Secret Address Book – The Insider’s Guide

“Extracting secrets about services used by the ultra wealthy is like pulling teeth – although the latter will be easy now with the cosmetic dentistry clinic recommendation below. So how has journalist Caroline Phillips managed to compile a Secret Address Book of the country’s 20 leading practitioners in the arts of everything from hair colouring to curtain cleaning? High net worths, slebs and the people who really matter guard these inside track contacts zealously. So it’s tough to discover how these individuals get massaged to perfection or travel with ease and the best suitcases. Finding out exactly where an oligarch gets the best late night takeaway/gets rid of nose hair or who helps a leading fashionista choose her clothes is a tricky assignment. No emails were intercepted and no WikiLeaks relied upon to get this Secret Address Book – yet still the intrepid Ms Phillips cracked it and found contacts for you to get your eyebrows brilliantly shaped and have your designer clothes cleaned to perfection, and even a hidden destination where the Bond Street designer stores get their shoes mended. And there are brilliant beauty secrets from people whose world is their oyster – and who love hairdressers more than life itself. The entries do not run in order of importance – they’re all excellent. And, best of all, these contacts have all passed the quality control of one of the world’s most stylish, finger-on-the-pulse women – the Look Doctor, Annabel Hodin. Enjoy!

The Look Doctor

She’s the premier league Look Doctor. There’s (almost) nothing that Annabel Hodin doesn’t know about clothes and how to make people look better than their best. She’s one of the country’s leading stylists and works for the glossier glossies and television – making everyone from Helena Bonham Carter to Mick Jagger look fantabulous, and also tending the sartorial requirements of a raft of off-duty slebs. But she also does ‘ordinary’ folk – for which read everyone from City whizzes to Primrose Hill babes – helping them dress better than anyone they know. She’s clever (North London Collegiate then English at King’s College, London), perceptive (school of life) and knows what works for her clients psychologically and physically – whether recommending dressmakers (to tweak that garment to perfection) or where to get your man bag strap taken up a centimetre for yet more visual excellence. (She’s got such a good eye that if she mentions anything from an artist’s work to a hedgehog house en passant, you should probably buy it.) She’s as plugged into Selfridges as the high street – and finds you lasting investments as well as the chiconomies of life. The best for going through your wardrobe, slimming it down and freshening it up. A former model, her own makeup is subtle and her clothes sophisticated (whether she’s garbed in Zara or Dior.) Mistress of the Wardrobe indeed.”