101 uses for a scarf

After coming back on an overnight flight from Toronto, I managed a bit of sleep then got a call from Tina Craig, co-proprieter of the the bag-site, Bag Snob.

She was in London on the last day of a Paris-London trip and so I went over to her hotel to drink champagne and then have dinner at Momo and she shows me how she has taken an Hermes clutch and run an Hermes scarf through it to turn it into a shoulder bag. Genius.

Life and fate

I have spent the past week in Toronto interviewing a woman who is a survivor of the worst crime of the twentieth century

She asks me not to reveal her age, but she was transported to Auschwitz when she was a teenager in 1944 so do the sums. And here she is, sitting drinking cocktails in a John Galliano jacket, Versace t-shirt, bootcut jeans, Roger Vivier shoes and Dior bag, talking about her friends Giorgio Armani and Valentino. Sometimes there is justice.

She is also an object lesson on how not to grow old. How if you have the indomitable will, the taste and the chutzpah you can tear up that mutton-dressed-as-lamb rule book. She left me with a great deal of think about. Such as a closet with absolutely no black in it (but a pink mink).

You'll be able to read the full story, in the book of the Thoughtful Dresser, in February. Pre-order now!

How to shop

The Bag Snobs show how it's done

The weather is a bit dreary but the friendliness of the people here is enough to warm my spirits. Remember my disappointment of missing the sales next week in Paris? Well the SAs in Paris didn't agree to pre-sale anything to me, (sniff sniff) but the lovely British more than made up for it! I arrived and immediately went to Harvey Nicks, where I was told everything would be on sale on Wednesday (I'll be home by then). I noticed a woman who looked like a person of authority near the Dries van Noten bay and I asked her if she would kindly consider pre-selling to me or shipping items to me in the States. Not only did she agree, she assigned two Brand Specialists to show me around! After trying on countless amazing items from Balenciaga, Dries, Alexander McQueen, Burberry Prorsum, Stella McCartney, etc. I found a few pieces that I loved and guess what, she let me have them right then and there at the discount! A big thank you to Heather, the sales manager of Harvey Nicks and Suzanne and Tom-- Brand specialists for Dries and Balenciaga. I love the UK! If you live near London, run over to Harvey Nicks this Wednesday, June 25th and ask for Suzanne (Dries) or Tom (Balenciaga)!

Fat black women in Italian Vogue

Italian Vogue's editor, Franca Sozzani, said her decision was influenced by the New York group, as well as by Barack Obama's success in the US presidential primaries.

Meisel, who worked with Madonna on her controversial coffee-table book, Sex, brought several of the black fashion world's big names aboard for the issue. He photographed Naomi Campbell, Iman, Tyra Banks, Liya Kebede, Jourdan Dunn, Alek Wek and Pat Cleveland, among others.

"I thought, it's ridiculous, this discrimination. It's so crazy to live in such a narrow, narrow place. Age, weight, sexuality, race - every kind of prejudice," he told the New York Times. He blamed designers, magazine editors and advertisers for the decline in the numbers of black women in fashion shows. "I have asked my advertising clients so many times, 'Can we use a black girl?' They say no."

Among the black models on his roster was the full-figured Toccara Jones. Meisel argued that weight was also an issue in the fashion world.

read on

and more, here

This magazine exists to inspire women. How do fashion editors get inspired by watching the same procession of anonymous, blandly pretty, very young, very skinny, washed-out blondes with their hair scraped back in show after show? The glamazon supermodels of the late eighties and early nineties (Linda, Christy, Cindy, Naomi, Claudia) all looked equal but different as they thundered down the runway. Like the Spice Girls, each had an individual personality, a different physicality. So did the late-nineties wave of sexy Brazilian girls (who come in all colors, from milk to brown). The current wave of Eastern Europeans all look pretty much alike, which is odd for a trade that thrives on appealing to a woman's personal style. And all are, obviously, white. Sarah Doukas, founder of Storm model agency in London, remarks, "It's a naughty thing to say, because I've got some beautiful Eastern European girls, but to be honest, when I go in cars with them in Paris, I do get snow-blinded."

What do these three men have in common?

This post first appeared in November 2007

A few years ago, I was having lunch at Moro in Clerkenwell Market with the then women's page editor of the Guardian. Sitting at the next table were a group of adoring acolytes hanging on the every word of a flat bloke with a blonde bristly head like a pig, dressed in combats encasing thighs which oozed like over-ripe Camembert sluggishly running off the edge of his chair.

That, said my lunch companion, is Alexander McQueen.

And a spasm of pure rage passed through me. Who was this fat bastard to tell women that they were obese if they couldn't fit into a size 10? To make clothes that half the population couldn't wear? I am tired of fat men telling non-skeletal women that they don't exist. Granted, McQueen, like Lagerfeld, with the assistance of the finest trainers money can buy and no obligation to prepare family meals three times a day, have slimmed down, or in the case of Lagerfeld, turned himself into his own corpse, but fashion is full of fat men (sorry Alber, I really love you in every other way) giving normal-sized women an inferiority complex.

I had my picture take a couple of weeks ago to go with a magazine piece I'm doing . There was a photographer, a picture editor, a make-up artist and the manager of Hobbs all involved in this operation, and after the make-up artist had bemoaned that she couldn't find a pair of trousers to fit her in Zara, the photographer said that one her friends was a plus-sized model. 'What's plus size?' I asked. It's size 12 (US8) she told me.

Myself, I'd put every man in fashion who weighs over 150 pounds on the Atkins diet. And don't come back until you can fit into skinny jeans.

Is this a handbag? Harry poses a question

Of course it's a back pack. Or it could be called a day sack, or ruck sack, or a shoulder bag. Its near relatives might be called a messenger bag, a courier satchel, or laptop case. They are all bags for men.

I have occasionally referred to mine as a handbag, and have met with looks somewhat askance ( female) or mildly uneasy ( male). It would seem to be a bit of a gender tease .

But the truth of the matter is that I am not a messenger or a courier, and my bag rarely has a laptop in it. It might be retailed as a day sack, but I'm not actually going to call it that. It's a handbag in so much as it is where I carry my keys, diary, analgesics, notebook, umbrella, indigestion remedy, sunglasses, i-pod and Murakami novel. 

Stating the blindingly obvious: men do not have the same relationship with their bags that women do. But bags for men have been evolving and it is now possible to make more discriminating choices in this area. Without compromising one's masculinity. Well, the younger members of the species seem to be able to. But it remains a conundrum for the older male. Or perhaps it's off their radar.

Earlier this year I bought a lap top case by Mandarina Duck. I had coveted something from their range having seen the most stylish of briefcases in Venice a few years ago.The Mandarina  Duck case is immensely practical; it even has its own rain hood built in. But it is pleasingly designed, and manages  to avoid being one of those macho executive statements by brands such as Tumi that shops in departure lounges are so full of. And that makes a change.

Yesterday in  the quite modish Reiss menswear window display  I noticed two handbags. Of course they call them despatch bags. 

Hadley Freeman is banned from Paul Smth shows

Although bans have been sprinkled around the fashion press for some time, they do seem to be coming down with increasing frequency - a sign, perhaps, of a growing anxiety in the luxury market that with the impending economic downturn not as many people are buying £900 dresses and trousers. It is also likely to be a reflection of the power of advertising. Fashion magazines and some newspapers are financially dependent on fashion advertisers, which muffles the writers who work for them. They are unable to say anything remotely negative about the clothes, out of fear of losing that precious £100,000-a-year advertising account, which is why so much fashion coverage often reads as little more than advertorial puff and fluff. Designers then get used to such obsequiousness so that any words of dissent are treated as a shocking display of heresy.

read the rest

Maestros of fashion

Paul Poiret

Harry Goes to a Gig

Music and clothes have always been linked as far as I am concerned. Not surprising as my adolescent years were the sixties.

I have retained my enthusiasm for music, both old, and, importantly, new. But music and fashion don't seem to be so closely linked. Pete Townshend is always stylishly turned out and seems to innately know what works well for a man of his stature and demeanour. Unlike so many of his generation. But I can't off-hand think of an artist or a band who has recently prompted me to wonder where they get themselves kitted out. Certainly not Radiohead.

The other evening I went to see Joan as Policewoman. The fantastic Joan Wasser was launching her new album. I had seen her twice before and her performance was captivating. I can thoroughly recommend either of her two records ( if that's what we still call them)

Joan looked gorgeous as ever, but it was her bass player who particularly caught my eye. 

Rainy Orteca, a slight , impish presence on stage. And so stylish. A very well-fitted man's suit, and a well chosen shirt and tie combination. The business. Definitely the best dressed person in the room. And how refreshing to see someone on stage that actually did prompt the question; 'I wonder where they got that?'

Jacques Fath 1956

YSL, 1962

He roller-skates, he tap-dances

As I'm on a mission in Toronto all this coming week, I'll be posting some videos, unless Harry has anything to say, but he's buggered off too, to take in some country air.

Meanwhile (hat-tipping Norm

I am an Aquarius

Donna Karan has designed a series of astrological handbags.

Often she is so excited she speaks in crazy free-association sentences. For example, when talking about her decision to create astrology-themed bags, she says, 'I don't know anybody who doesn't go right to the astrology page to see. Everybody needs the support. What's today about? Because, quite honestly, we are not the masters. It is all mapped out. If you ask me, "How come bags?" I say, "I don't know. Why did he decide that now is the time for bags?"' (He, presumably, being God.)Karan's personality is so wacky and unbridled that it freaks some people out. 'Donna's a little koo-koo,' says her best friend Barbra Streisand. However, most people put up with it because she is probably the most powerful woman in American fashion today.

Here is the Libra bag - so what do you do if you're a Libra and you prefer the Capricorn bag?
Actually, I'm rather fond of Donna and wish I could afford one of her main collection dresses. And obviously I'm all i n favour when a nice Jewish girl with a big bum waxes rich and powerful by her own efforts and creativity (rather than marrying a nice Jewish boy with a big bum)

At home with Chanel

Work and play in Toronto

Next week my sister and I are hooking up in Toronto, where we both have a spot of work to do. Can readers recommend restauarants and shopping and any other pleasures?

The purpose of my visit is presently a secret. All will be revealed on publication of The Thoughtful Dresser.

Art over commerce

Hadley Freeman has a very interesting piece about being a judge at Graduate Fashion week.

Her point is that because fashion courses in Britain are based at art schools, designers have a supreme understanding of art and none about commerce, ie how to produce clothes that someone would want to wear. Including the designers themselves:

That brings us back to the question of why British students favour the artistic over the commercial. Marian McLaughlin, head of the international office of the Amsterdam Fashion Institute, is attending the London shows and agrees that undoubtedly British fashion students favour "quirkier designs". "You can really see the difference between them and other nationalities," she says. "Probably it's because of the art-school influence. It does produce interesting clothes, but I don't know whether they get jobs afterwards. All of our students definitely do."

But Marten Andreasson, fashion tutor at the University of Middlesex, disagrees.

"I think that, for the students, it is definitely more important to emphasise the creative because this is the time when they have the freedom to experiment and express themselves," he says. "By the time they get to their graduate show, then they should have decided whether they want to go commercial or be more experimental." But what happens to the ones who want to make collections based on the Holocaust? He makes a tactful shrug. "They probably go off and do MAs ..."

This is another thing that puzzles me. Fashion students say that their work is about "self-expression", but what they make always seems to be an awfully long way away from what they actually wear. There are a lot of pretty printed dresses and German tourist-esque shoes in the audience - almost none on the runways. Sharon Dewar, 29, a student at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, agrees that the delicate, multi-layered black dress she has designed doesn't seem to have much in common with the jeans-and-grey-cardigan combo she is wearing. "That's true. But I design things I aspire to, as opposed to things I actually wear, and it's a designer market I'm aspiring to." So what does she think is more important - being commercial or being experimental? "It's a balance really, isn't it? You want to enjoy making the clothes and other people to enjoy wearing them."

UPDATE Greying Pixie has some trenchant remarks on this in the comments.

Harry Goes Shopping

When you get to a certain age , where exactly are you supposed to go shopping? Or where might one actually enjoy the experience?

The old school menswear shops have largely disappeared. Perhaps no great loss. Although I lament the demise of Simpson's , which maybe was brilliant in the 30's when it opened, but when I knew the store they were certainly missing a trick.

There is a lot more to say on this subject, but for those readers ( or partners of readers) who are in London I'd like to bring to your attention the Designer Warehouse Sale.

They have been going for 21 years and hold about four menswear sales a year. I discovered them a dozen years ago, and go at least twice a year.

Next weekend they will be in new premises, so I can't give you a clear idea of what their new environment will be like ( they used to be in a photographer's studio).

They always have a lot of stock. Sure, much of it will be terribly youthful; skinny shirts, artfully modified jeans, streetwear with lots of unnecessary embellishment. But amongst all this you can still find well made and understated stuff.

That's if you are prepared to look. Because, although it is laid out largely by designer and types of clothing, it is rather like a well organised jumble sale. Which I happen to like. A lot.

And the people who run it are very laid-back, and certainly friendly rather than up themselves.

My last purchase there was a very fine Pal Zileri jacket. And before that a Jasper Conran overcoat. And , no, I certainly wouldn't have paid ticket price for either of those two items.

I will definitely be going next weekend. And I am very relaxed about probably being the oldest person there ( but one of my sons might come with me, and that's always fun)

Sewists' corner

I know there are quite a few sewists in the house, but me, I can't even get the needle through the thread and my attempts to re-sew a button in exactly the right place on a Jean Muir coat were humiliatingly inept. I do not do or make things with my hands. And my rule is, as my Jacobean manor house friends discovered when I stayed with them last weekend and they invited me to play boules, it is not that I am competitive, it's that I only do things I'm good at. Which is good, because it leaves so much time for lying around doing nothing.

But the next big thing, apparently is home remodelling of your own clothes.

Lilli Rose Wicks hopes to change our habits. In 2007, she won the Visionary Knitwear award at Graduate Fashion Week, and was inundated with offers to design for the high street. She turned them down as she felt the stores weren't willing or able to change their environmental practices. Wicks' work is made from organic or recycled materials. Her passion has always been to make or refashion her clothes rather than buy them new. "Before I buy anything, I work out whether I can make it myself," she says.

Wicks now runs workshops, in collaboration with the Soil Association, on customising clothes, and that is why I arrive at Wicks' cottage in Somerset with an armful of my own clothes, which, instead of joining the 300,000 tonnes of garments that end up in recycling bins, are going to be refashioned. I'm nervous because, having first-hand experience of my sewing, I'm not sure I want to mess about with my clothes. "Sewing is something you can learn. Everyone starts somewhere," Wicks assures me. Having spilt oil on a skirt I like, I'm hoping Wicks can help me hide the stain so I can keep wearing it.

The closet, the closet . . .

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am very late in seeing Sex in the City. I was supposed to go to a press screening over two weeks ago but it didn't happen etc boringly etc.

Now I have seen it. What point were they trying to make by scripting Hudson to fall in love with the most hideous Vuitton bag ever produced?

Other than that, it was two and a half hours of ceaseless frocks, Chanel 2.55s and their variants and a hunch that if Carrie had not come across Big in that closet she might never have forgiven him.

Now I must go and find a pink drink.