In style

LONDON — Friday, Feb. 17 — It's Fashion Week in London, and the town is buzzing with photographers, models and buyers.

Normally the Natural History Museum doesn't attract crowds, but this week throngs of the fashionably dressed headed in that direction where hundreds of clothing, shoe, bag and jewelry manufacturers are set up in an exhibition hall in front of the museum in South Kensington.

Thanks to my local connection — Lee Bender in whose B&B I am staying — I was able to take a peak inside. Lee is a clothing designer who used to own a chain of boutiques in London, and when I asked about Fashion Week this morning at breakfast, she offered to lend me her pass.

Among the new fashion statements coming from British designers: leather aviator hats trimmed in fur, complete with ear flaps, and very long scarves in thin, colorful stripes.

An advantage of staying in a private home in a big city like London is the chance to get tips like this one from someone who lives there.

My other find, thanks to Lee, was a great little wine bar called the Hollands on Portland Road, not far from the Portobello Road street market, if you happen to be in the neighborhood. I paid about $21 there tonight — my second visit — for a glass of Bordeaux and fresh salmon cooked with bell peppers and sun-dried tomatoes.