Last night after work we went to Sara Beman and her husband's house for dinner with friends. One of Sara's new year's resolutions is to cook more and here is evidence of her doing very well. It was delicious!

After everyone had gone home, Sara and I went upstairs to her study and spent a few hours talking about silhouettes, fabrics and colours for a VIP customer who wants a special dress for an important event. Lovely evening but a bit tired this morning.

Just finished working with Ania on preparations for the upcoming photoshoots. Ania then got changed as she's off to a party. Ania is wearing last season's Goddess dress with peep toe ankle boots and a skinny belt. You look great Ania! Have fun x

I’m a fan of the Sykes collection and headed down on Saturday evening to St. Martins Lane Hotel where Joanna Sykes held her AW10 collection presentation. I love how she uses models of all ages (well, from model age upwards). Here’s a picture of a beautiful older woman modelling the Sykes AW10 collection. The collection looks fantastic too.

A few weeks ago my computer crashed and I lost all my bookmarks. Years of bookmarking favourite fashion, cooking, travel, kids websites lost in one go. And yes, I have since learnt that I could (and should) have backed them up to avoid losing them.

During breakfast with Sasha Wilkins ( of one of my favourite blogs: LibertyLondonGirl.com ) she told me all about Google Reader. You can enter all your favourite blogs, twitterees etc and then each time you log in, you see whom has put up a new entry. It's very easy. I've put my favourites in and then organised them in to folders such as fashion blogs, friends blogs, travel blogs etc. I now check in once or twice a day and catch up. And if my computer crashes, no problem, Google Reader is accessible from anywhere.

Here are some of my favourite fashion blogs at the moment:

Colin McDowell
LibertyLondonGirl
FashionEditorAtLarge
Sara Berman

It seems so long ago since the last time I wrote on our blog. There's been a lot going on...

We recently launched the SS collections (and true to tradition, it snowed on the day we launched SS). We've loved hearing all your feedback. We're glad the new online brochures are proving so popular!

We've also been in New York, participating in a show at New York Fashion Week, The Red Dress Collection for The Heart Truth. This charity event raises awareness and funds for heart disease in women. When we learned more about the charity and heart disease, we decided to donate 20% of sales of all red clothes (in the month of February) to The Heart Truth and the respective UK charity. We are proud to be a part of this.

The New York trip was exciting, exhilarating (and exhausting). We dressed Bethenny Frankel for the show. Fittings at the Bryant Park Hotel, filming at Bethenny's home for her upcoming TV show and of course the fashion show itself. The show was a huge event. It started backstage with a frenzy of make up artists, assistants, journalists and sponsors. There must have been a few hundred people backstage. There were various celebrities participating in the show and they got dressed behind curtains in the backstage area. At one point Bethenny and I had to go behind one of the curtains to do a final fitting and there were a few of these celebrities getting in to their dresses, all totally relaxed and excited to be part of the event. If anything really stood out for me, it was the friendliness of everyone, especially the celebrities. No diva attitudes, all wishing each other good luck. I laughed so much when Joan Collins walked past and all these professional people lost their cool and were shouting "Go Tiger!" and Joan responded calmly "Thank you". A very collected lady who makes people weak at their knees.

Bethenny was absolutely amazing. Honestly, I don’t know how she stayed so calm. Moments before we went on the red carpet, she was showing us the draft invitation for her wedding, wanting to hear our thoughts. Bethenny was so calm (her husband and I were perhaps not in that league). And then Bethenny and I went on to the red carpet... she was so gracious, trying to pull me in to the interviews she was doing whenever she could.

And then the show started. Gorgeous women in gorgeous red dresses. When Bethenny came on, she walked the runway as if it was something she did every day. Fabulous.

It was a special moment for Isabella Oliver. We were so proud to participate and also to have Bethenny wear Isabella Oliver. My brother and sister in law joined us on the evening despite my brother missing a really important business conference call (of a major new client, thanks so much Marc) and my sister-in-law recovering from being ill. Having them there to share the moment was wonderful.

Afterwards, we went to the post show reception. Everyone was relaxed and happy. We had a glass of wine with everyone and posed with Bethenny and her husband in front of a huge heart made of flowers. Afterwards we went to Soho House (where we were staying) and joined many designers (who had participated in the show) in post post drinks. When we went to bed that evening, we had big smiles on our faces (and aching feet from the very high heels).

The days that followed, we went to a couple of shows (my favourite was Preen), had some meetings and then returned to London yesterday. It was a fantastic week, but it was also lovely to come back home and also be back at the office with everyone. This was a special time for them too even though they weren’t physically there. Thanks team IO for all the help in making it happen and all the support!

A big thank you to Bethenny for everything. You made it an absolute joy. Best wishes the coming months to you both!

Before I sign off, I'd like to say a big thank you to BPCM, our PR agency in the US (and UK and France) for everything, it was an unforgettable week and one we are proud to have been part of, thank you on behalf of all of us, Baukjen.

Here are a few photos from the event, or you can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/user/IsabellaOliver#p/a/u/0/OTQSlW7qAbI