Uggs, an apology

In the past I have had scathing things to say about Uggs, and of course quite right too. The sight of teenage girls in London this summer shuffling along Oxford Street in bare legs and shapeless pieces of dead sheep on their lower extremities, was enough to make me want to shake them and cry, is the world of Jimmy Choo dead to you? But teenage girls' insistence on wearing Bad Shoes, shoes their mothers would not wear, is a fact of sartorial education. They have to pass through it. A decade ago, you couldn't get the girl out of trainers.

In my own life, things are moving in a disturbing direction. I have always gloried in Difficult Shoes, I'm a high-heel girl, but for somewhat serious (though not life-threatening) medical reasons with which I will not bore you, I am now forced to consider the comfort of my feet. Euw, as the Americans say. Really forced, for in Difficult Shoes I can no longer walk, which is not to say that I cannot balance, it is that after ten minutes I start limping.

a pair of my Difficult Shoes

And so I came to the catalogue of the Celtic Sheepskin Company, from which I reluctantly bought some slippers, and found that I was spending the day walking on a thick sheepskin rug. After a lot of nervous equivocation, I bought a pair of mid-calf length boots with ribbon laces.

Last Saturday my nephew, known to you as Off Tha Cuff, came round and pronounced them cool. I asked if I looked as if I was going to Glastonbury, and he said, cuttingly, 'No, you don't look like someone who goes to Glastonbury.'

What has now happened is that the Celtic Sheepskin Company has become a guilty addiction and I have bought another pair of their boots.

I got them in black

I am prepared to state they have pushed the boundaries of style and you could hardly call these Uggs at all (indeed legally you aren't allowed to).

I save my Difficult Shoes for parties now. I am determined my sheepskin feet will not leave the neighbourhood. But in no circumstances will this lead to Crocs.

The war against cliche

Pankaj Mishra in the Guardian writes one of the better pieces, I think about writers and artists becoming exercised about Islam and warns against writers becoming seduced by their worst enemy, cliche:

It is a depressing spectacle - talented writers nibbling on cliches picked to the bone by tabloid hacks. But, as Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr pointed out, the "men of culture", with their developed faculty of reasoning, tend to "give the hysterias of war and the imbecilities of national politics more plausible excuses than the average man is capable of inventing". The "public conversation" about Islam proposed by Amis should not be avoided. Its terms have already been set low, and the bigger danger is that it will be dominated by an isolated and vain chattering class that, rattled by a changing world, seeks to reassure us by digging an unbridgeable trench around our minds and hearts.

Thought for the day

Her vespers done,
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees John Keats 1795-1821

Advertising - further updates

There are now two Amazon stores on this site, one for UK purchases the other for orders to the US. Be sure to use the right one. I'll be adding more titles to the US site.

Unfortunately I have no current information about US availability for The Clothes On Their Backs so if you would like to order it, for the moment, it will have to be from the UK site.

The poncho and other crimes

According to a survey in the Daily Mail (so it must be right) the top ten fashion disasters, ie what you must not own are:

velour track suit
shell suit
puffball skirt
hot pants
leggings
ra-ra skirt
hooded sweatshirt
cowboy boots
poncho
parka

I have none of these, thought 96 per cent of those surveyed admitted they had. I'm a little surprised at the cowboy boots.

An American reader has enquired what a shell suit is. This is a shell suit:

(nice Jewish boy)

Straight white male goes hiphop dancing

Via a circuitous route, I have just found a very funny blog

I was trapped in a cab headed to a hip-hop dancing class in Chelsea. I do not dance. Also, I was deeply terrified of a changing room full of gay men. Who else would take a class like this I thought? Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I thought anyone would take a fancy to me; far from it in fact, what terrified me was imagining how my feeble frame would measure up against so many well-tended physiques. I could picture them with their pronounced abs and their shiny golden pectorals. I look like a plump shaved albino ferret. With fluff stuck on.

all that he feared turned out to be true

More London sample sales

Courtesy of Fashion Confidential

Matthew Williamson Sample Sale – 13 to 15 December

Up to 70% off womenswear, shoes and accessories. Not to be missed!

New stock delivered every day. 13 December (1pm to 9pm), 14 December (11am to 7pm) and 15 December (11am to 5pm). The 20th Century Theatre, 291 Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill.

English Eccentrics Warehouse Sale - 13 December

Samples, seconds, one-offs and old season stock...

13 December (8am to 8pm); Postmen's Office, 30 Leighton Road, Kentish Town, London, NW5 2QE.

Biba Christmas Sale – 14 to 15 December

Bella Freud's final collection for Biba (A/W 2007) at 80-90% discount.

Shirts from £50, knitwear from £60, evening dresses from £50 to £95 and jewellery from £25. 14 December (11am to 10.30pm) and 15 December (11am to 6pm); The Music Rooms, 26 South Molton Lane, Mayfair, W1. Mention you are from Fashion Confidential to gain entry.

Penfield Sample Sale - 14 to 16 December

One off sample sale with 70% off the retail price...

14 December (10am to 6pm), 15 December (10am to 6pm) 16 December (10am to 4pm); The Old Truman Brewery, 4-5 Dray Wlak, 91 Brick Lane, London, E1 6QL.

Temperley Sample Sale Somerset - 15 and 16 December

Fabulous samples inlcuding dresses and accessories. Not to be missed!

VIP Brunch 15 December (11am to 1pm). RSVP to editor@fashionconfidential.co.uk9. Open day 16 December. Strode Theatre, Street , Somerset, BA16 0AB

Tabitha Sample Sale - 18 December

Up to 50% off new and past stock....

Items include handbags, clutches, wallets, wash bags, make-up bags, travel wallets, luggage tags, visitors books, notebooks and much much more. It's the perfect opportunity for some last minute Christmas shopping. 18 December (11am to 8pm) Chelsea Old Town Hall, Kings Road, SW3 5EE.

Patrick Cox – Pre-Sale Invitation – 19 to 23 December

Enjoy an exclusive Pre-Sale discount of up to 50% on current men’s and women’s styles.

Patrick Cox has invited Fashion Confidential members to his Sloane Street store to enjoy an exclusive Pre-Sale discount of up to 50% on current men’s and women’s styles. This is the place to stock up on great party shoes for Xmas and New Year as well as chic work wear staples for the guys. 19 December (10am to 7pm), 20 to 23 December (10am to 6pm); 129 Sloane Street, London, SW1X 9AT. Mention you are from Fashion Confidential to receive your discount.

Largerfeld in London

Kaiser Karl held a dinner at Nobu in London last night to celebrate his 25 years with Chanel, and his first ever London catwalk show. He was interviewed on the news last night, and I rather thought the old pot belly was reforming itself over the ribs.


Here he is with Kylie

The talons of death clutch at the arm of the living

And here's a suit from the show

Grouse shooting at Balmoral outfit

Our fashionable royals

In my day there were two royals, Prince Charles and Princess Anne and then the two little boys, you know, Andrew and Edward. We wore mini-skirts, they wore tweed hacking-jackets; we went to Rolling Stones concerts, they played polo.

Then . . . Princess Diana RIP, may the heavens weep, who single-handedly brought style and glamour to the royal family (the Bruce Oldfield dresses!)

Hadley Freeman has a piece today on the younger royals, as photographed in the family snaps for the Queen's 60th wedding anniversary, featured in Hello:

Zara Phillips, on the other hand, was the first to catch my eye on the magazine cover, mainly because she was wearing an empire-line silver coat with white buttons and collar from Paul and Joe's diffusion range, Paul and Joe Sister, that I had just that week tried on but rejected as too expensive, so, obviously, I was filled with a mix of both approval and murderous hatred. Perhaps that coat is slightly infantalising, a bit too Bonpoint for adults, but it's certainly an improvement on the sweeping pale tweed numbers favoured by most female royals, to say nothing of the sludgy fare generally sported by her mother, Princess Anne. Moreover, she wore it with a short dress, black tights, black shoes and black gloves, which is just how I was planning to wear it (the witch), which obviously makes it good, and, impressively, she also managed to find a hat that was suitably respectful but neither hideous nor laughable.

Pucci?

. . .
Her brother, on the other hand, is a different story. Even if Peter Phillips wasn't officially royal, with his penchant for badly fitted brass-buttoned blazers, bagging jeans and a hairline that recedes in direct correlation to his advancing paunch, I would assume that he was the product of youthful sowing of the royal oaks by any of Elizabeth's children if I bumped into him on the tube. Such is the strength of his royal style genes that he, like his cousin William, has managed to Sloanify his girlfriend. In the most recent pictures of the soon-to-be-married couple, Autumn Kelly has comfortably shifted from her former life as what one newspaper has intriguingly described as a "Canadian former air hostess, bartender and model" into a fully paid-up kitten-heel-wearing, sunglasses-as-alice-band-adorned Sloane, with a fondness for pastel wraparound cardigans. Well, they go so well with one's boyfriend's broad-shouldered blazers.

Help!

Help!

Thought for the day

I cannot see why a person should be esteemed haughty on account of his taste for fine clothes, any more than one who discovers a fondness for birds, moths or butterflies. William Shenstone 1714- 1763

Advertising

In the coming days you will start to see some advertising on this site. I have added Amazon. If you were to be so inclined to wish to purchase any books, by clicking on the link at the side, Jeff Bezos and his shareholders are deprived of five per cent of the income from the sale which comes to me instead. But please don't let that stop you from patronising any excellent independent bookshop near you. At the moment the link is only to my own books, but that will change in a day or so, when I can work out how to do it or get Camelmeister to do it for me.

UPDATE
The books listed in the Amazon Box My favourites are books I have read and loved. They have the Thoughtful Dresser seal of approval. You, of course, may disagree.

I have added several coffee table books about the great designers. I have reviewed all of them in the Telegraph. All highly recommended

Nextbook Book of the Day

Nextbook, the Jewish literary site, has chosen my 2000 novel, When I Live In Modern Times as its Book of the Day.

Retail trends

Courtesy of that Manchester fashionista Norm, comes this business-based analysis of US retail trends for womenswear:

- buying off-mall
- less apparel, more accessories
- more spending on electronics than clothes
- companies like Gap's failed Forth and Towne and Chico's which sell clothes for the 'older woman' are getting it wrong

Looking further into the failure of Forth and Towne, I find this interesting report:

The truth is that age is the last remaining taboo in American marketing. It's okay for manufacturers and retailers to target based on every conceivable demographic and psychographic slice of the market. In this post-feminism age is perfect fine to reach out to women as women. You can target gays. You can put Latinos in the marketing cross-hairs.

But for millions of Americans, any reference to age is dicey. And Forth & Towne wasn't exactly subtle; their website proclaims that they were created for "a new generation of women, determined to find current, wearable fashions in fits that flatter. Women who have grown-up, grown into themselves, and want to look as fabulous as they feel."

That kind of ill-disguised, in-your-face-appeal to the older crowd is bound to backfire. Blame AARP for that. Their ham-handed, stereotypical representations of mindless, happy retirees have made most people over 50 await the arrival of their membership package with the joy that awaits an IRS audit notice.

The Times also pointed out that department stores have experienced something of a resurgence, and that their growth "has overtaken that of specialty clothing chains." That's not a surprise. A 42-year old woman who walks into a department store isn't making a public branding statement about her being 42, as she does when she walks into Forth & Towne. Hence the plug-pulling.

Mutton, or do I mean ram?

A couple of conversations with men in the past two days have raised significant variations on the mutton question.

One points out that forty-something men do not think about, let alone obsess about or wish to wear what men in their twenties do, having (with the usual Rod Stewart exceptions) accepted that they are no longer gilded youth.

Another questions whether it is acceptable for a man in his fifties to have long hair.

Perhaps some male readers would like to contribute to this question.

In Spanish

Spanish publisher Ediciones Urano have just bought the rights to The Clothes On Their Backs for their new literary fiction imprint, Plata.

Street Clash

Lisa Goldman draws to my attention a site called Street Clash, where photographers and bloggers are pitted against each other in the contest for most stylish city. Check it out, here

More parties, and some observations about black dresses and post-colonial literature

I went to a couple more parties last night, and have observations both fashionable and literary.

As far as the eye could see were women in little black dresses, almost no colour at all. A woman in a red suit, and an utterly delightful 14-year-old in a gold dress, broke up the gloom. One literary agent was wearing a black dress with gold shoes, but how ordinary everyone looked. I say that because in a crowd of people, one LBD looks much like any other and without some very strong interest such as cut, or a stand-out piece of jewellery, you really don't focus on what anyone is wearing, because it has turned into a uniform.

The first party was held at the October Gallery by my literary agents, A.P Watt. There, as ever, one of the nicest men in Britain, Philip Pullman, the film of whose children's novel Northern Lights renamed The Golden Compass opens this week, starring Nicole Kidman. I asked him if he was happy with it, and he said he was, particularly with Kidman. But already in America and Canada Catholic fundamentalists are organising a boycott of the film, claiming that it will lead young, impressionable souls to atheism. Normally, these boycotts backfire, but the worry is that because it is a family film, the campaign may well do a lot of damage. It opens this week so go and see it if you don't like Puritan busybodies and want to put their noses out of joint.

Five minutes walk away in some cavernous space in Bloomsbury, was the Guardian First Book Prize, won this year by Ethiopian-American Dinaw Mengestu. You can read an extract, here. And a Washington Post interview with him here.

On leaving, we were handed goodie bags with a silver-wrapped copy of each shortlisted book, and mine was A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam. I can't help but be struck by the numbers of novels set during civil wars and the births of nations that are being published right now, as history bears down so hard upon us, penetrating our inner lives.

Thought for the day

No elegance is possible without perfume. Coco Chanel

** Wild Fig and Cassis, the shower gel and/or body lotion, please

Freedom of expression

From the Guardian today

Nearly two years after the internationally acclaimed author Orhan Pamuk narrowly escaped imprisonment for statements that were thought to "insult Turkishness", the publisher of a British writer goes on trial today accused of the same charge.

Ragip Zarakolu is facing up to three years in prison for publishing a book - promoting reconciliation between Turks and Armenians - by George Jerjian, a writer living in London.

Jerjian's book, The Truth Will Set Us Free, which was translated into Turkish in 2005, chronicles the life of his Armenian grandmother who survived the early 20th century massacres of Armenians thanks to an Ottoman soldier. The historical account has prompted as much controversy among the Armenian diaspora, not least in the US, as it has in Turkey.

. . .

But while Turkish diplomats admit the contentious law has probably done more damage to Ankara's efforts to join the EU than any other single piece of legislation, observers say there has been little headway made over reforming the spirit and letter of the law.

In a climate of unabated nationalism, state prosecutors and police officials continue to level charges against artists, musicians and writers perceived to publicly denigrate Turkishness.

I assume that PEN and Index on Censorship will shortly be launching campaigns against these assaults on freedom of expression.

Meetings with maestros

I went to a party last night and was introduced to a woman,who, I was told, was a make-up artist. This turned out to be akin to being told, this is Saul Bellow, he's a novelist, or this is Christian Dior, he's a dress designer, or this is Nelson Mandela, he's a politician. For Mary Greenwell is not a make-up artist, she is the make-up artist, whose celebrity clients include Uma Thurman, Cate Blanchet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Keira Knightly, Kate Moss and Gisele Bundchen.

She began her career in Paris in the 80s working with Christy Turlington, Stephanie Seymour, Tatiana Patitz, Linda Evangelista and Cindy Crawford. By 1985 she was working for all five Vogues on a weekly basis and created the no make-up look we all work so hard to achieve. Today she runs a course where for £1000 you will be taught how to do your own make-up but last night she was tired and wanted to sit down, so in exchange for keeping her company on the sofa instead of making bright chit-chat standing on my high heels, I received a half hour ruthless re-appraisal of my make-up, writing down the new rules and products on the back of the invitation while balancing a glass of champagne on my knee.

Look, where make-up is concerned I genuinely thought I was at the top of my game. She shockingly told me that there are women who won't wear foundation because it is 'dishonest' ie it covers flaws. Yes? You don't want your flaws concealed? But it seems I was using the wrong type of foundation, the wrong shade of blush, an insufficiently volumising mascara, was applying my lipstick wrongly on the lower lip. She took out her make-up bag and redid me. Then she jabbed at three or four points on my face around the jaw and upper lip and told me what Botox would do and gave me the number of her botox man. The idea lurks in a corner of my mind like a little curled up kitten, sleeping.

Meanwhile I am off to buy several new products, chief of which will be Chanel lipstick in Silhouette and Chanel's Teint innocence in cream to powder formula instead of the liquid I'm using right now.