First review of The Clothes On Their Backs

In the Saturday Times.

LINDA GRANT IS a writer of perceptive journalism about the emotional resonance of clothes, and now explores the theme in greater depth in her latest novel, The Clothes on their Backs. Her heroine, Vivien Kovaks, slightly resembles a rawer, angrier version of one of Anita Brookner's dutiful daughters, waiting in a tightly suppressed agony of longing for life to happen.

She is the child of elderly Hungarian refugee parents. Her father “suffered from an anxiety: that any small disturbance in his circumstances would bring everything down - the flat, the wife, the job, the new daughter, London itself, then England, and he would slide down the map of the world, back to Hungary”.

As a bulwark against such catastrophe, the Kovaks cling to the solid, red-brick respectability of their rented mansion flat in Benson Court, off Marylebone Road in London.

As a child, Vivien discovers occasional chinks in this stifling atmosphere of anxious conformity - in 1963, when she is 10, she witnesses a violent doorstep altercation between her father and a man claiming to be her uncle; a man in an electric-blue mohair suit, with a diamond watch on his wrist and a black girl on his arm. Later, there is a brief, delicious encounter with an elderly neighbour, a fragile old woman whose legacy to Vivien is a trunk full of improbably glamorous clothes - “silks, satins, velvets... a momentary rain of richness” - which will provide her passport to the world beyond Benson Court.

. . .

The Clothes on their Backs is a novel fascinated with how outward appearance at once conceals, expresses and forms the inner person.

Such is the richness of Grant's plotting that the story encapsulates many untold narratives - of Vivien's second marriage, for example, and her life with her two “fat, fair English” daughters - while the significance of other narrative threads can sometimes seem strangely opaque. But that is really the central theme of the novel - that life itself is opaque. You try to analyse it as best you can, but sometimes it is impossible to see past the surface of things.

from the Times, read on

Thought for the day

For your own sake you should give her a new gown; for variety of dresses, rouses desire, and makes an old mistress seem every day a new one. William Wycherley 1640 -1716

In the current issue of Prospect magazine, I have a piece on why novelists and poets of all people are expected by readers to be experts in geopolitics. The article has been hidden behind a subscription button but I now find it's been picked up by a South African newspaper called The Weekender.

Here is a snippet and read on

Unluckily for those of us who write fiction or poetry or plays for a living, the reading public’s demand that every scribbler become a “writer of conscience" has sunk its teeth into our butts. There are few demands for accountants of conscience, or orthopaedic surgeons of conscience. So what is it about novelists and poets that makes us qualified to analyse political trends and influence public opinion?

The writer’s life consists of the following : staring in sick dread at a blank sheet of paper or Word document; typing something then deleting it; lying on the sofa daydreaming; staring out the window; making another cup of tea. Out of such banal conditions is literature made.

Writers are foolish people who mistake their own interior worlds for reality, who exaggerate for effect, who believe they can make the truth sound better than it is in its raw form, and who feel their way clumsily in the dark , operating without a plan.

Nonetheless, from time to time the writer turns on the television or reads a newspaper and discovers that wars are breaking out or that governments are about to be elected. Newspapers contact us to ask for our opinions. Are we for or against this war? How will we vote? We are flattered to be asked. The woman who runs the corner shop is not asked. Our bank managers are not asked. Our opinions must be of significance, and why not?

When you can only buy one thing, what should the one thing be

Thinking about the advice that a Valentino evening dress will last a girl forever, I am inclined to think that were I to spend a great deal of money on a single item, would it really be an evening dress?

The problem with spending so much on a statement dress is that if you wear it only five or six times a year, at grand parties (and I have far more use for cocktail dresses than evening dresses anyway) then whenever you go to a grand party, you will always be wearing the same dress. Back in 2000 I bought an evening dress at Liberty and wore it hard but finally it went to the charity shop for someone else to wear. I felt like every time I made an entrance, people were thinking, here she is, in that dress of hers. I haven't replaced it with another long dress, long having been out of style except on the red carpet for some years now.

In the Autumn, I saw an Armani Collezioni coat which made my heart stop. It was in my size and its price was £895 which I most definitely could not afford, having a couple of months earlier bought a Collezioni jacket. I didn't even dare try it on in case it stuck to me, as if I were a girl in fairy story, the cloth burning my skin. But if I had bought that coat, yes, I would have worn it for the rest of my life. Of course it would have to endure a few dark lonely seasons alone in the wardrobe, but out again it would come, eventually. If you can only buy one stand-out, knock-down, blow the overdraft garment, I'd buy something which can be accessorised. Something not made to be looked at but to make you look as if you have everyday elegance and style.

But don't let that stop you buying me Valentino dress.

UPDATE

Ten minutes later, I'm starting to think I'm being a bit boring and I should go for the Valentino dress after all. You only live once etc, and to walk into a room in a Valentino . . .

Why Armani is Armani

Jess Cartner-Morley, rounding up this week's couture shows, makes the following observation about Armani.

Giorgio Armani, although a relative newcomer to couture, is no slouch at making women look beautiful - which, after all, is the point here. Hilary Swank, in the front row, was in raptures, and it is easy to see why actors such as Swank and Cate Blanchett - women who play on having hard edges to their personality as well as softness, who have eyes that flicker and watch rather than just flutter beneath false lashes - are drawn to his gowns. The fabrics were pure couture princess: organza, puckered silk, chiffon muslin. But the silhouette, and the lines traced in bugle beads and Swarovski crystals, had a sleek, art deco Savoy-esque elegance.

The intelligent woman who also wishes to look beautiful, who cares about appearances and who understands that the body is not merely a wrap for the mind - the designer who can dress her (or shall we say us) will always outlive his flamboyant rivals .

Thought for the day

'What shall I wear?' is society's second most frequently asked question.The first is, 'Do you really love me? No matter what one replies to either one,it is never accepted as settling the question. Judith Martin (Miss Manners)

Arrivederci Valentino

Last night’s show was filled with greatest hits — the narrow torsos, high busts, slim shoulders, feminine suiting and a spectacular finale of Valentino red evening dresses. It reminded everyone why Valentino outlasted all his contemporaries.

He did not over-license his name or succumb to drugs and certainly not to gimmicks. Fashionable but not fashion statements, classy but not dull, elegant but not stiff, a good Valentino evening dress will last a girl for ever. His successor, the Italian designer Alessandra Facchinetti, who was fired from Gucci, has a lot to live up to.

says Lisa Armstrong in the Times

I would like to do something serious, I don't say more serious than fashion

Valentino's final collection. The last great name from the Golden Age of Couture retires. And tells you what fashion is.

Watch the video

Can I go back to the aquarium now?

Jean-Paul Gaultier couture

Thought for the day

Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.

Conrad Aiken

A couple of London sales

Hermes - 24 to 27 January

Up to 80% off Hermes womenswear, menswear, accessories and homewear.

24 to 27 January (10am to 6pm) 26 South Molton Lane, London, W1K 5AB.

Secret Sample Sale - 1 to 3 February

Studio/catwalk, showroom samples and clearance stock at to 80% discount

Studio/catwalk or showroom samples and clearance stock from London's designers, agents and retailers for men and women at up to 80% discount from retail price. Designers include Gharani Strok, Anna Rita N and Alchemist along with accessories from Jimmy Choo, Prada and Tods. 1 February (12pm to 7pm), 2 February (11am to 6pm) and 3 February (11am to 6pm) T2 , F Block, Old Truman Brewery, 1st Floor, 87 Brick Lane (opposite Woodseer Street)

Armani couture

A womanly shape for a woman's body. The bubble hem falls rather than gathers. Look at the slight flare of the sleeves. Look how the shoulders are cut. Pret a porter would lose the jacket decoration and it still would be a wonderful suit.

See the rest of the slideshow here

Thought for the day

Fashion is cleavage, style is collarbones. Betty Sue

Anya Hindmarch

The Anya Hindmarch S/S08 lookbook arrived in the post this morning. I was in the Sloane Street shop on Saturday, staring at the Cooper which I will be receiving from the October press preview any day now.

Above is the Aretha. Check it out on What's New at NET-A-PORTER

Poll: Lipstick etiquette

I have heard that there is a transatlantic divide about the etiquette about reapplying one's lipstick in public. I would not bat an eyelid about taking out my (Dior) compact and my (Guerlain) lipstick and reapplying it at a restaurant table, but American friends say it is a vulgar no-no.

Vote on this matter on the right.

The Thoughtful Dresser competition - the winner

Thank you for all the wonderful entries, which I really enjoyed reading.

Many of you offered sage advice from parents and grandparents and much of it amounted to what is fast becoming the mantra of The Thoughtful Dresser - don't buy cheap clothes.

Toby Wollins' father laid down the invaluable rule that clothes should always fit on the shoulders; the cloth falls from there so if a garment doesn't fit properly there, it won't fit anywhere.

I adored Ingrid's Hungarian immigrant mother's advice 'Wear it like you mean it!' and it would have been in the running for the winner had I not already posted something much like it in a previous Thought for the Day.

I discovered the truth of Bernie's 'If it matches nothing it goes with everything' when I bought a cream handbag. And kagoo had a significant variant: 'Don't worry about whether this goes with that; if you buy what you love, everything will go with everything.'

V pointed out that 'the mistake a lot of people make is that they dress from a place of abject terror.' Very true.

Eve Gerrard, who is a philosopher, advanced the following erudite piece of wisdom: 'Fashion enables us, for a brief period, to see the beauty buried in even the most hideous of colours or shapes. However crude the colour or unflattering the style, fashion can temporarily transform it into something rich and strange and desirable. The vision doesn't last, of course, as the back of our wardrobes attests.' A brilliant description of how fashion works.

Cal's mother pointed out 'Never wear black to a party, no matter how beautiful the dress you will fade into the background because the men will be wearing dark jackets.' I observed this at several Christmas parties.

I loved Isabelle's 'Wear your inner beauty on your sleeve, but I was looking for an entirely original thought, and googling, I did find this one in use elsewhere.

So the winner is (drum roll) the very first entry, from Betty Sue whose grandmother advised her: "What is the difference between fashion and style? Fashion is cleavage, style is collarbones"

Fantastic and accurate observation.

Congratulations Betty Sue, and if you would email me at lindagrantblog[at]googlemail.com , I can arrange for your prize to be delivered. And your thought to be credited to you in its own stand-alone Thought for the Day.

Dior: a world of his own

Reports of the first Paris haute couture shows are coming in:

Today's Dior collection was based on the same conceit: clothes that appear girlishly light and frothy, but are in fact based on serious sartorial engineering.

So the torso of a leopard-print ballgown appeared to be wrapped gently around the waist, when in fact the apparent softness concealed a heavy-duty corset beneath; a voluminous opera coat, puffed up and proud as a perfect yorkshire pudding, was fashioned out of silk stiffened and printed to resemble crocodile skin. The art of pulling off dressmaking impossibilities with difficult fabrics is a tradition in haute couture, because it showcases the skill of the designer. Cristobal Balenciaga liked to work in heavy boiled wool because he knew no one else could fashion elegant silhouettes from this lumpish cloth.

But while Madame X wore unadorned black velvet, today's Dior outfits came in jewel-box brights, each encrusted so densely with embroidery that the catwalk resembled a box of giant jelly babies, brightly coloured and sugar-dipped. All the signature silhouettes of haute couture were featured: the cocoon-shaped coats, the mermaid-shaped dresses, the slender-sleeved peplum jackets. The parodic femininity of the tightly corsetted, impossibly long-limbed shapes was emphasised in the virtuoso make-up: feather eyelashes and diamante eyeliner, bringing together the aesthetics of the drag queen with the skill of the world's best make-up artists to stunning effect.

US advertising

In the course of the next week or so US readers will notice more US advertising. I have selected stores which fit in with the overall ethos of this site - high quality, high fashion clothing and accessories. Some of these sites will ship overseas and will offer advantageous prices given the size of the US market and strength of the pound.

Last day of the Thoughtful Dresser competition

I'm going to be picking a winner in the Thoughtful Dresser competition this evening and will announce the winner tomorrow morning. You still have a chance to enter, and check back tomorrow for the result.

Gentlemen's corner

Here is a picture from the Prada menswear show AW8. If you were to take a shirt and slit it down the back and then gird it with some horizontal braces and put it on Agyness Deane, I can guarantee that two things would happen: a) Victoria Beckham would be wearing the self-same shirt the following week b) a month later I would be standing on the tube looking at hordes of teenage girls shivering with cold backs.

And yet I can also guarantee that you are not going to see this shirt on anyone. You will, in fact, never see it again. Why? Because men are not mugs. They don't wear stuff like this, they get women to wear stuff like this.

But at last the worm is turning, according to the Guardian:

Now, female designers are getting their own back. At the menswear shows in Milan last week, two labels built in the image of their female figureheads put out autumn/winter collections that suggested things are only going to get tougher. After her show, Miuccia Prada told critic Suzy Menkes that her theme had been "the things that men usually do to women - it's revenge!"

Prada's male models had walked out in flashes of flesh-coloured fabric, trousers with frilled tops that looked like tutus, vests that stopped at navel height, and pants that poked above the tops of trousers like so many women's g-strings did for a spell in the late 1990s. A couple of days later, Marni, headed by designer-founder Consuela Castiglioni, put men in turtlenecked jumpers that ended just below nipple height and tops that zipped up at the back, ensuring that you would need a good strong woman's helping hand to get in and out of them. The designer even indulged in a bit of pointed name-calling - Marni's fur-coats were made of weasel.

Nice try, Miucca, but all the boys I know in their early twenties are still devoted to the perfectly draped low-slung baggy jeans and the perfect t-shirt. They found their uniform aged 15 and they have stuck to is, as has the man I mentioned yesterday who, having adopted the levis, t-shirt, leather jacket and boots ensemble worn when he climbed into his VW van back in 1968 to drive down to raise the Pentagon with Abbie Hoffman, has seen no reason to alter his style as he nears 60.

The extraordinary conservatism of men and their clothing is a twentieth century phenomenon. For a thousand years men dressed as peacocks. Now they don't. They dress for function. With some colour sense. Personally I find it quite boring, but perhaps it says something about a crisis of masculinity as a response to feminism - butch it out. Or maybe not. Others can offer their own thoughts on this matter, below.