I went to the hairdressers' today at Sloane Square which is a brisk, ten-minute calorie-burning walk to Harvey Nichols so I dropped in to look at the final reductions in the sales. Since my resolution to stop buying cheap clothes my spending has dropped away to almost nothing, so with signs in the window saying up to 70 per cent off, I was well within my rights to see if they had anything I liked.
I tried on an Armani Collezioni jacket, at 60 per cent off, but it wasn't special enough to win a place next to all my other black jackets.
I tried an Anne Klein cocoon-shaped black wool coat, which was original, but the mark-down wasn't that great and I don't think the cocoon shape is a trend with any legs. And I have two black wool coats already.
I tried a DKNY short mac in a sensational yellow but it was too big.
I tried a Donna Karan slate jersey dress reduced from £1995 to £675 but thank god it was too small because I couldn't afford it.
And looking round I thought how utterly uninspired I felt by everything. Far too many of the dresses were too short, there was a world of black and beige and stone everywhere you looked. The clothes depressed me. Either they were ugly or they were unwearable. I looked in at Zara and saw a scrum of women fighting over tat, black tat.
Fashion has lost its bearings. The fad for cheap disposable style has revved up the speed of design, so trends come and go in a heartbeat, there's an air of desperation. There is nothing with authenticity and confidence, and nothing at all which issues that old siren call . . . wear me. Clothes have little relation to the bodies that they are supposed to dress.
Perhaps this is why there has been a retail slump. No-one wants to buy the stuff.
