Fasharexia

'Not eating! God, that's, like, so 1995,' my fashion PR dining companion says in mock scorn as I tell her the latest gossip on the block - that interns at a newly launched magazine are told their lunch must be odourless and eaten by an open window. She goes on to order. We're at Gilgamesh - one of London's most buzzed-about restaurants - where she's taken me as a thank you for coverage we gave her brand's show during Milan Fashion Week. 'Oh, gosh. It's so hard. Um. I think I'll have a miso soup to start, and then some salmon sushi rolls,' she pronounces triumphantly. 'And edamame of course.' There goes my Thai green curry and sticky rice, then. 'Wine?' I tentatively suggest, gagging for my second glass. (I got there half an hour early just to pep myself up into cheery-happy-funny journalist-meets-PR mode with a swig of Pinot, but one's never enough). 'Oh, I don't drink. Haven't since I was 16. But you do go ahead.' 

The joys of fashion dinners, hey? To be honest, I don't know why the fashion world insist on meeting over food. They might call them Power Breakfasts, Celebratory Dinners, or Time out for Tea, but they might as well stick to saying let's chat business over a cup of hot water and lemon. It'd be more easier. And a hell of a lot cheaper, I'd imagine. Because it's not like you're going to Pizza Express. Fashion PRs, and therefore the journalists they are wooing, go to the top venues in London: The Wolesely, The Ivy, J Sheekey. Places you'd luxuriate over with a group of girlfriends or for dinner a deux. But places that are just painful with a workdate (so not the same as a workmate). Mind you, perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. Especially considering the next sentence out of said dining companion's mouth tonight was: 'I honestly think they'd fire me if I ever went above a size 12.'