From tomorrow, there's 75 per cent off many items at the Net a Porter sale. They are also adding to the sale stuff from Chloe, Stella McCartney, Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu, Roberto Cavalli, Burberry Prorsum and Alexander McQueen.
Check it out here NET-A-PORTER Homepage
Not my kind of thing
My sister and I spent some time analysing our shoe collections. We concluded that the elements of the average female shoe collection are:
Flats, heels.
Flats in different colours to match different outfits, heels in different colours to match different outfits
Heels you can walk in, and heels you can't walk in
Boots
Ankle boots, knee length boots, sheepskin boots
Flat or low-heeled ankle boots to wear with jeans, high heeled ankle boots to wear with more formal trousers
Knee length boots with high heels and knee length boots which are flat or have low heels
High heeled boots with heels you can walk in and high heeled boots you can't walk in
Boots, ankle or knee length, in different colours to go with different outfits
Sandals
Evening shoes
The kitten-heeled mules that are out fashion but might come back into fashion
Shoes which the sales assistant said would stretch, but didn't
Shoes which don't go with anything else
Shoes that were in the sale and which were bought because they were so cheap but which you don't really like
Shoes that seemed like a good idea at the time
Ugly comfortable shoes
Shoes so beautiful and uncomfortable that they can only be worn when you only have to stand or walk for a minimum of three minutes.
Shoes to wear at the gym
Shoes to wear round the house
Shoes which you've forgotten about
Shoes that only exist in a partial dimension, having left the other one at a hotel
I hope this explains the matter more fully for members of the a man only needs three pairs of shoes brigade
UPDATE
I do in fact possess a pair of boots of the type used for walking in rough terrain which I was forced to buy for a journalistic assignment to a remote and mountainous part of Turkey several years ago. I also have a couple of pairs of flipflops, but I don't count any of these as shoes, more like protective gear such as umbrellas or earmuffs. Possession of Crocs voids the entire shoe collection.
A very simple poll - which fabulous purchases can you least do without, bags or shoes. As ever, I will express my own views next week.
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.
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.
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
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.
The big knickers, the old knickers you should have thrown out but keep for emergencies
A scene from one of my favourite films
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.
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
