Rabbit Food, Eccentrics and Sunshine

After sewing for six hours on Saturday, I woke up Sunday morning craving sunshine, fresh air and a focal point that wasn't six inches in front of my face. I needed a day of mental health.

I drove into Beverly Hills and visited my friend Amanda Eliasch at her Hal Levitt-designed aerie on the top of Mulholland. Photographer, author and fashion editor-at-large for Genlux magazine, she was in town from London for a few weeks to start work on a new play with her co-writer Lyall Watson and to take advantage of the California weather (although the recent deluge had her thinking she was still in England).

(Amanda in Hollywood, 2009)

Both clad in black, we lay on Balinese chaises overlooking a glistening view that stretched to the ocean and caught up on each other's lives. The Grammy Awards were that night, although neither of us were going this year. "Darling, you know pop music just isn't my raison d'etre," she said emphatically.

(Photo: Amanda Eliasch)

Bathed in sunny light, I closed my eyes and tried to soak up all the lovely energy that was surrounding me. I wanted to fully absorb the joy of just doing nothing. Around us, palm trees swayed, birds gossiped and every now and then a muffled reminder of civilization would waft lazily up to us from the distant canyons.

We spoke about writing (Amanda has a fascinating personal blog), travelling and at one point, tried in vain to remember an artist known for his wallpaper who was a contemporary of Eric Ravilious. It was too much effort to sift through our memory banks for his name, so we let it go and allowed our thoughts to drift, bob and meander at will.

For this trip to California, she had flown in a highly-touted chef from Brazil to put her and Lyall on a strict cleansing diet: no coffee, alcohol, starch, sugar, dairy or red meat. They were ten days into the thick -- err, thin -- of it and were looking chic and svelte, as was the chef, who was a virtual doppelganger of Penelope Cruz. I wanted in.

Lunch was equal parts intimidating and delicious.

(High-protein black rice with zucchini-squash rillettes;

photo courtesy of Amanda Eliasch)

Driving home down the winding roads, I felt emotionally refreshed, physically nourished and totally in command of my senses, proof of which was that the name of the artist I blanked on suddenly popped into my head: Edward Bawden. Love him. Another famed English eccentric, his graphic linocut designs feel just as fresh and modern today.

(Pigeon and Clocktower Wallpaper, 1927)

(Hare and Tortoise linocut, 1970)

(Design for wrapping paper, "Deer and Trees", 1960)

(Kew Gardens, 1936)

Wit, warmth and a recipe for weight loss...not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Fearless Women: Amanda Eliasch

I have the good fortune to know one of England's most alluring eccentrics, Amanda Eliasch. We met years ago during my London days, and have kept in touch ever since. It's always fascinating to hear what she's been up to.

Photographer, actor, artist and now poet, she has just released a book entitled "Cloak Dagger and Butterfly: A Journey Through the Madness of Passion via Blackberry."

Composed of actual emails sent to paramours in the throes of long insomnia-filled nights, her word lie provocatively alongside her photographs of burlesque dancers. According to Amanda, the emails proved to be a good way of courting, acting as they did as an old-fashioned form of seduction. "Although some [of the poems] are salacious, they're still just writing, they're not doing," says Amanda.

Passionately curious about everything, she is a glamorous renegade, someone who follows her own inklings, whether they be hiking deep into the hill villages of Chiang Mai or painting her convertible Schiaparelli pink and hiring an ex-gang member to emblazon it with skulls.

In Paris, she lives in a building designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens, who, along with Corbusier, is widely regarded as the most influential French architect in the period between the two World Wars.

(Courtyard entry, Mallet-Stevens building)

(View of front of building)

The apartment comes with quite a provenance, being the former home of another female artist, Tamara de Lempicka, who lived there in the 1920's. "I wouldn't be so arrogant as to compare myself to her," says Amanda, "but I am fascinated by her. She was a free spirit."

Influenced in equal parts by burlesque and Art Deco, the first floor is a stunning space with huge double-height windows and a zig zag staircase.

(Interior of Amanda's apartment, formerly owned by Tamara de Lempicka)

In London, she lives in elegant Chester Square in a house originally designed by Sir Hugh Casson. "It was a massive project and took two years of our life to complete," says Amanda. "I did it up with huge help from my ex-husband, who was a complete star. Nobody really liked the house with its chain metal lights hanging in swags in the dining room, the aviary at the back or the cork walls and purple carpet in my bedroom...however, I did. Needing a lot of love and attention, I kept its craziness and made it mine."

In Los Angeles, she has recently laid down roots atop the Hollywood Hills, in a wonderland of mid-century modernism designed by famed architect Hal Levitt.

Over Christmas, Piero and I had a cozy dinner at her house, furnished in Amanda's cheeky mix of decadence, wit and royalism. Skulls feature prominently, as do tiaras. Her teenaged sons, Charles and Jack, had us spellbound with tales about their proper English boarding schools while her baby greyhounds raced around us in circles.

At one point in the evening Charles, a virtuoso pianist and aspiring opera singer, gave in to our pleas and sat down to play a piece by Handel. Seconds later, Amanda joined him at the piano and their voices rose in strong and stirring harmony. It was a very "Bloomsbury" moment.

On Tuesday night, we attended her book launch at the house. It was divine. Dita Von Teese performed. You can read all about it on her blog, which I am addicted to -- it reads like a mix of British Tatler, Anais Nin and Burke's Peerage all stuffed into one tightly laced corset.