Lagerfeld: I am not an intellectual

He glides in looking relaxed, wearing a black suit jacket by Tom Ford, black jeans by Christian Dior, a 4in-high Edwardian collar, and fingerless biker gloves adorned with rings. He offers a gloved hand and a well-practised apology, and takes a seat at a large wooden table in a room attached to the main studio, surrounded by sleek filing cabinets, yet more books and stacks of hip fashion and design magazines.

“I’m mad for books,” he says, sitting motionless behind his black Dior shades. “It is a disease I won’t recover from. They are the tragedy of my life. I want to learn about everything. I want to know everything, but I’m not an intellectual, and I don’t like their company. I’m the most superficial man on Earth.”

Lagerfeld relishes such contradictory language – or should I say, he relishes talking rubbish, probably because it makes understanding him more difficult and shields his private life. “There are many Karls,” says the publicist Caroline Lebar, who has known him for 22 years. “He is like – how do you say in English – the animal that changes its skin?” A snake? “No, a snake changes only once in life.” A chameleon? “Oui, oui. Karl is like a chameleon. Always changing.”

. . .

Discussion about “the hidden depths”, as he calls them, should be avoided. “The quest to find yourself is an overrated thing concerning not very interesting people very often. Psychoanalysis – I don’t want to hear about it. Before Freud, people weren’t tortured by these things that have undermined the territory of perception. You have to live with your shortcomings.”

I’m just trying to get behind the many faces of Karl, I suggest. He laughs.

“This reminds me of when Annie Leibovitz photographed me for Vanity Fair. I didn’t know her very well then, and she said, ‘I have to spend three days with you to see what’s behind.’ And I said, ‘Annie, you’re wasting your time. Look at what you see.’ ” He casts his hand theatrically over his face. “There is nothing else.” Why do you want to be known as superficial? “I like that image. I don’t want to look like an old teacher.

from the Times

Baby come home

Today, I am going to pick up this.

When I have brought it home, I will show it to you

I speak!

The excellent on-line magazine Nextbook has quite a long audio interview with me on the subject of The Clothes On Their Backs

I am now firmly of the opinion that you get a far better deal and better service from The Book Depository, which offers free shipping worldwide Though charging in £s, they have several fulfilment centres in the US

A well-judged column

So rare that finds a really, really good writer about menswear. Harry has disappeared to his country retreat, so I am offering the position of locum menswear writer to Hardeep Singh Kohli. I wonder what he does with the rest of his time?

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a well-made cotton drill sweat top as much as the next slightly overweight, amply-arsed man, but there is a time and a place for such frivolity. Perhaps I belong to another era - maybe the 1950s - but I do yearn for all men to enjoy the suit again, feel pride in their smartness and become elevated by elegance. It's time to promote the peacock and I am happy to be at the vanguard of the strutting. I have plenty of denim and trackwear but I'd rather been seen in a beautifully tailored, plum-coloured three-piece suit, a multi-stripe double-cuff shirt and an appropriately complementary tie. Upon my oversized, calloused feet I would have tasselled Bally loafers. I have even invested in half a dozen pouchettes and a handful of cravats, either or both of which I intend to coordinate with my turban. I will be embracing dandyism in every way possible.

Second place in the Karachi Bonniest Baby Contest

Last week I commended to your attention the weepingly funny account of author Imran Ahmad's trip to the Edinburgh International Book festival where he met Gordon Brown, while dressed in shorts.

Yesterday afternoon, in the the authors' yurt in Edinburgh, a pleasant man in a linen suit came over to introduce himself to me. This was Imran Ahmad in person. He had been deluged with visits to his blog from The Thoughtful Dresser, more he said, than from all the other sites put together.

He pressed into my hand a signed copy of his book Unimagined: A Muslim Boy Meets the West, which I read on the plane coming home. Later he would persuade Salman Rushdie to take a signed copy off his hands. And has the photographic evidence to prove it.

I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed this book, particularly his account of how he was robbed of the title of Karachi's Bonniest Baby by political corruption and nepotism. Here he is, pictured on the cover, in the contest.

Look, just go and buy it. It's the story of a Pakistani Muslim Adrian Mole. What's not to like? Eh?

UPDATE

Imran has updated his account of Edinburgh:

On Sunday morning, a quiet chap wandered into the Writers’ Yurt. I could see that he had no Festival ID and obviously wasn’t supposed to be in here – maybe another wannabe writer?

The Festival staff were all very busy, so gallantly I stepped in to deal with this situation, with my characteristic sensitivity and tact.

I shared with him some advice on writing and getting published; I gave him a signed copy of my book (so that he would gain an appreciation of the standard of writing which has to be attained in order to get published); I let him have his photo taken with me; and then I gently nudged him out of the Writers’ Yurt.

Although I am a successful internationally-published writer, I’m always ready to help aspiring writers on their long journey to some form of publication.

PLEASE NOTE: The Writers’ Yurt is strictly for invited writers, authorised Festival staff and nominated guests only (all to be wearing Festival IDs, unlike this gentleman).

Here's another bit:

I returned to the Festival on the weekend of 23-24 August, taking a train up to Edinburgh on Friday night.



At Kings Cross, there was a huge crowd waiting to board the train, but I was quite relaxed. This being the last train to Edinburgh on the Friday evening before a holiday weekend, I wouldn’t even contemplate this journey without a reserved seat in First Class.



The crowd surged forward as soon as the platform number was revealed, and I still got caught up in the herd mentality – even though I knew I had a comfortable seat waiting for me. I boarded the train and began to arrange my stuff around my seat (suitcase in the luggage rack, jacket on the overhead shelf, food bag at my feet, book on the table etc).



A man in the next carriage was yelling into his mobile phone. An attractive woman seated at the next table smiled at me, as we both realised we could hear a phone conversation taking place so far away.



“… THERE ISN’T A SINGLE UNRESERVED SEAT! …”



He was moving towards me …



“… THIS IS A COMPLETE TYPICAL F--- ING FIASCO! …”



He came into my carriage … He was a thin man, with very short, dark hair and wearing jeans and a t-shirt …



“… MY TICKET? IT’S A STANDARD SAVER RETURN …”



He sat down in the reserved seat opposite me (although a Standard Saver Return would not entitle him to a seat in First Class).



“… WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO F---- ING DO? …”



An elegant Japanese couple stood hesitantly alongside me, conferring together and looking back and forth between their tickets and the seats opposite me.



“May I see?” I asked them, and examined their seat reservations. “Will,” I said to the man on the phone, “these visitors to our country are waiting to take their seats.”



Studiously not acknowledging that he had heard me, Will Self moved off down the carriage, back in the direction he had come from – still yelling into his phone.



Later during the journey, I was unable to overcome my curiosity. I made the hazardous journey into Standard Class and down the length of the train, to find out what had happened. The aisles and connecting areas were strewn with people on the floor: reading, talking, sleeping and (in some cases) drinking far too much.



Eventually, I found him. He had a seat and was furiously scribbling notes and using a purple highlighter in a copy of Richard Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’.

A curmudgeon writes

Norm goes shopping:

I will leave aside the fact that my body is always overcome by a draining fatigue the instant I arrive in this environment - a physiological phenomenon I have never been able to comprehend. And I will leave aside the puzzle that, on entering a large department store, the intending purchaser never arrives at the part of the store he (for he it is in this case) needs or wants; there are always floors to negotiate, by lift, stair or escalator, and then vast spaces to cross, as if shopping doubled as a training ground for long hiking expeditions. And I leave aside, too, that the air in such places is like a condensed falsehood all of itself. These obstacles and inconveniences I now know, in the light of much experience, I must expect.

The grown-up moment

Everything I read tells me that clothes are about to undertake a dramatic change: hemlines two inches below the knee, jackets that cover the bum, feminine blouses instead of clingy tops. Long sleeves. Alexandra Shulman told me a few months ago that in fashion, you just have to wait it out. If nothing suits you, don't rage against fashion, just wait. Your turn will come.

Here's Sarah Mower in the Telegraph:

The season we're contemplating looks like a veritable field day for those of us who don't regard "classic" as a synonym for boring; who like to change our appearances in small yet wickedly effective increments; and who enjoy nothing more than focusing on sharp, economical purchases while ignoring all nonsense trends strewn in our paths.

This, in other words, is the season that will sort the women from the girls.

It's a pity that it's taken such a terrible dive in the economy to lasso most designers back from their stampede into frivolity and force them to produce more useful, serious content. But having to imagine what would appeal this season while we were back in the first twinges of the sub-prime crisis has done them the power of good.

So what we're seeing on the rails now is measured, grown-up, curvaceous, functionally considered design - with the odd invigorating flash of something different. Which is what proves a designer's worth in the first place, I'd say.

The necklace returns, it says

one of mine

For years on end you wander around oblivious to the fact that you are completely out of fashion. I have always been big on necklaces. They cast light up onto the face. They draw attention away from the hips. I have lots But apparently I was hopelessly out of date. I know this because they have just come back into fashion:

The neck was last a focal point during the mid-Eighties, when girls in pearls reigned and costume jewellery mostly comprised naff, paste baubles. The good news about the necklace's reincarnation is that there are plenty of avenues to be explored. After something bold, chunky and with a reassuringly noisy clunk? Well look to Lanvin, or at least Lanvin-inspired jewellery. At Balenciaga, gutsy, Dynasty-style, bling chokers replaced bags as what fashion folk like to call the “must-have accessory”, while at Givenchy, girls were laden down in threads of gold and silver chains.

Whatever you choose, the advantages of this trend are tenfold. With all this activity going on around your neck, no one is going to be checking out the ply-content of your cashmere poloneck, thereby obviating the need to fork out on lots of expensive clothes. And don't underestimate its power to utterly transform an outfit. Averyl Oates, the buying director of Harvey Nichols, points out that an oversize necklace is the best way of lifting all that black and the gothic mood that is prevalent this season.

If you are looking to buy something special, a great neck-piece makes a good investment, something that can be pulled out of the wardrobe year after year. Another point to consider is that costume jewellery is so well made and designed these days that it's often hard to tell the difference between something that came from Topshop and the designer, upwards-of-£600 variety.

Of course it would come back in style just as I start to experience crepiness.

Let them eat Boden

Americans have Obama, we have these two

I have a piece in the Guardian today about Rachel Johnson's slimmish paperback, Shire Hell. New readers start here.

Rachel Johnson is a Yummy Mummy, sex columnist on Easy Living magazine and sister of the more famous Boris- blond, tousle-haired mayor of London since he defeated newt-loving Red Ken Livingstone in May.

Rachel lives in Notting Hill along with her neighbours Elle McPherson, Richard Curtis and Esther Freud etc, about which she wrote a novel, Notting Hell, satirising life amongst the gadzillionares.

Now she has written another, about Dorset, where she has a country place, and if you want to know who are our coming political masters when Old Etonian David Cameron finally ejects Gordon Brown from No 10, this is the place to start.

The intersection of the worlds of Notting Hill and the countryside are brilliantly illustrated by an incident that took place at last year's gala dinner hosted by Alexandra Shulman, editor of Vogue, to launch the Golden Age of Couture show at the V&A. On being introduced to Kate Moss, Cameron commiserated with her for the summer flooding that had washed out her Cotswold village, which is in his constituency, and spoke knowledgeably of when the local pub might reopen. Impressed, Moss asked for his phone number. Returning to his table, Cameron proudly announced that he was expecting a call from Moss; unfortunately it was because she thought he was a plumber.

Sometimes, like Molly Bloom, you have to say yes yes yes!

Sometimes the heart must rule the head. Sometimes you see the item of clothing you have been looking for your whole life, and when you put it on the friend you are with says, Yes! YES! (having previously made a face at everything else you tried on)

And you go home and make the necessary financial arrangements.

It's currently being altered.

It's a coat. It's from here

Lia takes a first step

Yesterday, my friend R. and Top Baby Lia (now aged two) met for lunch and then worked our way down Bond Street where R. bought a a dress in the Vivienne Westwood sale. In Nicole Farhi, while R. and I were trying things on, Lia found a pair of high heeled shoes, put them on and proceeded to walk confidently across the floor of the shop to the amazement of the staff and customers.

Without being told, Lia had understand that to walk in Difficult Shoes takes application and practise. It seems a shame that Louboutin does nothing for her age range.

All is explained

Why does fashion regularly produce hideous fashions, when we were getting along so nicely with the trend for dresses and opaques?

You see, these sorts of people [fashion snobs] like to look different from the masses. Nothing wrong with that. Problems arise, though, from the fact that the masses often have quite sensible taste (with the exception of Ugg boots, but let's not talk about such distressing things on a Monday morning. Gladiator sandals are bad enough). Anyway, fashion snobs then have to find something that the masses don't like and don't wear - often, though, for a reason. Hence the sudden popularity of ridiculously high-waisted jeans over hipster versions among the Dazed & Confused types, and ditto for gladiator sandals over less Greco-Roman ones.

Throwing foetuses down the catwalk

There's a very interesting piece about a scout for a model agency, who twice a week goes and hangs around Top Shop looking for new girls to take on.

'There was a girl called Emily Smith who I saw when she was 11. I kept in touch with her mum for three years. Eventually we took her on. We have five girls at the moment who are about 13 or 14 and we have to get child performance licences, doctor's certificates, permission from the council, permission from their school. It's proper.'

The interesting thing to me, is how young the girls are to whom she gives her card. Why do models have to be in their very early teens? Their job is to model clothes, what does age have to do with it? Sorry to come the feminist harpie but could this obsession with pubescent girls have anything to do with infantilising women? Compare and contrast with Agyness Deyn, who is a geriatric 25 and only discovered when she was well past 20. Interesting face, loads of self-confidence, actual personality.

Literary fabulousness

I am doing a gig at the Edinburgh Book Festival next weekend (with Rose Tremain - too late, it's sold out!) and having dinner with Margaret Atwood on Saturday night, apparently.

This account by a writer attending the festival is the most amusing summing up I have ever read of the sheer glamour and pace of the literary life and the social whirl we all move in, hanging out with Mart and Phil and Salman and even Gordon. This is why Madonna and Sarah Ferguson started writing books, you know.

US stores that do not ship internationally

A useful guide here

Who ships to Canada (and other countries where indicated)
American Eagle- Ships to Canada, but not other destinations
eBay- Make sure to check where the seller ships BEFORE bidding
NeimanMarcus.com- must call 1-888-888-4757
Bloomingdales.com- must call 001-1-513-573-8170 for international shipping
Bluefly.com- Bluefly ships to the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, and Switzerland. (other countries via Access-USA)
YOOX.COM- ships pretty much to every country in the world
Beauty.com and drugstore.com (via AccessUSA)
Bare Necessities- Ships to Canada.
figleaves.com- (via i’s UK site)
Torrid.com- Ships to most international destinations
LaneBryant.com- Ships to Canada Only. Must have a Canadian Billing and Shipping Address.
J Crew to Canada and Japan only

Who doesn’t ship to Canada
Gap.com
OldNavy.com
BananaRepublic.com
Nordstrom.com
SaksFifthAvenue
Bebe.com
SmartBargains.com
Spiegel.com
Newport-news.com
Zappos.com
Target.com
Macys.com

You might think what with the credit crunch they'd be begging for our funny foreign money, but no.

The thick/thin of calf are booted

I have these in purple suede from two years ago

Some of us are doomed from birth with chunky calves and there is nothing you can do about it. Indeed, sweating on the treadmill will only bulk those muscles up. So for decades knee length boots were only shangrila to me. There were other women whose knee-length boots flapped around their skinny calves but you couldn't expect me to feel sorry for them. At least they had boots.

And then there was Duo which has their Autumn range just in. You pick the boots you like, take a tape measure round your calf, measure at the widest point, fill in your shoe size, and there you are - matchstick calves or calves like milk bottles, they can fit you.

It's mail order unless you live in Bath or Manchester, where they have a shop, or go to one of their fitting rooms, where they have the full range. They measure you, you try them on, pay and they arrive a couple of days later in the post. Yes, they do ship internationally. I am embarrassed to say how many pairs I have, just let's concede that I've been buying a pair or two a year since I first stumbled across them.

Are they as stylish as boots by Marc Jacobs? No, but I can't have boots by Marc Jacobs.* Every year I manage to find something. There are fifty-eight styles this year.

* A saleswoman at Russell and Bromley told me that fifty per cent of the customers who came in looking for boots, could not find anything wide enough to buy.

NOTE for any of you who are thinking of ordering, I have always found Duo to be a really reputable firm with first class customer service. On one occasion, when I rang them with a problem with Royal Mail who had lost the package, they passed me on to the owner of the company who dealt with chasing it up personally. The sole (ouch) problem I have encountered is that on one occasion I found the shoe fitting of the boots too narrow and they had to be returned. My chief complaint is that I think their styles are always a season or two behind, but if the main lines won't make boots that fit, there's no other option.

Fun without needles

(Thank you greying pixie)

Some cruel types might observe that the women demonstrating the techniques has a) had botox and b) has either a bad case of rosacea or a heavy hand with the blusher brush

Banana Republic: The Jackson Fit

Well, ladies. This afternoon I went to the UK (and Europe's) only Banana Republic where they now have the entire Autumn range in. Before me, black trousers as far as the eye can see so I begin to go from rack to rack searching for the Jackson and I do not find them. Eventually, I ask a sales assistant, who marches purposefully to the rack I have just come from, swings round a ticket, and says, 'Oh!'

I traipse along behind her as she goes through all the racks I've been through and cannot find any Jacksons.

She goes off into the office, and when she returns she tells me that every single Jackson in every style, and every size has sold out, 'because they have turned out to be more popular than we expected.' The stock, she says, was ordered a year ago, nine months before the London store opened its doors and that the company had 'misread the market.'

There are more Jacksons coming in on Saturday and all I can say is, get in line.

The man behind Zara

Further to yesterday's post about Zara, there's another piece on its reclusive founder, Amancio Ortega Gaona. It's worth reading it all. Zara spends almost nothing on advertising, which itself keeps costs down. There is no 'face of'' Zara. As I said yesterday, I think its design is amazing, but the quality control is dire:

The 72-year-old son of a railway worker is now, according to Forbes, the seventh richest man in the world. He is astonishingly reclusive - only one known photo of him is in existence. He is thought to be deeply involved in all areas of the business, including design, but little is certain. Zara was one of the first to bulk-buy Chinese fabrics at a time when rivals dismissed them as of low quality. Zara legend has it that Ortega himself felt the cloth and made the decision, but as he has never given an interview we can't be sure.

He opened his first store in Galicia in 1975 and expanded slowly across Spain. In 1984, he met computer whizz Jose Castellano, who developed a production and distribution system that allowed clothing to go from drawing board to shop floor in as little as 10 days. Zara recruited a team of young designers - 200 at the last count - who created clothes inspired by the catwalk as well as adding their own ideas.

"So-called 'fast fashion' is now common in the high street," says Maureen Hinton, lead retail analyst at Verdict Research. "But before Zara arrived in the UK in 1999, all retailers offered three or four seasons. Zara introduces new stock every week, which caught our stores on the hop.""Zara has absolute control of the design, manufacturing and distribution process," explains Robert Clark, senior analyst at Retail Knowledge Bank. "Fifty per cent of its product is made in Spain, 26 per cent in the rest of Europe, and 24 per cent elsewhere. With others, 50 per cent or more is made in Asia. Fast-fashion items, roughly half its sales, are made in company-owned factories in Galicia. It's the basic T-shirt staples that are outsourced."

Although Zara owns its factories in order to speed up the process, this has also allowed it to dodge many of the sweatshop accusations that hound the likes of Primark - although in June it closed a textile supplier's factory in Dhaka over poor conditions, insisting that the factory introduce unions if it wanted to remain a Zara supplier.

Zara has overtaken Gap

In sales, that is, not style, which happened light years ago. But I have stopped buying Zara, however affectionately I remember its badly made dresses:

Unlike Gap, there isn't a definitive Zara look - it is so dedicated to following the twists and turns of fashion that its very lack of definition is key to its philosophy. It is as hard to pin down and as fast-moving as mercury. But it does do directional, it does great winter coats, (one of my most memorable buys was a bright yellow swing coat which reminded me of Courrèges in the Sixties) smart trenches and brilliant tuxedo evening trouser suits. It is capricious and fun. I don't always find something there, but I wouldn't dream of going more than a fortnight without a visit.

While Zara innovated, Gap never responded imaginatively to the arrival of the internet and its instant catwalk reports, or to the globalisation of production and demand. (Meanwhile, Zara was zipping from "inspiration" on a catwalk in Milan to a Zara production line in Spain and back to a store on the King's Road.) Or to the fact that we have all started dressing up more; we are all ladies who lunch now and, if necessary, invent events where we can dress up - just like Sex and the City - indeed the queues to get in to that movie were red-carpet gangs of girls wearing you-know-what.