Long time readers will understand if I said I had to skim ‘Dummy’s Guide to: Partying and Generally Having a Jolly Good Time with Friends Without Involving a LAN Cable or Pizza Pockets’ before shooting this feature. This is all foreign territory, this 1) having this many friends at one go and 2) being out after 8PM – latter not because of stellar home education (‘a lady should not be seen mingling in the darkness’ – said mum) but because I believe I’m just not programmed to function in such interactive settings, someone somewhere just forgot to install that patch for me.

Dress – Tata Naka.

Man, was I wrong. Regardless of inherent awkwardness, what matters are the people you are with, and how many somersaults you can do in your full gown before gold glitter gets into every crevice of your body. GLITTER DOES NOT COME OFF, PEOPLE. Not sure how I learn this at age 28. With the help of Sarah, the prettiest girl in the world I’m sure you’ll agree, and my trusty editorial partner Brian, the forever adventurist & babe-magnet, we celebrated the NOW, with Moët et Chandon.

It’s soon time for the New Year, New Me bullshit, but before that, remember to Open the Now with the people you love most, and don’t forget to let live a little, engage in some good-hearted tomfoolery!

And of course, drink responsibly.

Sarah wears: dress – Self Portrait

Bustier – ASOS. Skirt – Razan Alazzouni. Shoes – HOGAN

Sarah wears: Dress by Todd Lynn

Gone are those days when my hooves – tad tall for the day’s purposes – made odd Christmas-tree shaped marks in the pavement on a hot summer day. Banished, are the thoughts that fleeted into my post-adolescent, under-cooked brain, teasing with a very useless idea of purchasing stripper heels with a 3-inch perspex platform and a goldfish residing under each foot (or dollar-note tips, whichever). You know, kids and their insecurities, one of mine were: short, Asian legs. My early twenties was in fact, punctuated with poor choice in footwear: cheap ‘leather’ glued with ‘wood’, and heels generally too high for my/my immediate surroundings’ own good. And to think of all the things I could’ve done had I been a little closer to earth – all the buses I could’ve caught, the nights I could’ve slept indoors had I not given up on walking home on the bloody stumps I called feet…

Perhaps it’s life’s Yin & Yang, but now I own a UberXL-load of sneakers in varying shapes and sizes, a hefty bunch Nike’s – naturally. All made for a ‘track’ or another (the Cortez originally a running shoe), but worn beating down London pavements and chasing buses (and catching them for once). Insecurities are re-allocated (cellulite, taxes), but I’m glad to say that for the past few years I’ve been sleeping indoors every night, thanks to this obsession for trainers. The Nike ‘Cortez‘, returning since its original debut in 1972 and then 1994 in Forrest Gump, is new to the family. No plans yet to run cross-country in them but here’s three ways you can at least get to the next meeting without hailing down a black cab.