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I like to picture Samantha Jones leaving Manhattan in a cloud of fury and Creed perfume, loudly declaring “New York is over – O-V-E-R” to her fellow first-class Virgin Atlantic passengers before casting around for someone to re-up her membership to the mile-high club with. New York is very much not over, of course, but I don’t find it hard to imagine that Sam would have had enough of it (and Carrie Bradshaw) after 40 years. There’s only so long one can realistically stay friends with someone who says things like “I’m more Coco Chanel than coq au vin” while also owning a pigeon-shaped handbag.
And God, Samantha would do well in London. She would be all over Annabel’s like a rash, for starters, taking “loos-in-the-mews” selfies against the Barbara Cartland-pink marble. Laylow would be another after-hours favorite, as would hotel bars—an ideal place to order “one martini, six olives.” Duke’s has the most lethal in the city—as noted in the leather-bound menu, no one is allowed more than two (although if anyone could charm head bartender Alessandro Palazzi into relaxing the rules, it’s Sam). I expect she would join at least one more staid private members’ club, too—perhaps The Arts Club, with its Lanserhof outpost, which no one has ever had the misfortune of leaving looking like “beef carpaccio.” She’s come a long way from impersonating Annabelle Bronstein to get into Soho House.
Speaking of Soho: Samantha would have a field day in its two-and-a-half remaining sex shops (“nipples are huge right now”), and be a regular at the Dean Street Express clinic (she learned the importance of sexual health screenings in “Running With Scissors”), before popping into Quo Vadis for a bottle of Chablis and half a dozen oysters. It’s Sam, after all, who helped Bradshaw and co-navigate the restaurant scene in Manhattan. Hard to imagine “Jonesy” agreeing to meet anyone, no matter how good their cheekbones/investment portfolio, at The Lobster Place.
She would be familiar enough with the River Cafe to have a favorite table within a few months (number four, most likely), and able to secure a last-minute reservation at Sessions Arts Club, St John, or Mount Street Restaurant, both for herself and her clients (who, in my mind, now include half a dozen dames, Richard E Grant, and at least one emotionally needy former Spice Girl), although she would probably be a weeknight regular at Farmacy (even back in 2003, she was trying to seduce Smith over “lawn in a bowl” at Raw, if you recall).
That vegan, organic diet would be supplemented with Pilates, of course—likely at Exhale alongside Erin O’Connor—while her injectibles would be taken care of by Alexis Granite at Sarah Chapman and her nails by Dryby. (“Finish your salad, and I’ll treat you to a little mani-pedi-botox.”) Oh, and no one but Nicola Clarke would be entrusted with looking after her hair color—Sam was a pioneer of “expensive honey” long before Willa Ferreyra added a cow-print couch to her Pinterest board—while Larry King would take care of her cut.
As for where Samantha would live? It’s hard to imagine her anywhere other than Notting Hill (gentrified, yes, but at least there’s no Pottery Barn—and the proximity to Rellik alone would be a selling point). She would have a wealth of contemporary art on her Farrow Ball walls, sourced from the likes of Saatchi-Yates, and a dozen Anissa Kermiche vases displayed alongside curiosities picked up from Dover Street Market. Actually, she might ask Anissa to make her some custom pieces—perhaps based on those nude photographs she took in “The Real Me”? To quote Sam herself: “Hello, my name is fabulous.”