Normal service will resume

on Tuesday, with Thought for the Day and the Thoughtful Dresser poll and the answer to the question, how many and what type of shoes should a woman have.

Not my new year resolution

A nobler person than The Thoughtful Dresser spent 2007 buying no new clothes.

Resisting, you see, is empowering. You feel as if you are carving out your consumer choices rather than giving in to the same desires that drive everyone else. As for what I wear, I’ve not once felt defeated by a lack of choice. Oddly, that happened more before I stopped shopping. Perhaps now I give more time to it, thinking about various outfits while in the shower, or eating breakfast. I spend evenings every month going through my supply, pulling forgotten numbers from the bottom of the wardrobe and teaming up different bits and pieces. As with food or travel, a degree of constraint can make you more creative.

10 rules for 2008

Such as

6. You can’t go wrong with a trench coat. Actually, you can. Epaulettes, flaps and lots of buttons swamp some women. Just because it's a classic, it doesn’t mean it’s right for you.

7. Black and navy blue will never do. Another one from the Ark, although I think periwinkle was the hot shade then. Black and navy can look very chic – black tights and certainly black patent shoes toughen up a navy outfit and stop it looking like a uniform.

8. High heels lengthen the legs. True, obviously. But while high is good, higher isn’t always better. When a short woman teeters on stilts, bottom and bosoms set off at weird angles, making her resemble a spiral staircase, the issue of whether her legs have technically become longer is irrelevant.

From Lisa Armstrong at the Times who knows what she's talking about

What is a girl to do?

My friend Jo Craven writes a wonderful piece on how to dress when you are in your thirties and no longer features editor of Vogue

Last September, as I was about to leave my job of five years as features editor at Vogue, I spotted the much-lauded jacket of 2007 that had been called in for a shoot - the Balenciaga blazer. Ever since it was first seen on the catwalk last spring, it had been referenced non-stop in the fashion world, and cost around £1,500. I could never afford it. I just wanted to see what it looked like on. I squeezed my arms into the sleeves, but became instantly, comically stuck. I couldn't take it off. I was like one of Cinderella's ugly sisters; a flushed, undignified sight - particularly as at least one other editor had just tried it on without incident.

Several minutes of sweaty hysteria later, and after gentle tugging by two colleagues, my arms were free again. But perhaps this was the moment when, for me, fashion began to stop making sense. It wasn't so much the price of the jacket that alarmed me (nothing strange about rare things costing more), but I did take against the fact that it was unwearable for someone like me.

A whole hour with Karl Lagerfeld

Woman puts out fire with emergency knickers

The big knickers, the old knickers you should have thrown out but keep for emergencies

London swings

I am expensive

BEMBERG the aristocrat of man made yarns

I hope you drop dead and I'll come to the funeral in a red dress

A scene from one of my favourite films

A young Yves St Laurent launches his collection

Chanel in 1962

You don't have to understand French to get the gist of this 1962 Chanel show

Crimes against fashion

Via the Bag Snobs

It's Louis Vuitton by Marc Jacobs, it costs four figures and it might be worn by attendees at a dolls' tea party. Hopefully the dolls' owners will eat too many cakes and be sick on it.

Lia in the cherry dress

Intermission, and an oddity

I am away until the beginning of the second week in January and don't plan to spend too much time in the company of a computer. I'll try to keep you entertained in the meantime with some semi daily delights. Here is the first, in which designers of the 1930s try to predict the fashions of the future

Christmas wishes

Star Carol

Across the field the city glows;
people shift from work to home;
the lights are steady in the tube;
moonlight silvers the great dome:
dome and spire and roof and mind
contain the hopes of humankind.

Out there, beyond, within, beneath,
the lights are glimmering like stars:
Come to us now, come now! they cry.
The moonlight strikes off speeding cars.
Cars and chariots burn in dreams
and everywhere light runs and streams.

George Szirtes

Lingerie: out of sight, out of mind wins

A clear majority of you in the lingerie poll think that it's either a waste of money to buy pretty underwear, or prefer it to serve the purpose of foundation. As I remarked in the comments, the eternal conundrum is that you want lingerie that gives you a good line under your clothes, but looks sexy when you get undressed. I tend to go with expensive (Lejaby) bras and M&S knickers.

Space NK

The people at Space NK like The Thoughtful Dresser so much that they have written to me to ask if can advertise on the site. They have a UK and US store - banner up top.

Givenchy

Book of the Week

Today's Book of the Week is all about the Thoughtful Dresser's muse, Helen Mirren

When she stepped up to get that Oscar last year, was there a woman over the age of 50 whose heart did not sing? She is said to have had no nipping or tucking. A make-up artist I met who has worked with her confirms this. Why does she look so fantastic then? Good bones and love of life. There was a series in the Sunday Times magazine which ran for years in which celebrities were asked to describe their normal day from waking up in the morning to going to be at night. In the entire history of the series Helen Mirren was the only person who said that the first thing she did every morning was have sex. She didn't even meet her husband Taylor Hackford until her late thirties, had to wait for him to have a very painful divorce, had to move to LA which she hated. But on she goes, indefatigable. Age has not withered her. And won't. (But she does say she's on a permanent diet.)