Statuesque companions, nine of them, lined up for the photograph

At 172 cm, Angelika, athletic and black-haired, a tennis player with a taste for new art, and Patricia, slim and auburn, a watercolourist who chooses books for other people. At 173 cm, Michelle, dark-haired and warm, the natural hostess of the row, and Vanessa, sandy-haired and unhurried, who collects fragrance and sees the city from a bicycle.

At 174 cm, Karolina, pianist and admirer of fanlights, and Samanta, violinist and connoisseur of hotel lobbies. At 175 cm, Milena, glamorous and candid. At 176 cm, Stacy, with a camera round her wrist and a quip ready. And at the end of the row, 178 cm, Violetta, who says the least and is remembered longest. The photographer would arrange them so. Cressida would not: she arranges by the evening, as the next two sections explain.

A black-tie evening at Grosvenor House, in a ballroom so large that the walk to your table is long and closely watched. The private view of a summer exhibition on Piccadilly, where a companion must stand for two hours and look at ease for every minute of them. A reception in a Park Lane hotel where the photographers are working the room. For each of these, the event companion page sets out how Cressida plans the evening, from the dress code to the moment you leave together.

In a hotel suite or a small restaurant, a tall companion and a small one are simply two different people. Several of the nine are at their best far from any ballroom: Samanta in a panelled bar with her notebook, Karolina walking Mayfair's back streets with her eyes on the cornices, Vanessa trying scents beneath the Burlington Arcade's glass roof. Height is a sound place for a choice to begin and a poor place for it to end.

A tall companion changes one small thing about an evening: people notice the arrival. For guests who would rather they did not, Cressida suggests meeting in the bar instead of the lobby, or arriving separately and finding each other at the table. For guests who enjoy the moment, none of the nine will shrink from it.

Six of the nine also belong to the slim and slender character, and Michelle and Milena to the curvaceous. Their colouring covers the range: four raven, four brunette and one auburn. By stage of life the row divides into two from the early twenties, Angelika and Stacy, six from the late twenties, and Violetta, alone, in her thirties.

Name the height if it matters, or the occasion if it matters more, and Cressida will propose one of the nine. If the evening involves a long walk along Piccadilly or a terrace with uneven stones, say so; every one of them would rather arrive in the right shoes than the tallest.