SEE STOCKISTS FOR DETAILS. HAIR AND MAKE-UP BY AMY BRANDON, USING GHD AND NARS
ACCESSORIES DESIGNERTABITHA
SIMMONS
I met Tabitha Simmons when I was 18 years old. We were at an
after party and she was the date of a man I knew vaguely. He was a
bit of a shit and seemed to be making a play for both of us,
but after we had talked for five minutes, there was a mutual and
immediate consensus that we were far keener on each other than
the man. And so began a sisterhood and friendship that has
spanned 23 years.
Tabitha was, and still is, like the love child of the Artful Dodger
and Snow White. She is possessed of great beauty, but she also
has a punky, subversive streak, and is wild, supremely talented, kind
and creative. She was a model when I met her – we both
were – but her interest in fashion far surpassed mine: she’d studied
set design, and began working at Dazed & Confused a year or two
after we met. She earned her stripes assisting some of the most
accomplished (and toughest) stylists in the business – we often
spoke after she had just dragged 20 bags through customs single-
handedly, on two hours of sleep, no doubt wearing winklepickers
and charming her way throughout.
Her styling has always contained her own wonderful essence – a
heady mix of southern Gothic, Victorian dandy, Grey Gardens and
something blissfully ironic and English. We moved to New York at
the same time, and I watched in admiration as she became a senior
editor at American Vogue and, season after season, delivered exqui-
site shows for Alexander McQueen, Dolce & Gabbana, DKNY and
Tory Burch, among others. Tabitha always managed to traverse the
road between cool and commercial in a way that no one else quite
could. She got away with it. She’s a literal traverser: I once saw her
bicycle through the snow, eight months pregnant, in five-inch heels.
We were together on so many nights that became part of the
fabric of our history. I borrowed an amazing military coat of herswhen I was crazy about some
guy, and wore it on our first date.
It made me cooler than I was,
by proxy. She once called me
and asked me to rescue her in
the middle of the night in the
Holly wood Hills. I went up some
godforsaken canyon to get her.
We lost friends, we wept, we loved the wrong people, we laughed, we
lay in bed watching Sex and the City, we made each other roast
chicken when we were homesick. We worked, we got married. We
became godparents to each other’s children. I moved back to
London, she stayed in New York. I missed her like mad.
In 2010, Tabitha asked me to host a lunch for her at Claridge’s. It
was for the launch of her shoe line – an enchanting collection she
had created with stealth and no fuss. She had a factory in Milan and
a business plan, and I remember being entirely blown away, while
wanting every single pair. Tabitha Simmons is now stocked by
luxury retailers all over the world, and worn by every red-carpet
Cinderella worth her salt. When I asked her why shoes, when it
c o u l d h a v e b e e n h a t s o r d r e s s e s , o r s t a g e s o r fi l m s , s h e s a i d : ‘ I t h o u g h t
shoes really told a story. Since I was a small child, I’ve had a true
passion for them. I wanted a white pair of stilettos and my mother
made me wear brown Clarks, and at that moment, I decided I would
make beautiful shoes.’
When my kids were younger, Tabitha came to visit me in
Buckinghamshire on a flying, overnight visit. She wore a cape and a
pair of her boots, sky-high, click-clacking through our frosty garden.
My daughters thought she was a superhero. I didn’t correct them.Sophie Dahl pays tribute
to a world-conquering shoe guru, whois also her cherished friend