MANAGING EDITOR: Emily Cleary
After more than a decade chasing ambulances, and celebrities, for Fleet Street’s finest, Emily took it down a gear and settled for a (slightly!) slower pace of life in the suburbs.
With a love of cheese and fine wine, Emily is more likely to be seen training for a triathlon than sipping champagne at a showbiz launch nowadays, but you can never fully take the city out of a girl and she’s still a keen restaurant and theatre-goer when she gets the chance. She regularly appears on BBC Radio 2 talking everything from parenting to politics. Find Emily on Twitter at @journobird.
FOUNDER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Miss B (Belinda Wanis)
Miss B is a Belle About Town who likes to bring a little bit of style into every aspect of her life. While she likes to see herself as a cross between Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn she will privately admit that there is a lot more Bridget Jones in there. She has an unswerving confidence about being able to understand any language if she just concentrates hard enough (she can’t) and an irrational hatred of mail.
An experienced journalist with over 20 years in the industry she turned to the web, creating Belle About Town in early 2010, to fill a gap for tech-savvy stylish women who want the best life has to offer at their fingertips.
She loves a decadent cocktail bar, a beautifully cut dress, cultural getaways, quality over quantity and is partial to Asian-fusion food.
A globetrotter, who has lived in Australia, the UK and Denmark, she enjoys holidaying in the sun and you can often find her on a beach in Thailand or on shopping breaks in Sydney or New York. But her first love is, of course, London!
CONTRIBUTING BELLE: Zuzana Pagacova
A native Slovakian, Zuzana has lived in London most of her adult life and calls London her second home. She loves the vibrant, yet somewhat unpredictable beauty this great city has to offer and the fact that it keeps her on her toes. Even after all these years, she keeps discovering new places and secret passages – London never fails to amaze her.
Zuzana is passionate about writing and has a degree in Journalism and Media. She loves yoga and meditation, open spaces, autumn leaves and exploring the world. As she believes in a balanced life, Zuzana is not impartial to a daily dose of celebrity gossip, a cup of strong coffee and cake, and the occasional glass of red wine.
CONTRIBUTING BELLE: Rebecca Wright
With one foot planted firmly in the world of real life journalism and her other toe-dipping into the delights of food and travel writing, Rebecca likes to mix it up a bit.
A journalist with over ten years experience, she’s a Londoner born and bred and admits to a weakness for kitsch, cooking and la vie Francaise.
Rebecca’s got an insatiable curiosity (read nosey parker) and loves nothing better than meeting new people and discovering new worlds.
CONTRIBUTING BELLE: Zuzana Ritchie
Embracing the multiple career personality disorder she developed after moving to London in her twenties, Zuzana Ritchie can be spotted around the city in the capacity of a make-up artist on Monday, a voice-over artist on Tuesday and a beauty writer on Wednesday.
For the rest of the week, she will take up various other roles like an amateur sunset sky photographer, a red wine enthusiast, a dog’s best friend, a bookworm, a martial arts fan, a humour addict and not a very good guitar strummer.
Leaving her previous job at a publishing house to freelance instead has resulted in more free time to become a professional beauty products hunter by day and a female superheroes stories gatherer by night.
CONTRIBUTING BELLE: Jackie Wilson
Jackie started writing for Belle on her return to the UK after 3 years living in Kuala Lumpur. Formerly a Marketing Manager of British institutions such as Cathedral City Cheddar and Twinings Tea, she wrote columns and web content in KL for several local and expat magazines and sites and was a contributing author for the book Knocked Up Abroad. Jackie is now back on the expat beat living in Cincinnati, USA where she is engaged in a feast of writing projects while desperately clinging to her children’s British accents and curiously observing the American way.
BOOKWORM BELLE – Georgina Lane
Georgina Lane is an established book blogger with a passion for reading. Having graduated from University with First Class Honours in Professional Broadcast Techniques. she immediately embarked on a career in television, where she co-ordinates top shows. But her true passion lies in books, and she says: “I love everything about them – even the smell, and I’m never happier than with my nose in a good book. Except maybe lying on a beach with a cocktail – and a good book!”. Georgina lives with her husband and two cats. She fills her time filing live music reviews for online magazines and writing her blog morebooksthanshoes.
GOSSIP QUEEN: Ashley Pearson
Ashley Pearson began her career as a hard news journalist covering politics and international news at NBC in London. However, she quickly realised that her passion was reporting on the lives and loves of the world’s most famous faces. Since then she has been spotted on the red carpet at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the Emmy Awards, and the Grammy Awards!
In the UK Ashley regularly appears on This Morning and The Alan Titchmarsh Show and has also reported for GMTV, BBC, Sky and ITN News, and E! Entertainment. A familiar face at the Cannes Film Festival she has had regular columns in OK! Magazine, Star Magazine and can currently be read on the Mail Online. This gossip queen knows all the movers and shakers ensuring she gets all the celeb news first hand.
SNOWY WEATHER BELLE: Gill Martin
Gill Martin is an award-winning travel writer and former Fleet Street journalist – Daily Mail reporter, Daily Express feature writer and Sunday Mirror Woman’s Editor. She is a freelance writer for national newspapers from the Financial Times and Daily Telegraph to tabloids, magazines, regional newspapers and websites.
After a six-month career break after the Indian Ocean tsunami where she volunteered as a communications consultant in Banda Aceh, Indonesia for Plan, the children’s charity, she is now focused on travel.
From skiing everywhere from Kashmir to Argentina, Morocco to Turkey, North America and all over Europe; snowshoeing in Canada; captain of the GB team of the Ski Club of International Journalists; whitewater rafting down the Zambezi; electric mountain biking in Switzerland and cycling in Portugal; Kenyan and South African safaris; riding elephants in India and horses in Brazil; paint balling in Romania; opera and archeology in Serbia; Caribbean snorkelling; sampling food and wine in Italy.
GOOD LIFE BELLE: Rebecca Barnes
Beauty editor and blogger Rebecca Barnes is the founder of the blog, Beauty Voyage.
Having created beauty, travel and lifestyle content for countless publications and websites including Tatler, Daily Express, Cosmopolitan and iVillage, when Rebecca is not jetting around the world reviewing spas and hotels, she is scouting out London’s best bars and eateries for Belle about Town. Someone’s gotta do it…
PARISIAN BELLE: Marina Gask
Ever since her years of interviewing pop stars for Just Seventeen, and being editor of Sugar, More! and Top Sante magazines, Marina’s always loved a louche night-spot and a teetering stiletto heel. Now happily freelancing for the media and working with entrepreneurs on their media profiles (www.marinagask.com), she will find any excuse to ‘have a meeting’ somewhere glam, preferably Paris where she once lived another lifetime ago. That’s when she’s not living in an episode of Outnumbered with her two teenage sons, and counting her blessings that she had the sense to marry a chef.
BROOKLYN BELLE: Kate Smith
Kate left London for New York in the spring of 2013 for no other reason than she knew they had be together. So far, it’s been the best love affair of her life. She immediately adopted Brooklyn as her home and is currently living the Girls dream four blocks down from Hannah Horvath’s Greenpoint gaff.
She’s a freelance journalist who has interviewed some interesting celebrity folk, working for titles such as the Daily Express, Time Out, Woman and Glamour Magazine. She also wrote a beauty column for the Express and now has a costly addiction to face creams. She enjoys converting everything from dollars to sterling to convince herself living in NYC is in fact saving her money.
NEW YORK BELLE: Angela Leland
Angela is the owner of Angela Leland Interiors, a sassy boutique interior design firm based in New York City.
She is also writer/editor for the blog The Decadence Project, dedicated to exploring sexy spaces and exotic places with an emphasis on design and travel.
When she’s not plotting her path to greatness, Angela can be spotted around Manhattan sipping gin cocktails and singing bad karaoke.
NY-LON BELLE: Lucy McGuire
Lucy is a former aspiring Psychologist turned journalist who loves spas, coffee, cocktails and culture. While her 9-5 job involves interviewing women on their fascinating real life stories, her evenings and weekends are spent sipping cosmos in Soho, blogging about her travels, and putting the world to right over coffee in Covent Garden.
With a penchant for indulgence and belief in healthy living, Lucy loves sampling the latest massage therapies, caviar facials (yes really) and Reiki healing. She’s even been known to seek guidance from a Tarot reader on life’s uncertainties. While she’s been known to cycle a velodrome, surf and even compete in the Masterchef Kitchen in the name of journalism, she’s not quite plucked up the courage to join the army boot camps in Regents Park yet. She embraces everything there is about being British – our fearless dress sense, saying please and thank you, and afternoon tea, with scones jam and cream. Life’s simple pleasures.
OUT-AND-ABOUT BELLE: Aamina Zafar
Aamina has been a roving reporter for more than 10 years – penning stories for local and national newspapers. After living a fast paced life for a decade, she has now settled for a life in the suburbs with her husband and baby boy.
She loves writing about beauty, babies and hard earned bucks. Aamina also enjoys writing articles that do not begin with the letter ‘B’ such as travel and food.
FASHION-A-BELLE: Dee Dashwood
To quote David Bowie: “fashion turn to the left, fashion turn to the right …. Oooh fashion.”
Fascinated with shoes even before she entered kindergarten, Dee is a style goddess and consummate shoe queen. Fashion and style is in her blood, she was born with the ability to make a paper bag look fabulous.
Vintage, high street and dash of Chanel are her calling cards. Dee has an uncanny knack of spotting a trend before it arrives in the high street but she is not a slave to fashion, having her own quirky chic look which is very distinctive.
BEAU ABOUT TOWN: Kris Pace
Since gaining a degree in journalism four years ago, Kris has already covered many sectors within the world of journalism, including licensing, retail, fashion, toys, music and currently politics at the MailOnline.
Based in London, Kris has poked his nose into some of the finest places in town to eat and drink, whilst his fervour for music has led him to cover a plethora of both mainstream and unsigned acts.
As one of the few male Belle contributors, with a passion for all things, sport, music and alcohol-based, Kris is champing at the bit to check out all the latest goings on in the Capital!
MATCHMAKER BELLE: Rachel Vida MacLynn
Rachel is a real life cupid, matchmaking for London’s elite since 2006. She owns and runs an upmarket matchmaking consultancy called Vida. With more letters after her name than a crossword puzzle, Rachel is a bona fide psychologist (Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society) and relationship counsellor, with what is arguably the best network of eligible guys and gals in London. Rachel is on hand to share her experience, knowledge and expertise of all things from dating right through to relationships and marriage. Girls, hold onto your Manolos, this Belle is changing the singles scene in London forever!
HOLLYWOOD BELLE: Justine Harkness
Now based in Los Angeles, Justine had worked for publications from Now to Look, OK! to Loaded, in the UK as well as for weekly magazines in Australia. She has written everything from in-depth celebrity interviews to covering every showbiz party, hotspot, the three ‘Fs’ (fads, fashion, fitness), awards ceremonies, travel (to Mustique, no less), you name it, for all the big magazines. A regular showbiz and lifestyle expert commentator for radio and TV, including BBC, Sky and all the terrestrial channels. There’s more, but there always is. She lives in Santa Monica with her ridiculously fluffy kitten Cookie (‘We should have called her Queen Latifah,’ she shrugs), chasing the latest celebrity stories. Justine’s mantra in life is: ‘In vodka we trust.’ She successfully out drinks many, yet is a bit of a hippy at heart. Just don’t ask her about grammar.
BEAU ABOUT TOWN: Phil Boucher
Over the past 15 years Phil has written about pretty much every topic on the planet: celebrities; golf; spa holidays; relationships; baby milk; next generation coal fired power stations… you name it. This has included publications such as People (USA), The Independent, Daily Mail, Daily Express, FHM, Maxim, Who (Australia), Women’s Own, Woman and about 100 others (including Practical Caravan).
But Phil’s life is not purely about work: hell no! When he’s not glaring furiously at a blank page he can be found looking after his two daughters in the desperate hope that if he feeds them enough lard he may one day get a lie in. He’s also been married for seven years, has busted knees from playing way too much football and has just agreed to become the drummer in a rock’n’roll band, despite the fact that he doesn’t own any sticks and has never played the drums. Just goes to show that you actually can drink too much bourbon. Or was it Lilt…
MOMMY BELLE: Gia de Picciotto
Gia de Picciotto is a blogger, mother, and lifetime journal keeper/storyteller. Gia has been documenting the trials and tribulations of mothers entering the new world of parenting for the past five years. Formerly the Director of Communications for Warner Music, and Double Click Inc (Google) and associate producer at ABC News, Gia has spent her career writing and telling stories to the media. Married to an Italian, with whom she has two cheeky sons. Gia has been living in London for 11 years and can’t be without green juice and a martini. In her next life she will be a rock star.
BEAUTY BELLE: Alice Smellie
With a passion for beauty and over a decade’s experience working for national newspapers and magazines, Alice has written for such publications as the Independent, Harpers, Grazia and ES Magazine. After four years on the Daily Telegraph features desk, she became Beauty and Celebrities Editor at Brides magazine and then Deputy Beauty Editor of InStyle magazine. She has been freelancing for the last five years – predominantly writing beauty features for the Daily Mail.
Her obsession with decent mascara is rivalled only by her increasingly desperate quest for effective anti-wrinkle creams. She adores cheap chocolate, expensive champagne and Edward Cullen with a passion and hasn’t left the house without wearing make-up since 1993 when the local newsagent didn’t recognise her without lipgloss. She refuses to wear flat shoes or loose clothes, even in the countryside and is renowned for once wearing six inch heels to a local cricket match. In the rain.
MAMMA BELLE: Nadia Cohen
As mum to a pair of cheeky twin boys, Felix and Harry, Nadia is mostly very tired. And sometimes she’s grumpy and very tired, but that doesn’t stop her attempting to have a life beyond sterilising and pureeing, even if that means she has been spotted strolling through the Grazia office with a Cheerio stuck to her bottom, or accessorising her fabulous Vivienne Westwood vintage with a smear of dried porridge.
She loves lounging about in the sunshine with a cocktail (those were the days) and hates smug yummy mummy types offering their unwanted opinions on her sons’ snacks, schooling and snot.
CULINARY BELLE: Alison Christie
Alison’s love of food developed when she started cooking at about 12 years old. Her mum would get her to make the roast dinner for the family (all five of them!). As a child she spent time living in Germany so was exposed to a huge range of different foods and ingredients. Her mum loved to experiment, which Alison picked up on, but when Alison’s mum survived a huge heart attack in the mid 80s it began a different attitude to food for the whole family – and a different way of cooking.
Alison cooks with fresh, seasonal ingredients as much as possible also looking out for offers in the supermarkets. She hopes to show you how to create cheap, easy, low-fat food that doesn’t have to have expensive ingredients. She will aim to design easy one bowl dinners for singletons and also easy impressive dinners for when friends are round! “I’ve never had any professional teaching but have learnt though reading and watching and doing. It’s always me that cooks for my family (even in their own houses – its ‘get Ali to cook’) or my friends and I know they all say – great – we will get good food round at Ali’s house – so here we are, hope you enjoy…”
ANIMAL EXPERT: Kitty Nine
Kitty has long been fascinated with the animal kingdom and much prefers it to the human world. In her early days she was featured on kids TV with her menagerie of pets and has expanded this to making animals her full time focus. Working in the veterinary world for ten years she’s seen the good, bad and ugly of the pet industry. Now she’s the voice for their wild relatives and works full time on spreading the word about the world’s threatened animals. Kitty can often be seen chasing a stray cat along the street in hope of a cuddle, sitting in a tree waiting for a visit by a rare cockatoo or dreaming of African safaris. From wallabies to love birds, tigers to rhinos she’s been there, done that and is waiting in line to do it again.
WINE BUFF: Bordeaux Bertie
Bertie is Belle’s wine correspondent. Bertie loves finding great wines and would prefer to share his discoveries with Belle and her friends over a glass or two, but now he’s in Los Angeles he is reduced to sending a letter from America. Bertie gets very enthusiastic about wine – especially after a mid-morning sharpener – but he can’t abide wine bores, and simply wants everyone to enjoy it as much as he does.
He threw in a marketing career to devote himself to wine, spent a season or two working amongst the vines of Bordeaux, and studied wine and all things vinous at a certain English agricultural college with a slightly hedonistic reputation. Apparently there really is a degree in drinking! Back in London as a wine merchant he could be found, when not weaving between various wine bars and restaurants on a scooter precariously stacked with wine boxes, in the shop off the King’s Road sampling fine wines with his customers, or holding wine tasting parties for the likes of Belle and her friends. Until he followed one of them over the Pond, taking a post with an international wine auction house.
Now he lives in Hollywood, handles the private wine collections of the rich and famous – who he invariably fails to recognise – and spends his weekends in wine country.
GOOD LIFE BELLE: Lottie L’Epicurienne
With over 10 years in London this Belle About Town is still on the hunt for the best places to eat, drink and be merry! Knowing the latest place to try top International cuisines to where the get the best dulce de leche ice-cream, she has her finger of the gourmet pulse.
She also has a penchant for Indie rock – she can be seen at many a festival where only glamping will do or rocking out at a gig. And when she packs up her bags, it is to go and find exciting places around the world to… eat, drink and be merry!