Mail on Sunday

Welcome to You ; Editor Letter

The call came one bleak afternoon in January. A starlet, a Roman location, a top photographer. Would we like to borrow all three for the afternoon? Before we could say 'little black dress' our entire fashion team was out of the door bearing armloads of to-die-for frocks (and passports, of course). See the stunning results on page 12. Our model, by the way, is gorgeous Landi Swanepoel, star of the new $50-million Peroni ad campaign based on the classic 1960s movie La Dolce Vita. You saw her he...

Join the Alice Band ; Alice Mccall Used to Run Around After Tv Personalities and Pop Stars As a Stylist - but Now the Tables Have Turned and Hip Celebrities Such As Cat Deeley, Natalie Imbruglia and (Cousin) Davina Can't Get Enough of Her Funky Eponymous Label

IT's a couple of days after Alice McCall's debut show at London Fashion Week, and the 31-year-old designer is still euphoric: 'It's been amazing, really exciting.' As she chatters away in her London showroom in Chelsea, the grin with which she greeted me doesn't shift from her face. Slightly built with a mass of auburn hair, she is clad in an embroidered dress from her acclaimed collection and is the perfect ambassador for the eponymous label she founded two years ago in Sydney, Australia.

Padma's the Jewel in the Crown ; Padma Lakshmi, Successful Model, Un Ambassador, Actress and Wife of Author Salman Rushdie, has Landed Her Ideal Role - Filming in Her Native India with Time to Indulge Her Love of Jewellery Shopping

IT doesn't begin well. Padma Lakshmi has overslept after taking an afternoon nap. She sinks into a sofa in the lounge of her Jaipur hotel, pulls back her raven-coloured hair into a ponytail, rearranges her enviably long legs, and explains sleepily, 'I'm sorry, I just woke up. I'm completely dazed.' We are meeting to talk about her role as Madhuvanthi, the beautiful female protagonist in Sharpe's Challenge on ITV1, starring Sean Bean as the swashbuckling 19th-century soldier and adventurer, Ri...

Back to Planet Earth ; Children Find It All Too Easy to Get Involved with Drink and Drugs, Leading to Grownup Problems. But Middlegate, a Remarkable Centre in Lincolnshire, Offers 11- to 17-Year-Old Addicts a Chance to Beat Bad Habits and Begin Again

These days chat-show host Davina McCall talks of her wonderful life with her husband, baby and career; but it hasn't always been that way. She began taking drugs in her teens, and by her 20s, she says, 'I was a drug addict, a complete mess.' Kate Moss began smoking cannabis and drinking aged 12. Last year, after being photographed allegedly snorting cocaine, she booked into rehab. Actor Robert Downey Jnr told a judge sending him to prison for drugs offences, 'I've been addicted to drugs in on...

Cook's Confidential

Inhale deeply before you read this. New York City chef David Burke is selling 50,000 bottles a month of his no-cal Flavor Sprays, which add the taste of almost anything dangerous to your willpower (cheesecake, bacon) to whatever they're sprayed on. The idea is to make virtuous diet foodstuffs taste of something, well, tasty. Only in America? Soon here (check out www.FlavorSprayDiet.co.uk). THE BABY SHOWER THAT'S YUMMY, MUMMY

Health Notes

Why it's time to take food allergies seriously The main allergic illnesses asthma, eczema and hay fever are well known to the medical profession, but food allergies are still a Cinderella subject.