Nigella Lawson was among those to have been left aghast when I disclosed in June that her favourite fashion label, Bombshell London, had gone bust after 17 years.
Now, some of the companies left with unpaid debts have expressed their shock and anger.
A report by the administrator shows Bombshell London owes £578,000 to 37 creditors, including HMRC, with unpaid VAT and employee taxes of £176,934.
One company left out of pocket is Scottish publisher Peebles Media Group. A spokesman tells me: ‘Bombshell took advertising out, knowing that they weren’t going to be able to pay it. It’s shocking. It’s immoral.’
Referring to Scottish wedding magazine Tie The Knot, the spokesman continues: ‘They took page 20 of the April/May issue, and that was one of the invoices that was outstanding.’
Nigella Lawson was among those left aghast when her favourite fashion label Bombshell London had gone bust
Nigella’s favourite label owes £578,000 to 37 creditors, including HMRC , with unpaid VAT and employee taxes
The 1950s-inspired label was beloved by famous women including Nigella, who once hit headlines when she bought 12 dresses of the same range
Evaldas Sultonas tells me that the near £5,000 debt owed to his company, Universal Processing London, has been ‘disruptive’. He adds that Bombshell’s demise is ‘sad to see’.
Staff have also been left unpaid. The statement of affairs outlining its debts discloses £10,209 as being owed in holiday pay, plus £61,622 owed to four employees. British Gas, Barclays, BT, EDF Energy and Shopify are also among those owed money.
Nigella was such a devotee of the brand that she once hit the headlines when she bought 12 dresses in the same design.
The 1950s-inspired label, beloved by other famous women including Anjelica Huston, Jerry Hall, Ruth Jones, Deborah Meaden, Angela Rippon and former Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman, went into liquidation after ‘suffering a decline in its financial performance in recent years’, according to a liquidator’s summary, with Bombshell running up a £549,000 loss on £2.1 million worth of sales in the year to February.
Its owner and designer Katya Wildman said she had been left ‘heartbroken’.
Mamma Mia! Now Lily is a folk singer
She showed off her impressive vocal abilities in Mamma Mia 2 and could hold a tune better than most of the men.
Now, Lily James has furthered her musical ambitions by making her music video debut on Australian singer Ben Abraham’s new track Never Been Better.
Lily James has furthered her musical ambitions by making her music video debut on Australian singer Ben Abraham’s new track Never Been Better
The Surrey-born folk singer and actress, 35, can be seen performing the song in the video while sitting on a park bench in Los Angeles
The folk singer, 39, and the Surrey-born actress, 35, can be seen sitting on a park bench in Los Angeles while performing the song live in the video, above, which was released online.
‘I cannot believe I managed to convince her to sing with me, but this is my favourite one of these I’ve ever done,’ says Ben.
Lily’s last guest vocalist appearance was on Mahi Sona (The Wedding Song), featured in her 2023 film What’s Love Got To Do With It?.
Blake returns to the fore
Blake Lively, who’s on the front of Vogue’s September issue, says she avoided cover shoots for years.
‘When social media exploded the way it did, I thought, ‘Oh, well. I can be in control of my own narrative, and I can represent myself better than someone who meets me for an hour,’ ‘ she explains.
Blake Lively, who is fronting Vogue’s September issue, says she avoided cover shoots for years
Lively, 36, star of US TV show Gossip Girl, is married to Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds. He’s a popular figure in North Wales since becoming a co-owner of Wrexham football club.
He’s chairman of Soho House, the private members’ clubs group which has a branch in the Cotswolds, but Ron Burkle is keen to build his own country home in Oxfordshire. I hear the American billionaire has lodged fresh plans after his first attempt fell flat.
He’s applied to introduce the development on farmland in Little Tew, close to Soho Farmhouse. Plans include details of gardens, a stables courtyard, solar panels, a new lake and tree nursery. A previous application was refused in 2022 for failing to meet specific planning criteria.
Is there anything more embarrassing than your rock star dad making you sing on his latest album? Pink Floyd frontman David Gilmour says his daughter Romany, 22, was unimpressed at being wrenched from her studies to perform on his new single, Between Two Points. ‘Her voice has got a slightly diffident thing to it because she didn’t want to do it – ‘Oh, God, I’ve got to get a train home and write an essay.’
‘We made her do it before she left. She was cross.’ Not exactly ‘we don’t need no education’, is it?
Could this be the beginning of the end for alumni periodicals?
Cambridge university’s Cam magazine is going largely digital. Recipients are being obliged to make a special request to continue being sent the (rather slim) publication in the post. It is all being dressed up, inevitably, as an eco-exercise but may have more to do with cost-cutting.
The Cambridge authorities perhaps don’t realise that the main point of alumni magazines is not actually to read the blasted things but to leave them lying about one’s house or office to show acquaintances that one went to a ‘proper university’. Digital issues won’t achieve that.
Wrap up with the King’s new £150 ‘wearable masterpiece’
No doubt thinking of his mother, who was rarely seen outdoors without one covering her head, King Charles has introduced a range of silk scarves to the shop at his Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire.
Priced at £150 each, they are printed with images of his watercolour paintings of places including Highgrove, Windsor Castle and Corfu.
The King has introduced a range of silk scarves to the shop at his Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire
‘Printed on pure mulberry silk twill, this scarf is a testament to quality and craftsmanship,’ the Highgrove website claims.
‘Whether worn as a fashion statement or used as an artful accessory, this scarf is not just an item but a wearable masterpiece embodying the spirit of Highgrove Gardens.’
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