Advertising - further updates

There are now two Amazon stores on this site, one for UK purchases the other for orders to the US. Be sure to use the right one. I'll be adding more titles to the US site.

Unfortunately I have no current information about US availability for The Clothes On Their Backs so if you would like to order it, for the moment, it will have to be from the UK site.

The poncho and other crimes

According to a survey in the Daily Mail (so it must be right) the top ten fashion disasters, ie what you must not own are:

velour track suit
shell suit
puffball skirt
hot pants
leggings
ra-ra skirt
hooded sweatshirt
cowboy boots
poncho
parka

I have none of these, thought 96 per cent of those surveyed admitted they had. I'm a little surprised at the cowboy boots.

An American reader has enquired what a shell suit is. This is a shell suit:

(nice Jewish boy)

Straight white male goes hiphop dancing

Via a circuitous route, I have just found a very funny blog

I was trapped in a cab headed to a hip-hop dancing class in Chelsea. I do not dance. Also, I was deeply terrified of a changing room full of gay men. Who else would take a class like this I thought? Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I thought anyone would take a fancy to me; far from it in fact, what terrified me was imagining how my feeble frame would measure up against so many well-tended physiques. I could picture them with their pronounced abs and their shiny golden pectorals. I look like a plump shaved albino ferret. With fluff stuck on.

all that he feared turned out to be true

More London sample sales

Courtesy of Fashion Confidential

Matthew Williamson Sample Sale – 13 to 15 December

Up to 70% off womenswear, shoes and accessories. Not to be missed!

New stock delivered every day. 13 December (1pm to 9pm), 14 December (11am to 7pm) and 15 December (11am to 5pm). The 20th Century Theatre, 291 Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill.

English Eccentrics Warehouse Sale - 13 December

Samples, seconds, one-offs and old season stock...

13 December (8am to 8pm); Postmen's Office, 30 Leighton Road, Kentish Town, London, NW5 2QE.

Biba Christmas Sale – 14 to 15 December

Bella Freud's final collection for Biba (A/W 2007) at 80-90% discount.

Shirts from £50, knitwear from £60, evening dresses from £50 to £95 and jewellery from £25. 14 December (11am to 10.30pm) and 15 December (11am to 6pm); The Music Rooms, 26 South Molton Lane, Mayfair, W1. Mention you are from Fashion Confidential to gain entry.

Penfield Sample Sale - 14 to 16 December

One off sample sale with 70% off the retail price...

14 December (10am to 6pm), 15 December (10am to 6pm) 16 December (10am to 4pm); The Old Truman Brewery, 4-5 Dray Wlak, 91 Brick Lane, London, E1 6QL.

Temperley Sample Sale Somerset - 15 and 16 December

Fabulous samples inlcuding dresses and accessories. Not to be missed!

VIP Brunch 15 December (11am to 1pm). RSVP to editor@fashionconfidential.co.uk9. Open day 16 December. Strode Theatre, Street , Somerset, BA16 0AB

Tabitha Sample Sale - 18 December

Up to 50% off new and past stock....

Items include handbags, clutches, wallets, wash bags, make-up bags, travel wallets, luggage tags, visitors books, notebooks and much much more. It's the perfect opportunity for some last minute Christmas shopping. 18 December (11am to 8pm) Chelsea Old Town Hall, Kings Road, SW3 5EE.

Patrick Cox – Pre-Sale Invitation – 19 to 23 December

Enjoy an exclusive Pre-Sale discount of up to 50% on current men’s and women’s styles.

Patrick Cox has invited Fashion Confidential members to his Sloane Street store to enjoy an exclusive Pre-Sale discount of up to 50% on current men’s and women’s styles. This is the place to stock up on great party shoes for Xmas and New Year as well as chic work wear staples for the guys. 19 December (10am to 7pm), 20 to 23 December (10am to 6pm); 129 Sloane Street, London, SW1X 9AT. Mention you are from Fashion Confidential to receive your discount.

Largerfeld in London

Kaiser Karl held a dinner at Nobu in London last night to celebrate his 25 years with Chanel, and his first ever London catwalk show. He was interviewed on the news last night, and I rather thought the old pot belly was reforming itself over the ribs.


Here he is with Kylie

The talons of death clutch at the arm of the living

And here's a suit from the show

Grouse shooting at Balmoral outfit

Our fashionable royals

In my day there were two royals, Prince Charles and Princess Anne and then the two little boys, you know, Andrew and Edward. We wore mini-skirts, they wore tweed hacking-jackets; we went to Rolling Stones concerts, they played polo.

Then . . . Princess Diana RIP, may the heavens weep, who single-handedly brought style and glamour to the royal family (the Bruce Oldfield dresses!)

Hadley Freeman has a piece today on the younger royals, as photographed in the family snaps for the Queen's 60th wedding anniversary, featured in Hello:

Zara Phillips, on the other hand, was the first to catch my eye on the magazine cover, mainly because she was wearing an empire-line silver coat with white buttons and collar from Paul and Joe's diffusion range, Paul and Joe Sister, that I had just that week tried on but rejected as too expensive, so, obviously, I was filled with a mix of both approval and murderous hatred. Perhaps that coat is slightly infantalising, a bit too Bonpoint for adults, but it's certainly an improvement on the sweeping pale tweed numbers favoured by most female royals, to say nothing of the sludgy fare generally sported by her mother, Princess Anne. Moreover, she wore it with a short dress, black tights, black shoes and black gloves, which is just how I was planning to wear it (the witch), which obviously makes it good, and, impressively, she also managed to find a hat that was suitably respectful but neither hideous nor laughable.

Pucci?

. . .
Her brother, on the other hand, is a different story. Even if Peter Phillips wasn't officially royal, with his penchant for badly fitted brass-buttoned blazers, bagging jeans and a hairline that recedes in direct correlation to his advancing paunch, I would assume that he was the product of youthful sowing of the royal oaks by any of Elizabeth's children if I bumped into him on the tube. Such is the strength of his royal style genes that he, like his cousin William, has managed to Sloanify his girlfriend. In the most recent pictures of the soon-to-be-married couple, Autumn Kelly has comfortably shifted from her former life as what one newspaper has intriguingly described as a "Canadian former air hostess, bartender and model" into a fully paid-up kitten-heel-wearing, sunglasses-as-alice-band-adorned Sloane, with a fondness for pastel wraparound cardigans. Well, they go so well with one's boyfriend's broad-shouldered blazers.

Help!

Help!

Thought for the day

I cannot see why a person should be esteemed haughty on account of his taste for fine clothes, any more than one who discovers a fondness for birds, moths or butterflies. William Shenstone 1714- 1763