I’ve just come back from the most amazing trip down under – New Zealand to be precise. One of the reasons I was so far from home was to speak at the New Zealand Federation of Image Consultants’ Annual Conference on Feel Fab at 50 – a great honour and thrill. I’d never been to Australasia before and had always thought that New Zealand would be a beautiful place with fantastic scenery, friendly people, cheap housing (comparative to the UK) and an old fashioned dress sense. Well I was certainly wrong on the house prices, which were very like London in the parts of Auckland where I stayed and even more wrong about the local style. In fact, New Zealanders rarely go to Australia to shop for their clothing these days. You’re more likely to find that it’s the other way around. I was impressed with the variety on offer for all shapes and sizes, the local designers including Trelise Cooper (who looks fabulous at 50 herself) and Paula Ryan ( who is in her late 50′s and looks amazing), the bi-annual style magazine ‘Simply You’, boutiques such as Taylors, Workshop, Cue and Moochi (catering for my style preferences, my budget and my size which is often difficult to find in the UK) and the friendliness of the service received. I was given a present of a huge black faceted glass cocktail ring and a full on necklace made up of differing lengths of multiple strands of bronze beads. I’m betting both will be the envy of my friends when they see them.  I also all loved the many image consultants I met out there, especially Mary Cox – a familiar face on NZ national TV, who was kind enough to give up her spare bedroom to accommodate me. A fantastic trip and one which I certainly hope to do again in 2009. For more info take a look at www.trelisecooper.com if you love feminine clothes with fabulous and often colourful fabrics and www.paularyan.com if you love a stylish, easy to wear, mix and match, neutrally coloured capsule wardrobe.