Is Hoxton square?

There is nothing like starting your day with a tall, skinny latte and a big fat feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Having picked up the day's newspapers, I discover that Hoxton is officially over. I've only just moved there and I'm already living in the wrong place. Another illusion shattered.

I shouldn't be surprised. Having moved here from Germany six years ago the faint tinkling sound of shattered illusions has been the sporadic soundtrack to my life. For instance, I imagined everyone in this country lived in picture-postcard villages.

But in the past few years, an inescapable truth became apparent - if, like me, you worked in fashion, the future for London was dawning in the east, so when my flatmates asked me if I wanted to move from our South Kensington shoebox to an industrial unit just off Shoreditch High Street, I didn't feel I could say no.

Deep down I dreaded the thought of leaving a stuccoed paradise for Hoxton's true grit, but I was persuaded by talk of nights out at Herbal, pints in the Bricklayers' and dinner at the Rivington. And, more importantly, the insistence that Charlotte Road would confer on me a coolness that Fulham Road never could. But now it seems that promise has turned to dust and the truly cool now dismiss my new manor as little more than the new drink-fuelled Disneyland for the bridge and tunnel set, the out-of-towners.

I wonder if the warning signs had been there all along. With Buckingham Palace now revealed to possess all the style of a Blackpool bed-and-breakfast, I can't help but be reminded that four years ago Prince Charles opened his foundation's headquarters in Charlotte Road. Not a good sign for lasting street-cred.

But before you think I am going to flee to SW7, I have to say that it's not all bad. Designer Alexander McQueen may recall fondly the days when you had to trek to the garage in Old Street to buy a pint of milk, but I have to admit that now being able to buy anything from coffee to kettle chips at 1am is a bonus.

And there are still great places to go - nearby Lounge Lover is one of the best bars in London, and walking to Columbia Road for Sunday brunch is still one of London's biggest treats.

And the once mean streets are not yet completely tame. Walking home last night I was asked if I wanted Charlie. Mind you, I only assumed he was selling cocaine. Maybe it was an oblique reference to the Prince of Wales.

Stefan Lindemann is fashion market editor at InStyle magazine.