The Man With The Yellow Trousers

*WARNING* Contains shallow class-based generalisations

On Thursday morning, the man sitting opposite me on the train was wearing a magnificent pair of yellow corduroy trousers.

In this photo, the colour is not displayed in all its true and dazzling vibrancy on account of the glare through the window. But believe. Daffodils. Buttercups. Colman's mustard. Cartoon bananas. Yellow peppers. Yellow crocuses. Other things that are way yellow. That is the kind of yellow we are talking about. He had the yellowness turned up to yellowven. I'm sorry. I haven't done this for two weeks. Forgive me.

Being acutely aware of my recent period of non-posting, I thought I may have found the perfect way to break my drought. I would become for one day only – or possibly more if it went, like, really really well – a street style blogger (like this or this). Here is a genre that's really hit a peak since I began this blog three years ago, and there's nothing I like more than being slightly late to a party. As I travelled through the city that day, I thought to myself – all the way from Dulwich to Islington and back again – my trusty yet furtively operated iphone camera would capture the fashion flashpoints of all those idiosyncratic tastemakers that make London the coolest city in the world. Apart from Tokyo. And probably New York. And I should point out that I've never actually been to Split, so for all I know they could really be pushing the asymmetrically cut style envelope over there.

Two basic problems here.

Firstly, I kept getting distracted and failing to notice what people were wearing. Secondly, when I did remember, I didn't really see anyone else wearing anything so worthy of a double take. Really, people do mostly wear bland shoes and black and denim clothes. Although I did like these ladies with matching hair, who I saw while I was waiting for my lunch dates at Angel station.

So then I was left with a photo of a man in yellow trousers and a desperate need for a new blogpost.

So I kept thinking about the yellow trousers – and the man inside them. He had a certain air of well-to-do about him. Distinguished, I might say. You may be able to discern this yourself from the sturdy brown shoes visible in the photo. To me, they say, 'I'm just going to take a relaxed yet purposeful stride around my vast country estate', as well as, 'Then I will put on a striped shirt and a blazer and enjoy an evening of light orchestral music in the expensive seats of the Royal Festival Hall.' He is also carrying a classy-looking leather binder (just seen, as we say in the world of fashion-photo captioning), which may contain information on his portfolio of stocks and shares, or perhaps just a copy of The Beano or a cut-out crossword puzzle from the Telegraph.

It occurred to me that apart from the young, skinny and hip, the only other men I had seen wearing below-the-waist colours of this intensity were... well... a bit posh. I know this is a gross generalisation. You were warned. But a former neighbour of mine was a good example of this correlation. He was a lovely man, plummy but poorer than you'd expect, primarily as a result of spending his working life trying to make things better for people less fortunate than himself which, as it turns out, doesn't pay quite as well as one might think it should. I provide this information so you will understand how he was my neighbour, and thus living in a one-bedroomed Victorian terraced flat conversion in southeast London, and not, say, a glass penthouse in Chelsea Harbour. Anyway. I would often hear the front door slam and look out of the window to see him striding in the direction of the bus stop wearing a pair of pink or scarlet jeans, as bright as a tulip.

What is the connection between the posh and their lurid pants? I welcome your theories. I have three of them:

1) I wonder if it is related to the innate, achieve-anything confidence that often seems to come with what someone in a BBC costume drama might call 'good breeding'. "Who says that just because I am not technically young, skinny and hip, I can't wear these trousers? It is my BIRTHRIGHT! And now I will climb The Matterhorn! And then do some motivational speaking. And then I will buy a 6-BEDROOMED house in FULHAM."

2) The reason posh people have money is because they are deeply, and secretly, thrifty. They only buy clothes that are heavily reduced in the sales, which means they only wear clothes rejected by the majority of shoppers who – as I have established during my street-style blogging research – plump for black, brown and denim. Not yellow, green and hot pink.

3) It is some tiny act of rebellion against the charcoal and tweed, traditions and tedium, of their social strata. 'I may have lived a childhood of rules and repression at boarding school, and still feel the need to ask permission every time I go to the toilet, but LOOK AT MY TROUSERS. I'M SO ALIVE!'

Olympic update

When you are blindly, brilliantly in love, it just means that the cosmos has directed you towards your beloved solely on account of your ability to find endearing those flaws in them that others can't stand.

Take me. I thought I loved the Olympics. I learnt to love Mandeville and Wenlock, the two much-maligned mascots. I came to look fondly on their googly eyes and longed to ruffle their shiny, non-existant hair. I felt funny in my tummy every time I took a train eastwards out of London and saw that stadium-in-progress.

But, but, but... I have come to doubt my feelings because, try as I might, and lord knows I have, I just cannot learn to love this:


That logo. I just can't look it in its five eyes and pretend everything's OK with us. I wish I could.

This logo was extravagantly embossed (well, OK, just printed, if you must) on an invitation to the launch of a more-up-than-down-but-not-really-all-that-upmarket jewellery label's Olympic-themed collection, which was orginally addressed to my friend Miss W, who kindly gave it to me, as she knows I like That Kind Of Thing.

It was an upmarket invitation. Feel the thickness.

Mmmm, the thrill of luxury stationery.

I'm glad they went big-budget with the cardboard because, given the design concepts greenlit thus far, Olympics-wise, I'm not exactly holding out for the collection.

What can we possibly expect from Olympic-themed jewellery? Giant five-ringed pendants on hefty chains, reminiscent of the Beastie Boys' VW period? A big knuckle-duster of a ring that spans your whole hand, with a different coloured Olympic ring on each finger (there are too many senses of the word 'ring' going on in this paragraph for my liking). I think this was Miss W's idea. You can tell from this that she works in fashion. Another of her ideas was a tiny solid silver javelin to wear through your septum. I expect her to have her own line in Elizabeth Duke any day now.

What else? Well, if this is to be the second coming of the austerity Olympics – the sustainable Olympics, I may have heard it called – after the excesses of Beijing, then we must reuse and recycle, we must make, do and mend, we must make enthusiastic noises about natural resources and hoary craftspeople. I would like see spectacular tribal necklaces featuring feathers moulted by London's pigeons and harvested from the pavements of Trafalgar Square. I would like to see bracelets woven from the balls of dust and human hair found in the tunnels of London underground. I would like to see bangles and cuffs as red and shiny as London's iconic buses, and made from the bendy ones that are destined for the scrapheap. I would like to see chunky papier mâché beads made by primary school children throughout London's boroughs from free newspapers and magazines found discarded on various means of public transport.

Perhaps you have your own ideas. I will not be wearing any of them, obviously. Yours or mine. Or anyone else's, most likely.

In other Olympic news, despite my then-irrational infant loathing of Sebastian Coe, you can imagine that I was still thrilled to see this in my inbox.

Field music

I have been on a field trip this weekend, deep in Hyde Park, under the al fresco celebrity patronage of Stevie Wonder (Saturday) and Paul McCartney (Sunday). It was extremely kind of both these very busy men to arrange large-scale concerts purely to facilitate my work.

Here I have recorded my findings.

WARNING! Contains Level 2 swearing, specifically 'piss', 'twat' and 'wanker'.

1) A surprising number of women have undertaken the formidable fashion challenge of the jumpsuit. Well done, you plucky number. Apologies for expecting you, any minute, to break into some belly-dancing evening class dance-of-the-veils (for the strapless voluminous versions) or inhale sharply through your teeth and assert that you won't be able to come back and finish the job for more than a week as these boilers are notoriously tricky to source parts for (for the rest). I'm not very 'fashion' these days. (You see how I have carefully seeded the wholly erroneous impression that I once was. Smoke and mirrors, my friends, smoke and mirrors.)

2) The mass uptake of maxi dresses has become an epidemic. I'm yet to be struck down with total conviction, despite having bought one from New Look recently to wear to a wedding on Saturday, at which I anticipate there will be at least two other women in the same dress, all much, much more tanned than me. Not such an achievement since I am definitively the whitest woman in Europe, and thus, most likely, the world. The lure of the maxi would appear to be that it hides the now proverbial multitude of sins, but I fear that for all except the most willowy, it makes you look like you are all sin, giving the effect, from the neck down, of a Dalek in a valance.

3) When it comes to sun cream, more would appear to be more.

4) Sweet, sweet wanker-related schadenfreude is an intoxicating drug. Example: mouthy, beer-and-sunshine-marinated moron, balding, mid 30s – let's call him Pork Pie Hat Twat – attempting to persuade a much younger, cooler bloke to share his spliff (my lexicon of drug words is approximately at the level of Cliff Richard, probably), because we're alike, you and me, even though you are much younger and better-looking. I get you, you get me, yeah? We're just vibing off each other. My weed is your weed. Even though this is mostly your weed. We're like brothers, right? And no one's gonna stop us smoking a very small amount of soft drugs right in the middle of a 50,000 crowd of people and thus far from the eyes of any kind of authority whatsoever.

It has come to my attention through my recent concert-going history that the unsociable troublemakers at such events - testing the staff, vexing their meeker counterparts in the audience – are not 17-year-kids attempting to shrug off authority pre-adulthood, but despo 35-year-olds trying to assert that even though they now have a middle-management job at HSBC, a gold membership at Fitness First and a gas barbecue, they are STILL PRETTY REBELLIOUS. YEAHH! I'M TOTALLY STANDING ON MY SEAT, EVEN THOUGH I HAVE BEEN TOLD TO GET DOWN BY A SECURITY GUARD! SCREW YOU, 'THE MAN'! I AM INVINCIBLE!

Urgh.

Anyway, Pork Pie Hat Twat's phoney, stoney bonhomie was slapped down with such a gratifying look of 'Seriously, mate. Not. Cool,' by the younger man smoking, it was a privilege to witness it. There followed a short but embarrassing scene of begging which was dealt with mercifully swiftly.

(By the way, Pork Pie Hat Twat, Sainsbury's called. That white raffia trilby you're wearing belongs strictly behind their deli counter, on the head of someone who slices up finest breaded ham, and occasionally their own digits, for a living.)

5. In happier findings, it has now been proved that it is possible for me to emerge from a gig in Hyde Park without someone else's piss on my feet. At an REM gig a few years ago, in the so-called Golden Circle (sometimes the jokes don't even need writing), the man next to me pissed on the ground twice, showering my toes in splashback. On Saturday, Pork Pie Hat Twat's friend pissed in an empty beer bottle in front of me, set it down on the floor, and almost immediately knocked it over doing the type of dancing favoured by overweight men at Oasis concerts, sending a shallow tide of human waste towards my sandals. Luckily, this kind of thing doesn't seem to happen at a Paul McCartney concert. Some members of the audience would probably rather be voluntarily catheterised than have to urinate in a public place, or, in some cases, even use a Portaloo.

6) If you are a blind 60-year-old soul-funk pioneer, derided for some saccharinely commercial hits later on in your career, and now filling out those spangly, slightly tribal smocks a little more than you used to, I would suggest that performing an elaborate keytar solo lying down on the floor of the stage, during the very first number of your set, is a pretty cool way to prove that you've Still Got It.

7) All the Autumn Sunset hair dye and Frog Choruses in the world could not stop me loving Paul McCartney. Nor any amount of 'groovy' dad-banter:

'Who's ready to have some rocking fun tonight?'

Answer: ME.

This is the advert

Can somebody cooler than me – and here you must suspend your disbelief, for I'm telling you that these people really do exist – explain the concept behind this season's French Connection adverts?

If you haven't seen them, they focus on a man, who is called 'the man', and a woman, who is called 'the woman', and they feature a series of pictures and some artfully emotionless slogans.

'The woman' is chic, gamine and just the right amount of hunted cartoon woodland animal.

'No, hunters, don't shoot me! While it will enable my son to experience a character-defining rite of passage, it will traumatise thousands of young cinema-goers all over the world.'

The man, meanwhile, is brooding and bearded in a way that goes beyond the type who might be sexily taciturn and build you some furniture out of reclaimed wood, and out the other side into Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

And I speak as someone who LOVES Tom Hanks. He collects typewriters. What is not to love?

I feel that perhaps French Connection are channelling some masterpiece of French cinema that I have never seen. I think I mostly think this because a number of the slogans sound like they are written by someone doing a bad impression of Jean-Paul Gaultier. Who is French.

But wait – some are written like Peter & Jane Go To The Advertising Agency.

What is in the model's bag? A cake. The model likes cake. She does not eat cake. 'I eat cake,' says Peter. 'I eat cake but then feel wracked with guilt and self-loathing afterwards,' says Jane.

Never mind, Peter and Jane, today we will be learning about questions.

Reassuringly, though, some of the adverts do incorporate a modern staple of style speak – what I call the diminished fashion plural.

The shoulder is very special.

I'm wearing a daytime sequin.

I'm teaming this trouser with a heel.

With my generously-proportioned lower body, I simply can't do a skinny jean.

And so on.

But while the shoulder may be special this season, good shoulder health is apparently OUT for spring/summer 10. Look at this:

This is how she stands, is it? Well, edgy fashion stylists, how she stands will one day culminate in this beautiful young lady – who admittedly needs to get that hair out of her eyes because you can't see that pretty face – becoming the kind of pensioner who cannot elevate her upper body higher than 90 degrees to the pavement.

Fashion stylists seem hell-bent on jamming models into this kind of pose. But why? Because they are wreaking some kind of bitter, jealous vengeance on those extraordinary, elegant, elongated young bodies? Because it's cool?

Hear this, stylists. Bad posture = not cool.

I have yet to see a hunchback in Dazed & Confused magazine.

I have yet to read Dazed & Confused magazine, if I'm absolutely honest.

Here's another pouting uber-slouch:

French Connections's summer must-have? The bright floral shift-dress. Mine? Lower lumber support.

The final advert that I have hamfistedly scanned reflects my own reaction to the campaign…

Topshop dispatches part 249

Statement jewellery:

What do you think? Too much?

It's alright, I didn't buy it. I got this instead:

Knitwear news

Winter is creeping in. How do I know this? Because it's a) cold, b) dark and c) because you start seeing pavement-kill knitwear hung up on walls, hedges and fences - like these gloves, which I saw on my walk to the station one morning last week (What is more sinister than a belted glove? I will tell you: a leather belted glove. Brrr):

Most days, you avert your eyes from the woolly carnage. You turn the other rosy winter cheek. You've got both your gloves, thanks, your hands are nice and warm and you aren't that interested in a damp, trampled child's mitten. But on another day last week, I saw this:

Wait, hang on… that looks like… is it…? Yes. It is. It is a Jo Gordon scarf. A beautiful Jo Gordon scarf. Precisely the kind of scarf, in fact, that I have coveted for years. The kind that is four times as expensive as the usual scarves I buy. Also, I really like stripes. Look, here are some of my other scarves:

Soon, my brain was grappling with the politics of keeping the pavement-kill scarf. Firstly, given its obvious superior quality, it had clearly been lost, not abandoned. Its owner had simply failed to notice it being lifted away by the breeze, so intent was she (I'm assuming) on pedalling the bicycle-cum-wheelbarrow that steel-thighed middle-class mums now like to transport their brood to school in. Or it had been mangled under the wheels of a pushchair. In picking it up off the wall, I would, to the passing and curious, look like a) a thief or b) a vagrant. Unless… I picked it up with a kind of fabricated whoop of relief, a Surprised Face and a cry of, 'Thank God, it's found. My scarf! MY scarf. I've felt so worried! And so poor because it's really expensive. And also stripey.' To be honest, this was a tall order for my GCSE in drama.

Anyway, whichever way I chose to appropriate the scarf, it was a high-risk operation given the insularity of Dulwich's middle-class hangouts. I could never relax and enjoy a roasted vegetable and tapenade sandwich in one of the area's lifestyle cafes, or join the snaking queue outside the organic butcher, for fear of someone tapping me on the shoulder and saying apologetically, 'Excuse me, I think you might be wearing my scarf..?' In which instance, I would obviously have to say, 'No! Of course not! What on earth do you mean? What's that? A name tape? Oh yes. Yes, that's my name. Oh, it's yours too. What an ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE COINCIDENCE.'

I did not take the scarf. The next morning, it was gone. But a little further down the road I saw this:

A banana skin, on a narrow wall, under a tree. So, maybe that scarf had been left out in the cold to make me look like an idiot if I couldn't help but take it. And now, someone was trying to play one of the neighbourhood squirrels for a fool.

What not to wear

Here is a screengrab from the front page of Ebay earlier today.

Ebay are suggesting that the black velvet number above is a dress you might want to wear to your Prom.

I am suggesting that if this is the dress you wear to your Prom, you will spend most of the evening crying in the toilets, while mocking shouts of 'Oi! Jane Eyre! Who's in your attic?' ring in your ears.

You have surprisingly literate bullies at your school.

When good words join together to make bad words

There is much talk of make, do and mend at the moment. We are all being encouraged to grow, to stitch, to wash and to weld, in order to extend and reinvent the lives of old things, and deny the need to buy any new ones.

However, I see no reason that this creed of thriftiness should extend to words. It does not, as far as I am aware, cost anything to create new words. It is totally free, and the sky's the limit. There is no need to clumsily drive two old words headlong into each other until the life is crushed out of both of them, and we are left rubbernecking at a distressing etymological accident such as this, which I saw in the classified ad pages of a fashion magazine this week…

I am talking of the 'saress', a garment specially designed to be worn when people called Sarah are playing chess. Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud has the asymmetric version in the neon pink colourway. Sarah Palin has one with the stars and stripes on it, although she is still learning to play chess. No, wait. It's not that. The saress is a wildly practical combination of sarong and dress, and it is enjoying its fashion moment right now*.

The style press are some of the worst offenders when it comes to this type of caper. Their heavy-handed enthusiasm for forcing the suffix '-ista' into an unwelcome arranged marriage with any modish prefix going is exhausting. Fashionista, recessionista, frugalista, always with the istas.

If you are a follower of fashion, as I know you are, this mauling of the language is nothing new to you. You will be sitting at your computer or handheld telecommunication device wearing jeggings (what happens when a pair of jeans and a pair of leggings make fashion love and spawn a garment whose potential for unflatteringness – and that, I can assure you, is an actual word – is significantly greater than the sum of its parts). While you are reading, at the back of your mind you may be wondering if your shboots will hold up for another season, both in terms of the weather forecast, and the style forecast. Heh, I should totally work for women's magazines. Oh wait…

But forget the saress, the jeggings and the shboot. Because this time next year, everyone will be talking about the dungawrong - my own sartorial cocktail of sarong, dungarees and ill-conceived wordplay. When you see some young style pioneer like Rihanna pictured out on the town in a few months in an oversized tea towel held up by braces, a capacious, central two-hander pocket to the front, don't forget where you heard it first.

*No, it is not.

Cut me, I bleed cool

It's true to say that when it comes to fashion advice, this blog is not necessarily your one-stop shop. But what is that gentle breath you feel upon your cheek? It is the winds of change.

We are opening the Style Bible 2.0 with the delicate art of accessorising. This is a balancing act indeed. Merely the injudicious addition of a gold chain can take you from Sevigny (Chloe) to Savile (Jimmy) in a semi-precious flash.

It is best to take as your base a timeless item of tailoring, perhaps a vintage Marc Jacobs blouse – and I cannot stress enough that this is a purely hypothetical example – that you were especially pleased/smug at finding tucked away in a second-hand shop in Norfolk. But I am not suggesting you set this off with a waisted belt, a classic clutch or piece of statement jewellery. Fashion is about pushing boundaries. I am urging you to unconsciously deposit a thick strand of banana rind on your chest, preferably somewhere near the blouse's defining feature – in this case, a large bow – in order to draw the eye in.

The banana rind is really enjoying its fashion moment. It is organic, ethically produced from sustainable materials, and will provoke fascinated glances from passers-by. These people are now your style disciples. It is more effective, more edgy, more totally now than, say, a cappuccino five o'clock shadow, a piece of toilet paper stuck to the sole of your shoe, or having the back of your skirt tucked into your knickers. I do, however, recommend wearing it for at least half an hour, while you walk down a busy Saturday-morning suburban street, and around a hectic station concourse, before removing it in the privacy of your train seat.

[Top, £40, vintage Marc Jacobs; bag and cardigan (just seen), stylist's own; banana, 30p, Marks & Spencer]

Next time: how to make your summer-sandal scabs totally 2009!

Tomorrow we work, today we wear wellies

Of course, today's snow represented a temporary respite from financial meltdown and impending apocalypse, and the chance to regress to the unbridled childhood joy of snowball fights and a county-wide school shut-down.  

But more importantly, it justified the impulse purchase of those fur-lined wellingtons from an Orla Kiely sample sale.

For The Shennan, it was a chance to take the salmon-pink legwarmers out for a spin. 

Schwing!

One of the pictures below is a detail from a fashion story in the latest issue of British Elle. One is a detail from Wayne's World. Can you guess which is which?

Extreme close-up!

Victim Of Geography

It has come to my attention that my expensive new coat, which I believed made me look (from the neck down at least) like Mariella Frostrup at the Hay-On Wye-festival actually makes me look like a middle-aged geography teacher on a field trip. 

Luckily my love of the cagoule and its related garments is sufficiently strong that I can withstand the force of this blow.

And perhaps that is what I'm meant to be doing with the rest of my life. Finally I have glimpsed my future in mirrors and shop windows. I will go forth and spread the gospel of the ox-bow lake.

What fresh hell is this?

Following the boot/stiletto unishoe, and the shirt/jumper combigarment of my previous post, today in Dorothy Perkins I stumbled upon further joined-up madness in the dregs of the sale. A shirt (nice) sewn onto a skirt (OKish) to make a dress (TOTALLY DERANGED). Where will it all end? I will tell you. One day in the not-too-distant future every one of us will be wearing all-in-one adult babygros with hoods and laughing as we remember the dark days of separates.

I hung the skirt-shirt-dress on the end of the rail while I fumbled with the camera on my phone, and during this time someone actually picked the fabric behemoth up with genuine enthusiasm slash admiration. They proceeded to hold it up against themselves for several minutes in the mirror. Readers, I knew not whether to laugh or cry. As they pondered, I noticed them doing their Trying On Clothes face. Everyone has one – a highly individual combination of scepticism and studied nonchalance. In the same way, everyone has a Photo Face – the expression they effect when posing for a picture, which they think portrays them to their best advantage, and disguises their least favourite part. Most people's expressions are identical in any posed picture you see of them – in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, at a birthday party, to the left-hand side of the bride.

Mrs Jones, in her own words, 'can't wear hats' and I believe this is entirely due to her Hat Face, which is at once apologetic and embarrassed, so that as soon as she tries on any kind of headgear, it immediately looks all wrong. Confidence is key. The confidence to wear a hat. The confidence to know something looks good or not. The confidence to match your own stupid clothes together. 

And big breath in and out.

And I'm moving on.

These boots are made for burning

I would like to be able to pretend to you, friends, that life is all swiss roll and mild sexual content, but the fact is, there are darker forces at work, all around us, all the time, and I cannot hide this from you. At any moment, we may turn a corner, only to be assailed by Fear and Pain, waiting to jam a sprig of unlucky heather into our buttonholes.

It happened to me today. No, no, don't worry, I'm OK. You know, in myself. But this morning I turned the page of the magazine I was flicking through, only for my eyes to be maimed by the sight of the Ugliest Shoes In The World.

I'm sorry that I have to visit them upon you in turn, but you cannot run from real life. And the truth is that someone, somewhere, finished the manufacturing of these boots, and said, metaphorically or otherwise, 'Hey guys, look what we made! High five!'

I think with their patent detailing, they may be essaying some essence of brogue. But what they actually look like is a pair of not very nice brown suede boots, with a pair of not very nice black stiletto sandals worn over the top. This, however, is such a repellant notion which goes utterly against all that is natural and right, that your brain refuses to entertain it – and instead thinks it is looking at a pair of bare legs which are actually made of brown suede, wearing a pair of black patent slingbacks. Which in turn would suggest, if you are the hapless wearer, that:

a) your depilatory and moisturising routines could use some attention

b) you are probably choosing to present your legs as being a dramatically different skin tone to the rest of your body

c) you are one half of a pantomime horse.

The composite garment is, any form, a wretched and deceiving creature. You're enjoying some recreational shopping. You're admiring a shirt, which appears to be displayed in a 'serving suggestion' style, beneath a sleeveless jumper, on a hanger. However, when you try to separate them you find they are stitched together, and the shirt you have fallen for is no more than two sleeves, a collar and half a decolletage. Oh yes, you can wear it, but only with the tank top that they – the Fashion 'System' – have deemed its perfect partner. Well, comrades, I will not be told. If I want to wear a tank top with nothing underneath – like some kind of sleeveless Michael Douglas-at-the-disco in Basic Instinct – that is exactly what I will do, and damn the chafing. If I want to own a blouse that is made from more material than the average handkerchief, I will not be stayed.

This Frankenstein vestment is, in my experience, found in shops who imagine their customers to be busy career girls on the go, women who actually admit to having a working wardrobe. Oh yes, one of these superwomen can multi-task – breastfeeding triplets while simultaneously doing pilates and giving a presentation on corporate response to climate change – but can she select, and furthermore put on, two different items of top-half clothing in the morning? Oof, give her a chance. We only got the vote in 1928. Baby steps.

It'll never be over for me

I worry a good deal about one particularly sad day that draws ever nearer. And that is the day when I am T.O.F.T. – Too Old For Topshop. I am thinking about trying to sell that acronym to the marketing monkeys who valiantly work to create these demographic short-cuts, yet who are constantly undermined by the time it takes to explain what they mean.

Sometimes, as I am tutting over whatever ludicrous music is playing on the giant video screens (I mourn the demise of Radio Topshop – what are you meant to do if you lose your companions in the phone-signal-proof basement, or you're on a shop-date and want to request Careless Whisper?) or standing in front of a mirror in the middle of the shop squeezing a dress on over my own slightly mumsy jeans because I can't be bothered to queue for the changing rooms, I catch a long-limbed teen in shorts looking me up and down with barely contained derision.

I am going to work on writing shorter sentences. That was ludicrous.  

Anyway, at these times I wonder exactly when a dour security guard will sidle over, whisper in my ear, then lead me discreetly but firmly by the elbow to an unmarked door. On the other side, I'll be shoved down a size-14-and-over shaped rubbish chute, and I'll be falling, falling, until I tumble, dusty and disoriented, through an exposed-brick faux-fireplace into a branch of Jigsaw. So far, I've always left the way I walked in, albeit a mysterious three hours later after falling victim to the Topshop Time-Lapse Continuum. But still – tick tock, Miss Jones.

One of the signs that The Time Is Coming is the fact that I am ever-more baffled by some of Topshop's merchandise – and never more so than when I saw these just the other day:

They are bowler hats in glorious 80s tones of Lady Diana royal blue and what I can only call 'hot' pink. They may turn out to be the autumn/winter headgear of choice for Peaches Geldof, but they just made me think of Torvill and Dean doing Barnum – or was it Mack And Mabel? And if you can remember either of these, you may just have ticked one of the boxes on the women's magazine survey entitled 'Are you T.O.F.T.?' 

(When I got home, I did some research on both those Torvill and Dean routines, and discovered that no bowler hats were featured in either. This is another Bad Sign for my future in Topshop – I am hallucinating about ice dancers and bowler hats through sheer mental decline, rather than an indulge in any modish young people's  recreational drugs.)

In short, I'm just not feeling the neon-bright bowler. It smacks of the circus – and while burlesque may have been assimilated by fashionistas the world over, I'm not expecting to see Anna Wintour on a unicycle any time soon, or Zac Posen sending models down the catwalk in cardboard clown cars, throwing buckets of glitter over the front row. So is it time for me to bid so long, farewell to To'Sho'?

Wait a minute. There is one tiny thing in my favour, and I plan to cling to it, like a spaniel clings to a tennis ball. I am exactly the same age, to the very day, as the empress of Topshop, Katherine Anne Moss. When it's over for her, it's over for me. The day Moss turns her back on TS and steps out in a Debenhams twinset is the day I ride down that magical Oxford Circus escalator for the last time. Which makes me quietly confident that, as Timi Yuro once said, it'll never be over for me. 

The Temptations Of TK Maxx

Dig if you will, as Prince once said, the picture. You are shopping in Lewisham, in one of its many knock-down, cut-price shopping palaces. To be specific, you are in the Temple Of TK Maxx. You have in your hands a piece of Alexander McQueen. Proper actual McQueen. Not McQueen for Topshop. Not McQueen stitched by destitute Chinese orphans and sold by ruthless agents of deception on Ebay. The genuine article, in your increasingly damp grip. And that is not all. There is more jammed onto the rails in front of you. And it is reduced by 80 whole per cent. 80! 

What is the catch? You must, I'm afraid, be willing to channel Raisa Gorbachev as a style icon

Or a look that I'm calling Rodeo Cher.

Pink, Paxman and peppermint creams

I was on my way home from returning the Ill-Advised Tartan last night – just managing to limbo under the 28-day-returns threshold – when I saw someone else, an actual celebrity and a Proper, Clever One too, experiencing an episode of wardrobe dementia. There, pacing up and down London Bridge waiting to film something almost certainly involving his Eyebrows Of Scepticism And Also Of Sternness, was Jeremy Paxman, over-coordinating his hot-pink shirt with a hot-pink face. Times are hard for the BBC, of course, but you'd think one of his skeleton filming crew would have had a second to look up from their multi-tasking and politely say, 'Excuse me, Jeremy, do you have another shirt? It's just that yours is kind of the same colour as your face. If it wasn't for your hair, you'd look like a walking suit with shoes.' Something else they might say is, 'Jeremy, can we have a conversation about sun block?' And also, 'Jeremy, I know we are colleagues and everything, but you are looking kind of hot for 58.'

In other news, I was excited to see a Fry's Peppermint Cream on sale in Holland & Barrett today. Excited, of course, for two reasons. Firstly, despite being made exclusively from chocolate and sugar, the Peppermint Cream appears to have officially qualified as a health food. And secondly, I'd come to believe that the Fry's Peppermint Cream had become the JD Salinger of chocolate bars. If it wasn't for Dulwich's original, and most magical, branch of Hope & Greenwood, I would rarely come across one, since its place on the cornershop chocolate smorgasbord seems to have been usurped by depraved varieties of KitKat and laboratory-concocted Frankenstein-style energy bars. I miss the elegance of the Fry's brand (apart from the blandness of the plain old Billy No-Flavour Chocolate Cream). Anyway, disappointment was looming, of course. When I opened it back at my desk, I found the chocolate was covered in that mysterious white bloom common to bars of chocolate given to you by your grandparents. Then I noticed it was past its sell-by date. This, of course, had only made it entirely at home in its lodgings on Camden High Street.

Hey big spender

In addition to War And Peace and the works of Charles Dickens, one of the many noteworthy and cultish books I haven't read is The Bible. 

Yet recently I have been practising something that I understand from popular culture to be one of its tenets – turning the other cheek. I have been performing this gesture not in the face of hostility and aggression but in the face of items of clothing I cannot afford in a variety of high-street and online outlets.

Around two and half years ago, I dropped out of 'the system' – yeah, you heard me, stiffs – by giving up my middle-management job in magazine publishing. Shortly after, I turned back to 'the system' as it did pay quite well, but this time as a free agent, with my new-found sense of liberty tempered by a 30% pay cut. It's taken me about two and a half years to comprehend that this means I don't earn as much as I used to. These days I live – and this may shock some of you – on a budget.

I didn't really hit it off with that particular concept at the outset. But now we are actually becoming friends. And I believe I may now be turning not-buying into an art form. Just this afternoon I didn't buy a red cashmere cardigan on eBay. I bid (or bidded, as they don't say in America) for it, but with the serene security of knowing I would be outbid by a less zen, more profligate rival a few minutes later. I also not-bought a Whistles frock. I did then actually buy a dress in the Toast sale, but it was 70% off and what kind of chump would think it was smart not to buy that? I'm poor, not an idiot.

The mere idea that I don't have to buy absolutely everything I touch in a shop has come as something of a revelation. Apparently you're actually allowed to pick things up, then put them down again and walk away. Is this what everyone else has been doing all these years? Furthermore, I've discovered that, due to my prodigiously low boredom threshold, if I just hold something in my hand and walk around a shop for 10 to 15 minutes, by the time it comes to paying for it, I am already tired of its company and can put it back with a light heart. It's true, I live in a fashion microclimate where the seasons really do change that quickly. 'That's £45 you've saved,' I smirk to myself as I exit the shop, clad not in a costly new outfit, but the rosy glow of self-righteousness.

Not-buying also works if I technically do buy something, take it home, look at it for a while, then return it to the shop and get my money back. This actually feels to me like I'm making money. Last week, a hysterical episode induced by low blood sugar and the cancellation of all southbound Thameslink trains compelled me to comfort-buy this from New Look at Moorgate:

It is a nice dress. If you are Avril Lavigne – skinny, 23 and Canadian. I am 34 on the outside, 73 within, East Anglian and of no fixed gym routine. Therefore the dress is enjoying a mini-break only in my flat, holed up in its carrier bag, with only its receipt for company. It will return to the New Look mothership within 28 days. If I was a different person – not a Capricorn, for example, the squarest of all the signs – I could wear it out once, douse it in Fabreze, then brazenly take it back, with very light soiling, to the shop. This, however, is impossible, thanks to my uncanny ability to get jam on everything. Even if I have not eaten any jam. How does this happen? You cannot seek to explain a God-given gift.

Among the other things I am not-buying are a portfolio of property, at home and abroad, an aquarium of high-maintenance tropical fish and Cristiano Ronaldo, just to keep him locked up in a cupboard. It is surprisingly liberating. Join me.

Leader of the pac-a-mac

In preparation for my recent expedition to Scotland, I decided to do something I've never done before, something I've always been a little bit scared of. Yet somehow, in my mid 30s, it seemed to be the right time to take the step.

I bought a cagoule.

It is black – classic, understated. It fits in a mesh pouch that is slightly bigger than a box of Nairn's Oatcakes. It opens properly, all the way down, rather than with a tiny neck cavity which demands you have a diploma in escapology to put it on or take it off. It is, the man in the Lewisham branch of Millets was quick to ensure me, 'breathable', which is a boon if you enjoy breathing, as I very much do. The label is 'Regatta', which seems to me to denote a level of sophistication above and beyond the Peter Storms of the waterproof world. I feel strongly that I am wearing the Gucci of cagoules – tailored, timeless, elegant.

There is little more say, apart from that I already feel a level of fondness for it that has surprised me. It's a little early to use the L word – but who knows what depths of emotion may reveal themselves during the storms we are destined to share. And I like myself as a cagoule-wearer. I feel responsible. I have purpose. I have really useful pockets. I feel as though it's only a matter of time before I know every flavour of Cup-A-Soup. Unfortunately you cannot sidle up behind someone quietly to steal, say, a particularly enticing item from their picnic. Rustling is an issue. This is a tiny drawback, since I believe cagoule-wearers are mostly honest. But if anyone was brilliant enough to invent the stealth cagoule, well… I would bake that person a cake.

So these days, I am emphatically PC (pro-cagoule), and contemplating a one-woman mission to bring the waterproof to the fashion forefront. Celebrities! Join me! I've already done some of the styling for you. Presenting…

The Carrie Bradshaw:

The Betty Suarez:

The Victoria Beckham:

My own pac-a-mac diffusion range for Topshop can only be weeks away…

Dear Russell T Davies

I'm a big fan of your work. I loved Queer As Folk. I adored Bob And Rose. I didn't really 'get' some of The Second Coming, but that's probably my fault. I have issues with concentration. I also enjoy your popular Doctor Who programme, although I can't remember the difference between any of the monsters unless someone shows me a picture. Apart from the Daleks, of course. And the Cybermen. And sometimes I find David Tennant a tiny bit annoying. But these are all trifles compared to one colossal problem I have. Who is dressing the doctor's assistants? And why do they hate them?

Let us firstly remember Rose, and her hugely unflattering collection of leisure gear – I'm thinking fleeces, parkas, hoodies, stonewashing… 

Piper, all of female kind shares your look of contempt. 

Let us next turn to Martha Jones (no relation, other than spiritually), and her hideous, omnipresent, boxy maroon pleather jacket, strangely reminiscent of a Russian sex worker.

I had high hopes for Donna and her black suits of power. Even though she looked like she was wearing what was known in the 80s as a 'body' underneath, which probably fastened with poppers in the undercarriage locality. At least she looked like she had a waist. Until she was off duty on Bernard Cribbins' allotment, wearing a shapeless long cardigan/knitted coat affair.

Finally, in tonight's denouement, we caught a glimpse of Rose Tyler – back, back, back, as they used to say in Smash Hits. Had her absence caused the head of wardrobe's heart to grow a little fonder, sartorially speaking? It had not. There was a jacket. It was pleather. The pleather was midnight blue. Let us once again allow the Piper's expression to relay the rest.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

I know these are meant to be ordinary girls. But I am an ordinary girl and so are most of my friends. And we know better.

I just wanted to get that off my chest. Which is absolutely not clad in imitation animal skin.

Love you!

Miss Jones