So here it is, Merry Xmas

Today I was invited to a couple of Christmas press show previews, at Jaeger and Selfridge's.

I did Jaeger first, picking up a coat-dress which has just come in, which I spotted at the AW08 press show a few months ago. For once, they actually have this on the site and that's it above. Very mid-Sixties. To wear with a ribbed sweater beneath and wide-legged trousers and very high heels.

I really like the cashmere travel sets they had, which include suede-bottomed slippers, socks, an eye mask, and a blanket. What they probably give you when you travel BA First Class, but of course I wouldn't know, would I? Still, the frequent traveller can heavily hint to their spouse. Even better it's only going to be available on line so they don't even have to go into a shop full of frightening female things to get it. It will cost £199, but who can put a price on love, as the Mastercard ads are always telling us? There were also lots of snakeprint silver things, Swarovski make-up mirrors. A shoplifter's paradise, in fact.

The Jaeger London collection was extraordinarily cohesive. You saw all the work paying off, and the creation of a collection out of the London Fashion Week show.
And this was the piece that the fashion press this afternoon was oohing and aahing about from the forthcoming collection. The top is cleverly cut to resemble the front of a tuxedo. Difficult to see from the pic but a very good dress.

After that I somehow managed not to make it up the other end of Oxford Street in the last week of the sales when it was raining, to Selfridge's press preview. And missed a £43,000 teddy bear with emerald eyes and a solid gold nose. Or so I read in the Evening Standard on the tube. And was quite glad I had. Because in another part of the paper was a piece about children in London who can't go to school because they have no shoes.

63-year-old woman in a bikini

Goddess

Appeal to well-read readers . . .

Can anyone kindly identify which Edith Wharton novel this passage comes from? House of Mirth perhaps?

She had a few handsome dresses left- survivals of her last phase of splendour. . . as she spread them out on the bed, the scenes in which they had been worn rose vividly before her. An association lurked in every fold: each fall of lace and gleam of embroidery was like a letter in the record of her past. She was startled to find how the atmosphere of her old life enveloped her. . . She put back the dresses one by one, laying away with each some gleam of light, some note of laughter, some stray waft from the rose shores of pleasure.

Invisible man

Martin Margiela has never given an interview. He has never been photographed and almost no-one in the fashion industry knows what he looks like.

Since he started out, in 1988, the designer has never agreed to a single interview or been photographed for any magazine, however respected the title. Particularly in a climate where the superstar designer – from Jacobs to Prada, and from Tom Ford to Vivienne Westwood – might hardly be described as backwards in coming forward, one could be forgiven for thinking that Martin Margiela is a figment of the industry's imagination. And that's just fine by him. Suffice it to say that Martin Margiela makes Greta Garbo look like Victoria Beckham.

Both cheap and ethical

You can't see it very well in this picture but above is a cuff in tiny checks. A larger photo which came to my email inbox shows it better but won't copy.

The cuff is from People Tree, the ethical fashion company. This is who made it:

There is a dark side to the jewellery industry: The cheap, spangled jewellery that is all over the high street is often made using child labour in India because it's cheaper and children's small hands are more suited to creating intricate jewellery. However a Delhi child labourer will be routinely forced to work 12 hour days, working, eating and sleeping in the same cramped, poorly lit and ill ventilated workshop.

Even though jewellery is major business in India it is difficult to form labour unions because it's usually created by small producer groups. This means that the producers are rarely able to bargain for a fair price and are at the mercy of a long chain of middlemen.

Tara (Trade Alternative Reform Action) defends the rights of the poor, employing only adults, offering them advance payments so they can buy materials, and giving them the security of long term contracts.

They run campaigns against child labour and have established sixteen schools and vocational training centres for children from poor families, which over 700 child labourers have attended to date.

Mosim, a jewellery maker from one of TARA's beading groups said she puts her money in a savings account, which she is saving to put towards her dowry. The project allows her to learn a professional skill, earn an income and spend time with people her own age in a country that rarely allows women to leave the home. Mosim even made her first visit to Delhi recently to participate in Tara's annual producer meeting.

You can support Tara's work by buying the unique jewellery created by Mosim and the other TARA artisans.

It is reduced from £10 to £7 in the People Tree sale, about the price of lunch at Pret a Manger.

When I said wear a scarf, this isn't what I meant

Not tied round the head, for godsake.

Celia Walden in the Telegraph tries one on and does not like it.

According to Dennis Nothdruft, curator of London's Fashion and Textile Museum, this headscarf resurgence is about a new sense of chastity in fashion. "Before peasants used them to keep their heads cool, women wore headscarves in medieval times to maintain their modesty," he explains. "But it is also symptomatic of the economic downturn. If you can't afford to have your roots done, wear a headscarf to cover them up. Sociologically, it's about escapism."

Given that the fashion world likes nothing better than provocation, isn't it also a nod to Islam? "There's no doubt that we have a huge Muslim clientèle," agrees Alexander. "But this is more about a return to that elegant Grace Kelly era than anything else."

So, will this strange amalgam of royal homeliness, Muslim chic and proletarian pretence ever take off? Come autumn, will we be seeing women ambling down high streets or queueing at the cold meat counter in Waitrose, looking like Russian peasants?

"I do think we will be seeing a fair amount of headscarves around over the next few months," says Gaia Geddes, executive fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar. "But the fashion may be better suited to young girls, who will be able to pull it off with the right tongue-in-cheek manner."

Nearly six million Youtube viewers have seen this, and now I have

Rules are made to be broken

Here's a dress by McQueen. Well, you couln't wear it because it shows off the bingo wings etc. But hey, apparently by putting a top underneath it, you have made an edgy new look. Now personally, I would have thought that a top under a dress like that would look silly. But fashion says, no, it's okay now.

And now for something completely different

How to make a balloon dog

AW08 mid-market

The marketing executive of L.K. Bennett has left a comment in my post on the rise of the mid-market. She has provided a link to some of the pieces coming in for Autumn. Go take a look.

There are some very good tops.

Business Casual

I haven't inhabited the corporate world for a few years now. So, for all I know, thing may have changed. But somehow I doubt it.

How irritating were those invites to conferences or regional meetings that stipulated the dress code as 'business casual'. I mean , they should just have got off the pot and said: ' Chinos and polo shirts compulsory'.

This kind of mid -Atlantic look had become universally adopted in the business world as the uniform of the executive in mufti. Ralph Lauren for the North Americans and Lacoste for the Europeans, and likewise, deck shoes versus loafers.

I don't necessarily have anything against these items or styles of clothing; I do, after all,  wear polo shirts ( but not with a logo above the left breast). I may have been imagining it,  but at these gatherings I would often  pick up a tedious vibe of:  ' Look at me, no suit, what a dashing fascinating person I must be- I'm wearing a pink polo shirt'.

I guess one of the definitions of a tribe is a tendency to conformity. And business conferences are nothing if not tribal gatherings.

And maybe the organising principle behind this was right. After all, if you don't draw the line somewhere people might just turn up in cargo pants and flip -flops.

Which someone once did. What a surprise - he was Australian.

And I suppose it's a distinct possibility that everyone does that now.

Dresing up and down

I was at a wonderful party last night. It was billed as a drinks party, and the venue was a friend's flat in Central London. It was quite a family party: there was an 89-year-old aunt.

I noticed that all the women including that aunt, had dressed up beautifully. (I was in my new Karen Cole dress and my D&K shoes). The delectable handbag designer Lulu Guinness was wearing a sensational vintage Fifties black grosgrain dress with a flared skirt and a red rose at her waist. We talked about our outfits and she said that whatever the occasion now, she just dresses up. The dress gives her confidence.

And, like Carrie Bradshaw, I got to thinking. When did men
stop thinking that a suit was what you wore to dress up? And why oh why do most men look so damned boring? Even in London?

Cue Harry and his long-awaited piece on men and their uniforms . . .

The greatest travel writer you've never read

I have been pretty shocked in the past week or so to discover how many otherwise well-read people have never heard of Norman Lewis, who is without a doubt the greatest post-war travel writer.

His biography, Semi-Invisible Man, by Julian Evans, has just been published to mark Lewis' cententary. I first discovered him in the late Eighties and devoured his seminal work, Naples '44, about his time, during the war, as part of the Allied army of Occupation of Southern Italy following the collapse of the fascist regime in the south. It is achingly funny and rich in insights into that marvellous, untidy, erotic city.

Lewis' 1950 book on Indo-China, A Dragon Apparent, was in the suitcase of every educated journalist during the Vietnam war.

His elegyy for Spain just before the arrival of mass tourism in the Fifities, Voices of the Old Sea, and not published until 1984, is one of the five or six books I cherish.

I once had a brief correspondence with Lewis. I wish I could find the letters.

So just go and read him. And if you already have, then Julian Evans will be doing an event at Daunt's Books on Marylebone High Street on Wednesday. I'll be going.

And who buys couture?

asks the Sunday Times?

They are a new fashion type, these rich and pampered couture shoppers. Although their lifestyles are European (and specifically London), their cultures span the world — Korea, China, Venezuela. And what are they here for? Excess — in colour, proportion and, above all, decoration.

Yet there was little innovation. Like the husbands who pay the bills — anything from £50,000 to £150,000 for an elaborately jewelled creation — these women don’t give tuppence for the avant-garde. They want a waist where God intended; they don’t want flashes in embarrassing places and are bemused by garments with three sleeves. They want everything just as it always has been — at least, since the 1950s. And Paris couture survives by meeting their needs.

They have other demands, too, such as quality of the standard even the best ready-to-wear labels cannot provide. They also want exclusivity, so most couture houses have an unwritten policy of limiting sales of any £100,00-plus garment to one per continent, with first choice going to the most loyal customer. As one vendeuse told me: “There are no ceilings now — they have all been broken. These women have closets to die for. And they all pay cash.”

She sums up the market forces by confessing: “We can’t get enough crocodile bags, even though they sell for £20,000. Kurdistani millionaires’ wives buy them in every colour, which often means 10 identical bags.”

More or less

Unsuprisingly, the Sunday Times reports today that the fashion retail sector which is experiencing an upsurge is the middle market. Buyers are trading down from Harvey Nicks and trading up from M&S and Primart.

Many of the brands in this not-too-expensive, not-too-cheap niche are small compared with the retail giants. What sets them apart is a focus on quality, design and a commitment to producing fashion you might want to keep. In a tough economic climate, these values chime with the way we want to live now, and they are good for business. Jigsaw reported a substantial sales rise this year and is about to launch an e-commerce site. Banana Republic isn’t having a summer sale — because there is no left-over stock. Reiss and All Saints are expanding rapidly, and Jaeger posted a profit of £82m last year.

One of the most exciting fashion relaunches will also be in the middle market. I’ve had a sneak peek at the first collection by the former Topshop guru Jane Shepherdson for Whistles, and it is full of grown-up, gorgeous, covetable clothes.

A black jacket I bought at Whistles two and a half years ago for £175 has several years more life in it, in terms of both quality and style. I was looking in L.K. Bennett the other day, and the small number of pieces they have started to get in for Autumn look very promising, as do the shoes.

Death of a model

Dorian Leigh has died at the age of 91.

She was born in San Antonio, Texas, the plainest of four Parker sisters, her features too pronounced for the preference for plucked brows and rococo lips that prevailed through the 1930s. She married at college and had two children before her divorce in 1937. Her parents took her and the children back into their home in Queens, New York City, and her chemist father encouraged her in education. She studied calculus at New York University and went on an engineers' training programme. She worked first as a draughtsman for the navy and then on wings for the eastern aircraft division of General Motors, but quit, she claimed, because her suggested design improvements were rejected.

She then took a job as an advertising copywriter in New York. In need of extra money, she went to a model agency run by Harry Conover, who recognised her face as suddenly suited to the times. Leigh's age - 27 - was problematic, so he instructed her to tell Diana Vreeland, fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar, that she was 19. Vreeland ordered Leigh to leave the eyebrows alone and report back the next day to model a hat for the photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe, leading to her appearance on the cover for June. The movie Cover Girl, a montage of newsstand displays starring Rita Hayworth, was the fashion fantasy of 1944, and Leigh - the Parker was dropped out of courtesy to her family - was the sophisticated edition of Hayworth.

Leigh's real career as the zeitgeist began the next year. Charles Revson had added matching lipsticks to his Revlon nail enamels in 1940, and soon US wartime prosperity, which increased the purchasing power of working women, allowed him to advertise his lips and nails combos in full colour. For 1945's Poison Apple campaign, "the most tempting colour since Eve winked at Adam", Revlon hired Leigh as the face that lost paradise. She became the Revlon fantasy dame, starring regularly in its promotions, including the 1952 campaign for Fire and Ice, a Madison Avenue legend. Avedon shot her in faux-Balenciaga scarlet cape, and a dress with its front spangled with silver rhinestones. The questions on the spread suggested Leigh's unconventional character ("Do you sometimes feel that other women resent you?" "Do sables excite you, even on other women?") A senior advertising executive who hated it said Leigh looked like "a little tootsie whom the Aga Khan spotted on the Riviera". But Vogue thought her classy, and ran it big. Leigh had introduced sister Suzy to the Eileen and Jerry Ford agency, and she succeeded Leigh as Revlon goddess.

People were more interesting in the olden days.

Pure cashmere half price

So do you want 50% on a wide selection of the world's finest summer-weight cashmere!

Obviously, you do.

Men and their handbags

On the tube today, four suits got on and proceeded to hold a business meeting in the middle of the carriage. Two of the suits were in their 50s and the other two in their late 20s. I noticed that the older suits both carried briefcases while the younger suits both carried small back-packs over one shoulder. Like a shoulder bag.

Harry tells me that the back-pack is the new briefcase and hence the briefcase is the sign that you are out of the loop, style-wise. I never knew that.

Apparently during his career as a high-flying executive, he pretty much pioneered this look.

The Great Outdoors

It's that time of year when London experiences a surge in the number of short term visitors. Tourists used to be easy to spot; garish casual clothes and a camera slung round the neck. Now they are just as easy to recognise, but they seem to take up so much more space.

Their uniform has become that of the great outdoors. Cargo pants with a  seemingly infinite number of pockets, weather-proof jackets in space -age materials ( and more pockets), a day sack overloaded with water bottles and technology, and trekking footwear that is at least twice the size of ordinary shoes.

I'm all for dressing appropriately for the conditions. And much of this gear is eminently suitable for striking out into the wilderness. But I am curious as to how this has become the chosen apparel for city visitors. When you see a group of them together they look like a gaggle of mature anthropologists on a field trip. 

I guess it may be due to all those headlines about the perils of  city life. So could it be that those cargo pockets are stuffed with self defence equipment, distress flares, and emergency rations?

It's not just visitors who have recently stepped off a 747. This also includes indigenous parties who arrive at a London mainline station from the depths of Surrey or Hertfordshire looking like they must have got on the wrong train. Surely, kitted out like that, they meant to end up on the Yorkshire Moors.

Well, it's their choice. But I am left musing whether this is what they wear at weekends at home. Do they dress like this to go shopping?

Pop Quiz! The correct answer

a) Incorrect. There are very few men who can get away with answering yes to this question and they have names like Marc Jacobs, Paul Smith, Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, and with the exception of Mr Smith none are like to find themselves in the scenario envisaged. Unless you can nip into the spare room, get out the sewing machine and whip up a little couture number for your beloved which will correct the appearance of fatness, leave this one alone

b) Incorrect. On the face of it, a bald no might be seen as get out of jail free card but most women will see through this obvious ploy. A No can be pulled off if, through a great deal of practise, the Man gives the Woman a studied and authoritative gaze, as if he is making a finely-judged assessment a. But she'll still feel like she's being looked up and down like a sow at the fair. She does not want you to have to look her all over, she wants the answer to be obvious.

c) Absolutely incorrect. This answer will quickly be decoded for its true meaning: 'Listen, chubbychops, we all know you look like the back of a barn and no-one at the party but me could possibly fancy you, so let's get a move on.'

d) Correct. Notice what happens in this brief response. In part A of the sentence the Man gives the Woman what she was actually after, an instant reward for all her labours in the bedroom, Wow. But notice Part B where, before the Woman can begin to ask supplementaries, he adroitly changes the subject, putting HER on the defensive. At this point the Woman will point to her wristwatch and say, 'Never mind that, will you just put that silly book away and get your coat on, or we'll be late.

After utilising this simple gambit two or three times, the question will cease to be asked.

This may on the surface seem to be an aid to men in their war against we sisters, but actually, I think that asking a man if you look fat is a hiding to nothing because you will never get an honest answer, and if you did, would you actually want it? Best to have gone to a really good shop to buy the dress in the first place, where they will not have let you leave with a party dress that makes you look fat.