I do adore kitchens. I love their warmth. I love their promise. I love how when I’m away from home the first thing I do when I return, almost as a reflex, is walk into the kitchen, pop the kettle on and then rummage through the fridge.

So anyway, last year I decided I wanted a proper kitchen.

Our previous kitchen was pale grey. I believe I had been inspired by one of Gwyneth Paltrow’s many kitchens in an issue of Architectural Digest and then found the cheapest person in Kent to make it. I didn’t know anything about kitchens back then. Thus we had a standard, fitted kitchen with teeny tiny drawers that were completely impractical, and white kitchen sides that look like belonged in a hospital.

I am 47 now. Tastes change. I love ceramics nowadays. And natural materials- marble, brass and wood. Lots of wood. I also wanted a kitchen whose drawers and cupboards fitted my life rather than the other way round. A place for everything, so everything could be in its place. (Oh how I have dreamed of clear sideboards for most of my life.) The only answer then was a bespoke kitchen.

I am lucky. When we first moved to this corner of Kent I discovered a very talented local carpenter called Ben via the late restaurateur Russell Norman who lived nearby. He had made some beautiful doors for Russell and so I asked for his name.

Over the years Ben has transformed our home. He has replaced our tired old 80s bannisters that we inherited with the house with a swish Danish-inspired oak one that I love running my hands up and down. He has made me wardrobes and tables, a floor to ceiling set of walnut bookcases, a beautiful handmade stable back door and even a writer’s desk for my husband’s 45th birthday. He also makes very beautiful kitchens.

I watched for years as Ben made kitchens for other people (all shown on his very swish Instagram). There were bespoke knife drawers, a cupboard especially for spice bottles, glass cupboards made my old fashioned ‘wobbly glass’ and even a miniature bar for one lucky recipient.

So one day last years, after years of scrimping and saving, I made the call.

‘Ben, we are ready for our new kitchen…’

The thing about going bespoke is that you need a vision with which your maker can work. I’m lucky in that Ben knows I’m a complete pedant and fastidious about every last detail. (Given he is the same way things can get colourful!) So I went about making Pinterest boards that could show him my thinking.

I loved two design styles: Japanese and Danish minimalism. But I also live in the Kentish countryside, so Ben suggested we also try and incorporate some British sensibility too- a little Arts and Crafts perhaps. Shaker doors. Handles that felt distinctly British country.

The end result is far better than I ever imagined. And also a little different- in the best possible way. That’s the thing about bespoke, you can’t ever quite imagine what it’s going to turn out like, which is why you have to put so much faith in the maker doing the work. Ben convinced me on things like tambour doors, curved edges, moving the sink just a fraction to the left so we got acres of extra work surface space (I don’t know how he did this, but it felt like magic) and cupboard handles that are almost invisible.

The funny thing is there are no copper pans hanging from the ceiling, no Kilner jars filled with pules and certainly no long oak table for friends to gather around. Which just goes to show how mistaken we can be about believing what we want in life.

Then again, I do have a kitchen drawer filled with Japanese knives. And still don’t know how to use at least half of them.

So anyway here are some pictures of the finished thing along with a few bits I’ve learned along the way.

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6.30 am is the golden hour in my garden. It is the moment when the sun catches the buds on the Cornus tree outside my bedroom window. At six thirty in the morning the bird song is still meek and there are droplets as round as sea peals on the edges of the ferns in the shady borders. There are little curls of fox poo on the ground too- my favourite midnight interlopers; and in the hornbeam bush I can hear the gentle rustle of the four female pheasants I have been attempting to domesticate over the last two months. (It’s going very slowly.)

I head out alone most mornings, my favourite ceramic mug filled with hot tea. The dogs are old now and rarely follow me out, instead preferring to stay inside by the warmth of the radiator. I walk its length and breadth several times, examining the borders, taking notes, seeing which flowers are gently unfurling from the ground.

I have a deep attachment to this garden. It’s not love exactly, more like a deep, nourishing friendship developed over a number of years.

When my husband and I first bought the house almost 13 years ago I knew little about gardens. But it was long and wide and big enough for a trampoline and maybe a football net for the children we then planned to have. The racing green Aga and the sun lit conservatory sold the house to me (both now long replaced); the garden however was a mere afterthought.

But then life changed. Work became hard and long. My husband and I decided that a family was no longer to be the path for us. I ached for something that allowed me to escape my own mind. That’s when the garden whispered to me.

We had bought the house off an elderly couple who were both long dead by the time we moved in. There was a Stannah Stair Lift in the hallway and instructions desperately scrawled inside every cupboard- put the pans here!; don’t leave butter there! These were people for whom a garden played no role.

But it was clear somebody had loved this garden before, for beneath the bindweed and the couch grass there were flowers of exceptional taste: amber-hued tiger lilies, white scented phlox and bright orange Chinese lanterns. There was a giant Philadelphus that had grown large and unwieldy but which made the entire garden smell of sugared bon bons late into the evening. One morning, as I was clearing under the giant Elaeagnus hedge, I found a shoal of quivering lily of the valley flowers, as well as a magenta pink quince. Neither flower not shrub is native to this part of the country; instead somebody had chosen to plant them there; somebody who had loved this garden very much.

There was just one problem: I wanted to replace everything. As a novice gardener I had neither respect nor tolerance for someone else’s vision. I didn’t want orange flowers, instead I wanted a pale pastel hued garden. I didn’t want undulations of white phlox in my borders, which at the time felt fussy and old fashioned. Instead I wanted dramatic box balls and towering topiary hedges and huge cloud like hydrangeas like you see on the cover of Hamptons Life magazine.

And so I tore out the Chinese lanterns and all the amber lilies. I took down the Philadelphus as well as the Elaeagnus hedge and an old cherry tree that struggled to give blossom in the spring. I saved only two Amelanchier trees (‘excellent trees in every season’ my friend Jo told me, and boy was she right) as well as an ancient apple tree that gives little fruit but whose trunk is thick and gnarled and serves more as sculpture than tree.

For the first two years the garden lay bare. In my haste to eradicate any trace of the previous owner- and because I knew nothing about plants, I erroneously dug up dozens of bulbs- scillas, narcissi, snowdrops; thinking them giant weeds. As a result, that first and second summer, we didn’t have much in the way of a garden at all. Just a scrappy patch of lawn that the dogs had half butchered and a pond in which yellow crested newts like to sunbath.

And so I got to work.

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When I thin…

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Advice is pretty cheap nowadays. You can tune into any podcast on any day of the week and you’ll find someone, anyone (I mean literally anyone) dispensing wisdom about how to live your life.

I tend not to listen to these people.

Instead the best advice I have taken over the years has come from watching people whose characters and way of life I admire. I would say, on average, this has served me well.

I will, for example, never forget the maths teacher who saved me from public humiliation by telling me I had flunked my exams in the privacy of a back room - she had led me there on the pretence of needing some books to be carried, rather than doling out the news in front of my classmates. Shame, she clearly realised, being the ultimate slayer of childhood confidence.

Neither will I forget the female CEO whose advice to me when I became a boss myself was simple and powerful: do what you have to and I will take the heat if it comes our way.

I’d wager neither of these individuals has any idea how their behaviour touched my life, but touch it and change it they did.

So anyway, this week I thought I’d take a step back and share some of the good stuff I’ve picked up along the way. Who knows, it might change your life too.

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Great networkers give more than they ever take

Firstly let’s all agree that the phrase ‘networking’ is up there with ‘circling back’ ‘reaching out’ and ’cross functional’ as one of those words/phrases that has no place in the English language.

The problem is, growing up the only advice I was actually ever given by those well ahead of me in the game was to network, network, network. This was both terrifying and, I have since discovered, very bad advice. Because networking relies on you having something others want: status, power, the ability to be useful. When you’re 21 few of us have any of that stuff.

But here is what I have found and seen after thirty years in the workplace: great networkers are simply people who give far more than they ever ask. In fact really really good networkers never ask at all. They shore up such a bank of good will that people actively want to help them. So give. Don’t ask. And always give without expectation too. Somehow the good you put out into the world finds its way back to you.

By limiting your choice early, you expand it later on

When you’re young it’s easy to believe you can do everything. But at some point you have to make a call about the thing you want to do most of all. And that’s hard, because making a choice feels like giving up on all the other options around you. I learned this from an academic many years ago. He, like me, had wanted to to do everything when he was younger- write, paint, speak publicly, play music, but at some point he was forced to make a choice. And he chose academia. For years he concentrated on nothing else until the very point when he was so good at the thing he had chosen, all the other opportunities he believed he’d left behind, swam back into view. But, he told me many years later, they only came back because he’d become so good at the one thing he’d chosen, suddenly the world was interested in what else he could do. I suppose what I’m trying to say is this: in trying to do everything we fail to do anything with impact. And impact counts far more than you think, especially when it comes to opportunities. So choose one thing, do it well, and then, maybe many years down the line you can take a breath, look up and see all the things you thought you’d left behind find their way back to you.

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So it looks like everyone’s preference for the final writing course will be March 8th at 11 am-12.30am GMT. For those who can’t make it and would like a recording let me know.

The vast majority of you said you’d like to cover the writing basics as well as Substack essentials so we will do a little of both as well as some extras I will thro…

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Wellness. It’s such a vast concept isn’t it? It is it your body? Your mind? Your soul? Personally I reckon it’s a little bit of all of the above, and believe me when I say that I’ve spent years trying to figure out how to keep all three in some form of equilibrium. I’ve been gym crazy (not as kind a concept to your body as you’d think); swallowed just a…

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What is it about gardens? someone asked me recently.

How long have you got, I wanted to reply.

Gardens came to me, or perhaps I should say I came to gardens, at a frantic time in my life. I was 34 and editor of the biggest glossy magazine in the country. Being young and relatively inexperienced I doubted every decision I made. I agonised over everything. I let my attention ricochet between the small-can the entire team here the quiver in my voice when I speak; to the existential- at what point will I be fired and have to rethink it all? My point is, by the time the weekend came around I was a drained cup of a person.

It was only when I stepped out into the garden-gloveless, trowel in hand, mud patches on my knees, that I could escape. It is hard to describe the way a garden can lift you out of the present and into an entire new spectrum of time. You are always moving between the past, present and future when you are in the garden; for a garden is best enjoyed when planning it, remembering it and of course, being fully, truly immersed in its world of scent, colour and shape.

Gardens built by oneself therefore are very special. But gardens built by others offer equal magic and awe as they gently fold you into someone else’s idea of beauty. Nothing is demanded of you in another person’s garden other than enjoyment, curiosity, and hopefully the offer of a cup of tea and a slice of cake at the end.

This year I have decided to revisit as many of the gardens I have loved over the years as possible. I think of it as the antidote to what will be a busy year at work. (I have just taken on a new role as the Head of International for this very platform). Perhaps you have a heavy year ahead too- in which case a wander round someone else’s garden may be the very thing you need.

Of course not all gardens are that easy to visit, which is why I’m doing this post on a cold, wet February morning. You have to be organised. Get tickets in advance. Plan your travel. Figure out when the private ones will be open. And maybe who you will take with you. Now is the perfect time to do that as the UK’s National Garden Scheme -a charity initiative which helps hundreds of special private gardens across the country open up throughout the year; will be releasing its dates this month. (Keep your eyes on their website, which you can find here.)

So anyway, here is my all-time favourite lists of gardens to visit. Some are public, many are private (but open to the public every now and then-I’ve put essential details below so you don’t miss out)and all are thoroughly magical. Happy planning!

Farrah x

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Hello friends! It’s been a while, I know. But further to all your wonderful suggestions last year I’m now doing this as a monthly little dispatch (more when I have stuff I simply have to share with you, obviously). Anyway SO much to tell you about this month. I’ve mainly been on the road with work, hiring brilliant new minds to come and join us at Subst…

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When I was 19 I bought a beautiful, single breasted blazer from a Joseph sample sale for £50. Fifty pounds was a lot of money back then, especially for me who made my money by folding jumpers in French Connection on Hampstead High Street. But I wore that blazer to every party, every job interview, every social get-together and every date I had over the next decade. That blazer walked with me through moments in my life when I had no idea of who I was yet, but had a very clear idea of who I wanted to be. And so for many years that blazer acted as a sort of bridge whilst the interior me tried to catch up with the exterior me.

So who did I want to be at the tail end of the 1990s? Like most young women, I wanted to be seen as smart and interesting. I wanted future employers to feel I was an asset. I wanted strangers out a drink parties to look and me and think I was someone worth talking to, even if I didn’t have that much to say because you know, I was 19 years old and who has anything that interesting to say about the world at that point in your life? And so what I really wanted, more than anything else, was to be taken seriously by the world before I’d even opened my mouth.

Fashion allows you to do that, which is one of the many reasons why I love it so much. In the absence of language, fashion steps forward to tell your story exactly how you want it told.

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That’s why teenagers, crippled with insecurity love designer logos and handbags. (Oh how I loved a knock-off Gucci bag when I was at school.) And why newly minted girl bosses reach for Issey Miyake. It’s why men careening through a midlife crisis buy the leather jackets of their boyhood, and why older women who still fizz with the punk and energy of their youth dye their hair red and wear purple glasses.

When there are no words, fashion speaks our truth for us.

All of which is to say I found myself at Copenhagen Fashion Week this past week for work, where I barely knew a soul. As the Head of International for Substack much of my job involves meeting strangers in cultures from around the world. They know little about me other than I work for this platform, and so often the clothes I choose to wear are the first impression they get of me. And so once again fashion offers me a bridge to communicate to a roomful of strangers who I am.

Trying to communicate who you are, as well as who the company you represent is tricky, especially when dealing with people from different cultures and countries. I always think you have to toe the line between professionality, cultural respectability plus choose clothes that are memorable without being distracting.

Because dressing for work can be fraught. You need clothes that convey style, whilst also communicating competence. You need outfits that are remarkable but not ones that draw attention away from the other people in the room. Conveying confidence is good, conveying arrogance, not so much. High fashion then- all shapes and angles and bold colours, doesn’t really have a seat the ‘work’ table. But elegance does.

I think in this way it helps to set a ‘vibe’ for how you want the world to see you. And vibes rarely come from high fashion. Instead they come from choosing a colour palette that people associate with you; softer shapes that reflect openness and quiet confidence, and maybe one or two interesting accents- bold earrings, say, that can spark conversation in the absence of introductions.

Over the years I’ve watched other women I admire own rooms with what they say as well as what they wear. And I think that’s the crux: the two should go hand in hand. Fashion can walk you into a roomful of strangers but after that it falls to you to back it up. That’s when things feel right: when you have clothes that fall in line with a person’s essence.

Over the years I’ve worked hard to perfect this. And this week, as we gave dinners and breakfasts and masterclasses to rooms full of strangers eager to learn more about Substack, my wardrobe helped me deliver.

For me- and it may be a little different for you, it boils down to a very simple formula. And it goes something like this…

Earrings

Never underestimate the power of statement earrings to convey soft power and style. Something long that grazes the shoulder is always very elegant, or even wearing just one (or even mismatched statement earrings) works beautifully too and acts as a great conversation point. (I bonded with one of Paris’ most esteemed fashion PRs over dinner because we both wore earrings by the same brand- Completed Works, in case you are interested.) Pearls are very good, but so too is gold or silver in a bold, structural shape, paired with a simple black dress or tuxedo.

Soft Power Shoes

Nothing disempowers a woman greater than shoes you cannot walk in. And yet a heel does wonders for projecting power and confidence. Thankfully, after literal years of trying every designer and high street stiletto you can think of, someone has mastered the ‘comfortable heel.” Step forward Nomasei’s Gattaca heels which have all the requisite details an elegant work shoe requires- closed toe, a small heel, a little bit of foot cleavage and they come in black patent leather which is my favourite finish for evening shoes. The best shoes I’ve worn in a very long time.

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Things change as you hit your forties, and I should know. I’m 47 now. My hair is thinner than I’d like. I have aches and pains in places I didn’t even know were places. I’m suddenly a fan of public benches (very good for a wee rest when out shopping); and I totally, finally, get the entire point of fine point tweezer, because you know, chin hairs.

So this week is a little run down of how my beauty and wellness routine has changed over the years. And as ever, please add to the conversation in the comments because I’m sure you have a wealth of knowledge to share too. And sharing is caring, after all…

Much love as always

Farrah x

PILLS

I take pills. Not loads but some that I have found to be essential for making me feel that bit perkier. Magnesium just before bed for sure, but also this new brand whose packaging alone justifies the place on my bedside table but which also makes me feel completely rested and mellow. I also take CBD pills just before flights because the older I get the more antsy I get, and they take the edge of absolutely everything- screaming kids, the self service bag drop, obnoxious passengers who refuse to use headphones for their entire family Face Time.

HAIR SERUM

I have always had thick hair. I know, Asian genes I guess. But in the last couple of years, most notably last year, things have started to change. My ponytail is noticeably slimline whilst there are slithers *gasps* SLITHERS of scalp on show when I pull my hair back. Friends tell me it’s the same since they hit their forties, in fact one said she no longer brushes her actual hair for fear the comb will take half of if it with her. I’m starting to feel the same. Anyway, I’ve been trying this new treatment called Hair + Me for the last three months. You do a little online consultation where it asks you what’s been happening with your hair, how you look after it, what you’ve used in the past yada yada… to try and fix it. This is then looked at by their dermatology experts before they then send you a magic little vial of what looks like serum in the post every month. You then apply said serum all over your scalp (it’s not sticky or icky in anyway, which is a relief) at bedtime and that’s it. And so far, it’s working. Honest to God my hair is noticeably denser. I’ve been religious about using it every evening and my hair, especially along my hairline is coming back. Losing your hair is SUCH an emotional issue, so I’m very keen to share what I have found works- and this genuinely does.

#AD: The lovely team at Hair + Me are offering all subscribers to Things Worth Knowing a special trial offer for £4.99 for month one and then £14.99 for months two and three is you use the code FARRAH at check out (saving you £30). Use this link to get started.

GADEGTS

I’m not big on gadgets but I’ve talked about the ZIIP Halo a bunch because it’s my one concession. As I’ve gotten older facials just don’t work in the way they used to (still love the massage bit though) and so this just adds a bit of oomph to everything by using microcurrent technology to lift and tone. Anyway it’s fabulous and I use it every of couple of days.

MASKS

I swear by masks, largely because things- feet, hair, nail cuticles, you name it - tend to get a little parched. So here is my list of go-tos: after a flight, or even a long week I love Sam Bunting’s Flawless Revival Mask which gives skin its glow back within 10 minutes. No lie. Phillip Kingsley’s Elasticizer is still the closest thing to an in-salon hair gloss that I’ve found. There are also so many eye masks out there (most are just good fun and made to be worn on Instagram in a hotel bathrobe), but the only ones that truly make a difference to my eye bags are Shisheido’s Vital Perfection eye patches.

JAPANESE MANIS/PEDIS

I am not a fan of colour as I get older. And honestly can’t stomach the idea of gel on my poor nails. Instead I think crisp, shortish nails which are buffed to within an inch of their lives look very good on mid life mitts. Some forward-thinking salons now offer a ‘bare’ manicure (and if you’re in the UK the chain Townhouse is very good and do this well). The ultimate buffed nail experience however is a Japanese manicure where nails are clipped and filed and then buffed with a special paste so that the sheen lasts at least a week. I have been having my done at a cute little salon in East London called Wild Beauty, which is a complete pain to get to for me, but worth it for Yoko’s magic Japanese manicure.

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Sometimes I worry that I’ve forgotten what boredom feels like, certainly the type I experienced as a child when I’d mooch around the house declaring to any one who would listen: I’m bored! What can I do?!

Of course the entire point of boredom is to do nothing except perhaps to create a little space in your soul. Sitting, thinking, walking, resting - these are things I actively try to make room for in my life nowadays, because good things happen when you’re bored. Important answers swim to the top.

I realised this last year when, after a bout of bad health that left me with what doctors now believe is vagus nerve syncope(I basically faint a bunch like those Victorian ladies in tight corsets, which is terribly inconvenient when on British Rail) I took myself off to the Norwegian wilderness. My days were spent lighting fires, taking forest walks, pouring baths and just sitting in the complete stillness of the world around me. It did not cure me, of course, but it did help. It recalibrated my thoughts and it made me comfortable, nay appreciative of the nothingness.

So today I wanted to share with you my favourite round-up of the best boltholes to do exactly that in: nothing. I have been to many of them, and those I have not been to have I have bookmarked for visiting at a later date. Because it’s me I’ve not put any deserted cabins in here where you have to fetch your own firewood and there’s no flushing toilet. Not my thing, as you probably know by now.

Anyway, have a wonderful, still Sunday (even if it’s just for ten minutes) wherever you are in the world.

Farrah x

Seine Loops

When I close my eyes at night and imagine the dream home it’s not unlike Velvet House’s first outpost in Normandy, Seine Loops- a storybook thatched cottage with a row boat, a wooden deck for reading, a floating sauna to chase up a morning dip in the lake- and of course, no neighbours. Gaspard Konrad is the stylish Parisian reimagining what the country house experience looks and feels likes in France with his new holiday rental company-Velvet House. The concept for all his properties is the same: they must be within 2 hours of a major French city, have chic interiors and every home must be bathed in nature. Seine Loops looks insanely restful and sleeps four in total- though truth be told, when a house is this good, who wants to share it?

Sail Loft

The private island of Eilean Shona on the west coast of Scotland has been on my hit list for years. There are several cottages to choose from and not a dud amongst them. A couple of the cottages such as South Shore Cottage are completely off-grid for that total Robinson Crusoe feeling but my favourite would be Sail Loft which sits on the edge of the water with panoramic views out to the loch. There is a Nordic sauna to warm you up after a wild swim and a balcony to drift to sleep on in the summer months. (Sleeps 4)

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