It was a grotty area and quite dark and the phone box didn’t feel very safe. That is when I decided to get one.”Even though it is expensive, I think I will prioritise it next year because I am so used to it,” she said. She bought hers grudgingly a year ago.”One time last year I was on my own and I couldn’t find a flat I was looking for. This year’s new phones from Motorola and Phillips are only half the size of your hand.”One woman who uses a mobile phone for safety reasons is Michaela Carlowe, 32, who manages a social work team in north London. they want something that will fit in a handbag,” said Mr Tanner “The tiny phones coming in are really having an impact. And it always seems to be a question of peace of mind.”Size is crucial for women. At first, the mobile phone was a rich man’s plaything, or a businessman’s status symbol.

Now women own almost as many telephones as men do – but for very different reasons.The main attraction for most women customers is that it provides a form of communications back-up, wherever they are, in case of emergency. James Tanner of Tancroft Communications has watched the growth of mobile- phone sales to women: “The majority of people buying phones from us this year were women – often young women – or men who were buying for their mothers, wives and girlfriends. In recent weeks many of our top chefs have been on scouting missions to the French capital.. For British women the smaller the better – no matter what it costs. And if it fits inside a pocket, keeps you safe as well as in touch with your office, your mother and your children, it is certainly worth having.

This is the view of the band of nearly three million female mobile-phone users who are increasingly dominating the consumer market.
Although Britain has been shown to be one of the most expensive places in the world to run a mobile phone, both professional women and full-time mothers are undeterred. Units will start at about 800 sq ft.As in London, Mr Hitchcox will be selling empty shells which buyers convert into the home of their dreams with the help of an architect. Double-height ceilings, raw brickwork and ancient timber floors tend to come as standard, but you choose everything else.Mr Hitchcox insists he will not be telling Parisians how to live, but showing people how lofts “allow you to be an individual by creating your own environment”. And just as loft livers made Clerkenwell hip, he believes eastern parts of Paris may soon become cool.He is confident that the ground floors of his developments will be taken over by British restaurateurs. Prices will range from about pounds 100-pounds 300 per sq ft, as opposed to pounds 150-pounds 500 in London.