Best (girl) Friends

Everybody needs at least one. Sometimes they know you better than your own family, they nurse you through a broken heart, laugh with you, cry with you, encourage you, make you believe in yourself, in short they make you a better person - and you in turn, do the same for them. There is a large hole left in your heart and your life when for whatever reason that friend is no longer there.

When it comes to on screen versions of female friendship they can often ring hollow, but  "Sex and the City" changed all that when it burst onto our screens way back in 1998. Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte were real women, with real feelings and more importantly, they felt like our friends. They were sassy, funny, bitchy (in a good way) and sexy and their friendships rang true in spite of all the Hollywood glitz. I really wanted Carrie's life (not to mention her wardrobe), but elements of all 4 womens' characters resonated with me and I can still be found sobbing when Big rescues Carrie in Paris and brings her back to NYC where she belongs - with the girls.

Photo: HBO

Now we have Lena Dunham's brilliant "Girls" - a sharper, bleaker, more explicit look at life in New York, this time for a group of 4 single girls in their 20's and we are no longer in glossy Manhattan, but somewhat grittier Brooklyn, yet the issues - finding a job, looking for love, trying to make something of your life, are all issues close to every girl's heart - and that of her best friend.

Photo: HBO

Season 2 of "Girls" has just finished and whilst I don't love the characters as much as I did those in "Sex and the City", there is no doubting that Dunham's writing - she is writer, producer and star of the hit show - is incredibly insightful and at times this makes for both painful and hilarious viewing. (Warning: watch an episode first before settling in with your Mum....)

At only 25,  Dunham can currently do no wrong, her career has skyrocketed, she is a champion for real women with real bodies, won two Golden Globes earlier this year for Best Comedy Series and Best Actress in a Comedy Series and has just made her first foray into fashion with a short film for  designer Rachel Antonoff.

Shot in a quirky, Wes Anderson-esque style, it features two girlfriends sharing an apartment in New York and made me think back to my time spent in Paris as a student living in a garret with my best friend. We just didn't have quite such a fab wardrobe....

Photo: Lena Dunham for Rachel Antonoff/Style.com

Fast forward 24 years and 'les filles' were reunited here last weekend, along with my other flatmate from university - the three of us shared together in our final year. We loved, laughed and lived life to the full that year - English Gent told me some years later that we were apparently known as 'the knockout flat', and I have to agree - my girlfriends are just that - knockout. Whilst we now all live in different countries and our interests and daily lives may have diverged somewhat over the years, the core friendship is still there and always will be. It is one of the best feelings in the world to be sitting with two people who know you so well, catching up, reminiscing, turning back the years, and now that we are mothers, looking to the future too.  The boys left us to it - Rock Boy practically winced when he summed up what we would be doing: "Lots of girlish things, like fashion and chatting". I'll admit it - I do speak fluent girlish and I'm very glad that I do.