Wednesday, and I’m having lunch at Tom Aikens, the Michelin starred restaurant in Chelsea.  The Taittinger is pouring and there’s an enormous box of Creme de la Mer sitting in everybody’s place.  It’s all in honour of Oceana, a very worthy cause as it turns out, more on it later.  All the key beauty editors have turned up - Olivia Falcon from Tatler, Nadine Baggott from Hello, Rosie Green from Red, Newby Hands from Harpers and Queen, Nicola Moulton from Vogue, Anna-Marie Solowij, Edwina Ings-Chambers from the Sunday Times,.. and on it goes.  There’s a lot of chit-chat and friendly congratulations on recent awards having been won.  

Creme de la Mer has always made waves, if you’ll excuse the pun.  When it first launched no one could believe a moisturiser could cost over £100.   It didn’t take long for the other beauty companies to follow suit in launching their own high-powered, high-cost creams, but somehow they never quite had what CdelaMer had, either in legendary story (the giant sea kelp used for making the cream, the brainchild of a Nasa scientist, Max Huber, really you couldn’t make it up), or in price-point.  Whenever they brought out an expensive cream, Creme de la Mer would introduce a serum, or a powder, or a polish.  It was always one step ahead of the pack. 

It’s still a market leader, and this is something that surprises me.  Aren’t we all broke right now?  Apparently not, says Emma Jane Bloom who is a buyer in the perfumery and cosmetics department at Harrods, where this particular, limited edition pot of Cdela Mer will sell, all proceeds, note ALL proceeds going to Oceana.  It’s a very big pot, with a very big price, £518.72 and you have until June to save up for it, as it’s only on sale for that month.  

So has Harrods been affected by the recession?  It seems not. 

“Anything with Tom Ford’s name on it is flying out the door,” says Bloom.  ”Pucci’s doing well, Bond no 9 and Creed fragrances are really really popular, perfumes with a slightly vintage edge to them are proving to be big hits.”

“And Creme de la Mer?” I ask.

 ”Very well. Sales in beauty generally are up on last year.  The Essence of Creme de la Mer which goes for £1500 is selling well, last week we sold eight units of Kanebo at £440 each, and one customer spent £14000 on fragrance alone last week too.” 

Jaws are dropping.  Even the beauty editors think £14k on perfume is nuts.

 ”She bought ten of each one,” explains Bloom. 

“Who are these people?” we wonder.

 ”We’re very lucky,” she says. “Our customer isn’t as affected by the credit crunch.” 

It’s good that some of these profits are at least being transferred to good causes.  And I don’t care if it’s all about marketing, all about making the brand look good.  If people are benefitting, then by all means, sell as much Creme de la Mer as you want!  

Oceana endeavours to protect the ocean, and campaigns to get the US gov’t to change its nets and methods of fishing so that turtles and dolphins are protected. Its mission is to achieve 10% of the ocean to be protected, explains Board member Maria Eugenia Giron.

The big culprit is apparently bottom trawling - yes, it sounds like a gadget for anti-cellulite, but it’s not.  It’s a commercial fishing practice in which the bottom of the ocean is swept with nets, destroying everything in its wake.  30% of the catch is thrown away - by this point dead, or half-dead.  

Another problem is the acidification of the ocean, which is killing the coral.  More than one billion people depend on fish as their sole (pun again, sorry) source of protein.  The coral acts as a nursery to the fish - it’s where they reproduce.  With the coral gone, so is the fish, so is the principle source of food. 

The good news is that the ocean is very resilient. During the 2nd world war, we weren’t fishing for a few years.  When fishermen returned, they found an abundance of fish such as they hadn’t seen before.  Stocks were replenished. 

Unlike with some environmental issues, the mood is very positive and encouraging.  Tom Aikens comes out from the kitchen somewhere between the main course and the pudding and talks about how passionate he is about fish and fishing.  The sea bass on the menu is line-caught.  He says that all his suppliers - the fishermen - as well as the NGO’s and the government bodies who set the fishing regulations are united on this front.  Everyone wants traceability, sustainability, provenance.  

We rush off, back to work (well, actually I’m back on a school run, but hey, I’m on flexi-time).  On the way out, one of the beauty editors whispers to me, “I think I’ve disgraced myself.  I asked Tom Aikens if I  could have the pudding as a doggy-bag…”  Apparently the answer was “no”.