Our new columnist Susie Lau on why she’ll forever be tied to London

I have only ever lived in London.

This isn’t a particularly bold statement and doesn’t necessarily make me wholly qualified to write about this great city on a weekly basis. But I can say that I’m embarrassingly tethered to the capital, not even leaving it for university on account of my not wanting to deviate from the N20 bus route.

A few things about me that may or may not be of interest: I grew up above a Chinese takeaway in Camden Town, which later became a noodle bar when that was a thing. My parents, who came from Hong Kong, knew nothing about punk, Britpop or the Hawley Arms indie era — so long as someone wanted a bowl of black bean lao mein. They kept looking for a ‘greener’ London and found Finchley instead. I spent most of my teens and 20s escaping the suburbs via the Northern line and now in my 30s, I’m admittedly back to thinking about how good the school catchment areas are.

Some of you may know me as Susie Bubble, which people find hard to believe was an actual nickname given to me when I was 10. I can’t quite remember how it began or why I got attached with this particular appendage in the playground. It has, however, served me well as a persona/pseudonym when I started blogging about fashion during the 1.0 era of self-publishing. At worst, ‘bubble’ denotes delusion.

At best, it’s an iridescent-hued look at the world — useful for this particularly grey time of year. I’ve spent most of my working life writing about fashion, largely defending it as an industry full of wonderful creative people, craft and inspiration as opposed to a polluting, vapid waste of resources. I’ll hold back on the fash talk in this column but frocks may incidentally crop up, mainly because me doing the weekly shop in a big Molly Goddard dress might make for an amusing read on the Tube home from work.

I live in Seven Sisters in a little house, where shoes and dresses in vac-packed bags threaten to fall on top of me daily. I’ve only ever stuck to N postcodes, or NW if I’m feeling crazy. I’ve actively avoided living in east London, mostly because I don’t want to bump into anyone I’m about to ‘do’ breakfast with, wearing mismatched socks while on a tampon run. West London is like Disneyland. Everyone’s hair is really shiny and the paintwork on the identi-cute mews is so pristine. You’ve lost me at south, I’m afraid.

Somewhere in my Seven Sisters hovel is my five-year-old daughter, Nico, whom I co-parent equally with her dad. During the height of the pandemic, she’d come out with affirming proclamations such as, ‘I believe in you, mummy.’ This largely got me through the past two weird years.

I’m resolved not to inflect this column with too much talk about this period that shall not be mentioned. You’re bored of reading about it. I’m tired of inflecting (infecting?) every conversation with it. After all, THIS will be the year of super moons hiding in and out of new tower blocks and moving cranes, and the city shimmying its way back to FULL life, shedding its weary husk. That’s the wide-eyed, new year talking anyway. Many people have already fled, some are still threatening to flee (surely the tasteful terraces in Hastings, Margate and Rye will be in short supply soon?). Parts of town still feel ghostly. We’re sluggishly emerging. We’re out, but not quite OUT of it. But as I said at the start, cut me open and I bleed a combination of hard, calcified water, Tube seat fibres and the eternal promise of somewhere/something undiscovered in this town I call home. I’m in it for the long haul.