By Style4 windows
Thirties and beyond: four companions who know the way off the main street
Oxford Street at six on a Saturday is shoulder to shoulder, and the four companions in this band, aged 30 to 32, handle it the way a regular handles a busy shop: they know the side door. Each has her own way out of the crowd, and each of those ways leads somewhere better than the pavement.
What the band brings is mostly timing. When to arrive, when to leave a room, when to let a silence run for a while. None of it shows in a portrait, which is exactly why it is worth writing down.
Thirties and beyond, lit
4 women in the windows fit this description, going by the facts on their profiles. Each pane leads to the full picture.
Margo leaves by the side street
Margo walks west past Baker Street to Bell Street and the Lisson Gallery, white rooms where nobody raises their voice, and stays in front of one piece until it has finished with her. Then back into Marylebone as the light goes, a candlelit table and a conversation that is allowed to disagree with itself. She plays the piano, keeps tulips on the windowsill and is at her best across a long evening or a whole night.
Nancy leaves by the park
Nancy walks the opposite way, along to Marble Arch and straight through into Hyde Park, finishing at the Serpentine, where she swims on summer mornings. Golden blonde, blue eyed and curvy, she plans road trips months ahead and likes sushi at the end of a long walk. Sunny and direct, with a laugh that carries across a room.
Sonya leaves before the rush
Sonya never fights the crowd; she simply goes before it. Five o'clock in the Selfridges fragrance hall, an unhurried dinner nearby at six, and done by ten, while the pavements are only just filling. Hazel eyed and fine boned, with a calm that seems to turn down the volume of any room she walks into.
Violetta leaves by the stairs
Violetta crosses to Charing Cross Road, off the eastern end of the street near Tottenham Court Road, and takes the stairs up through Foyles to the fiction. Three questions, one novel for you, coffee in the café. At 178 cm she is the tallest in The Selection, and her humour is the driest; she loves a stand-up night.
Booking at their pace
Each of the four keeps a rhythm worth knowing before you write. Nancy wants weekend requests by Wednesday. Sonya's window is fixed at five until ten and does not stretch. Margo and Violetta both prefer a long evening planned in advance to one squeezed in at the last minute, and both are happy to hold a date that is weeks away. Tell Clementine the plan rather than only the hour, and she will say straight away which of the four it suits.
Timing, mostly
These four tend to arrive exactly on the minute and to say plainly when a plan needs changing. Margo, Nancy and Violetta lean towards the longer formats: four hours at £900 around a dinner, or ten hours overnight at £1,800. Sonya is one of the names Clementine suggests for client dinners and launches, where composure matters as much as conversation. For other stages of life, see late twenties or early twenties; Nancy is also one of the four blondes.
Light a window
Point to a pane on this page, or describe the look and let the desk suggest a name.