By Style9 windows
Statuesque: nine companions and the doorways where they like to meet
Nine companions in The Selection stand 172 cm or taller, from Angelika and Patricia at 172 up to Violetta at 178. Height suits a black tie table, a long gallery or a high ceiling, and in W1 it has one very practical advantage besides: a tall companion is easy to find across a crowded entrance.
Most bookings still begin with a knock on your hotel door. When an evening starts somewhere else, though, each of these nine has a doorway she prefers, and a meeting point agreed in advance saves ten minutes of searching on a busy pavement. They are grouped by what waits on the other side of the door.
Statuesque, lit
9 women in the windows fit this description, going by the facts on their profiles. Each pane leads to the full picture.
Angelika
Age 24Mayfair
Karolina
Age 27Covent Garden
Michelle
Age 27Chelsea
Milena
Age 25South Kensington
Patricia
Age 28Belgravia
Samanta
Age 27Mayfair
Stacy
Age 22Chelsea
Vanessa
Age 25Paddington
Violetta
Age 30Belgravia
Doors with music behind them
Karolina, 174 cm, meets outside Wigmore Hall, a short walk north of Bond Street station, early enough for a light supper before the recital. Samanta, also 174 cm, prefers the steps of the Royal Academy of Music, opposite the park, where concerts in the Duke's Hall go largely unnoticed by visitors. She will have circled two pieces on the programme already.
Doors with pictures behind them
Angelika likes to meet on New Bond Street, beneath the lion headed Egyptian figure above the door of Sotheby's, before walking the viewing rooms. Patricia, 172 cm, waits at the Wallace Collection on Manchester Square, ideally near the tea tables in the courtyard. Michelle, 173 cm, meets at the British Museum on an evening when the galleries stay open late, under the glass roof of the Great Court, a short walk east of Tottenham Court Road.
Doors with a table or a stage behind them
Milena, 175 cm, meets in the red brick courtyard of Chiltern Firehouse, near Baker Street, and treats the whole evening like an opening night. Stacy, at 176 cm the second tallest of the nine, waits outside Soho Theatre on Dean Street for the late comedy downstairs, then sits at the back, where she can watch the whole room laugh.
Doors with books behind them
Vanessa, 173 cm, meets at the front table of Daunt Books, the Edwardian bookshop halfway up Marylebone High Street that arranges its shelves by country. Violetta waits at the foot of the atrium in Foyles on Charing Cross Road, with a question ready that will decide which novel you leave with.
When to use a doorway, and when to skip it
A meeting point earns its place when the evening begins with the thing itself: a recital at half past seven, a viewing that closes at six, a table held for eight. For anything that starts with a drink in your hotel, skip the doorway and let her come up. Either way the check is the same, your name and the hotel in the first message and the room number once everything is agreed, and the doorway simply replaces the lobby as the place you first say hello.
When the plan leaves W1
A doorway in Marylebone is one thing; a terminal at Heathrow is another. Vanessa and Michelle both appear on travel companion, which covers arrivals, departures and days out of London. Every one of the nine is booked on the usual ladder, which starts at £250 and tops out at £1,800 for ten hours. Michelle and Milena belong to the curvaceous window, and Angelika to toned and athletic; the other six, Stacy, Violetta, Patricia, Vanessa, Karolina and Samanta, also appear under slim and slender.
Light a window
Point to a pane on this page, or describe the look and let the desk suggest a name.