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Channel: Jess Cartner-Morley | The Guardian
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Marks & Spencer pins hopes on upturn in womenswear

May 13, 2014, 11:30 pm
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Style director Belinda Earl launches new season's collection with mission to change retailer's culture by challenging design teams

Belinda Earl, style director of Marks & Spencer, has over 20 million customers to keep happy. And she knows very well that however enthused the fashion critics may get over limited-edition, catwalk-referencing pieces most of those 20 million do not want a pink coat.

But fashion matters at M&S, because womenswear occupies a talismanic position in the business. Fashion images reach a far greater audience, via media and social media, than other product categories, and fashion is a key motivating factor in luring the overwhelmingly female customer base into store or online. What's more, the fickle nature of the contemporary fashion consumer who can take her pick from a highly competitive British high street means that sales figures for womenswear respond smartly to change, and are swift to show whether the store is getting it right.

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How to wear ankle cuff sandals video

May 14, 2014, 4:00 am
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Shoes with attitude are this year's style, some them taking their inspiration from Lindsay Lohan's alcohol-monitoring bracelet. Ankle-cuff sandals have a substantial strap around the ankle rather than a delicate ribbon or slim strap. Jess Cartner-Morley talks us through her selection of ankle cuff sandals Continue reading...
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My perfect summer dress

May 16, 2014, 12:00 am
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From sunkissed memories to the fantasy of Slim Aarons glamour, Jess Cartner-Morley, Kirsty Wark, Sali Hughes and Sophie Heawood remember their favourite summer dresses

The ideal summer, obviously, is summer as it is in the photography of Slim Aarons. Aarons was the ultimate chronicler of the beautiful people, but what makes his photographs so bewitching is not just that the people are so tanned and gorgeous, or that their houses are so elegant. Its that everyone looks like they are having a really, really nice time. Perhaps they are walking alongside the swimming pool, carefully balancing a recently refreshed cocktail, as in Poolside Glamour. Maybe they are just sitting down to a long, lazy lunch with friends in the shade, like in Acapulco Lunch. Or they might be reading a book in the garden, or playing backgammon on the beach. These are the days that summer is made of. If you happen to have a Palm Beach mansion, so much the better, but its not really the point.

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How to dress: ankle-strap sandals

May 16, 2014, 8:30 am
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'Remember when Lindsay Lohan used to go out wearing her alcohol-monitoring ankle bracelet with a high-heeled shoe? That's your go-to style icon'

The 2014 shoe is a tough shoe. Some years, a shoe has to have the right label (Manolo Blahnik, 2000) or a certain heel (kitten, 2003) or be a specific colour (white, 2013). This year, the only must-have is attitude. A Chanel ballgown is best styled with a chunky trainer; a pair of wide trousers is most elegant when puddling around in a slab-like pair of pool sliders.

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Michael Kors and the £300 It bag

May 20, 2014, 10:19 am
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The luxury market has pushed prices ever higher but few women can afford £1,000 handbags. How did one designer bring things back within reach?

Gallery of 15 statement handbags for under £150

Luxury has been the great goldrush of our times. In the age of the brand a new mindset has taken hold of the masses, one in which we are all "worth" the right phone, the right name on the sweatshirt, the right colour sole on a shoe. As a result, luxury has proved remarkably resilient, even during economic downturns.

The response of brands has been, of course, to put prices up. And then put them up again. Because if you can, why wouldn't you, right? In 2005, a Mulberry Bayswater handbag cost £495; today it sells for double that. It has become quite common for designer names and not just the storied likes of Hermès and Gucci, but essentially run-of-the-mill designer names to talk of including a few "entry-level" price points below £1,000, "for younger customers". A whole new category has been invented, that of the £100 trinket the keyring, the iPhone cover, sometimes literally a trinket to swing from a bag allowing consumers to "buy into" a brand.

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How to wear silver - video

May 21, 2014, 4:00 am
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Metallics in summer are the way to go and this year it's silver, thanks in part to Angelina Jolie's silver dress at the Oscars and the silver skirt worn by Marlia Obama during the US president's state visit to China. Jess Cartner-Morley looks at a selection of silver garments for your wardrobe Continue reading...
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Kim Kardashian's wedding dress: who will the designer be?

May 23, 2014, 4:40 am
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Kim and Kanye's wedding will be, like, epic and everything, but what the dress looks like and who has designed it is fashion's best kept secret. Jess Cartner-Morley investigates

Honestly? We've got no idea what Kim Kardashian will wear to her wedding tomorrow. But then, nor does anyone else and that hasn't stopped the internet going into rumour overdrive. So, we've weighed the evidence, examined the clues, and hereby present the ultimate definitive guide to what the Kimye dress might look like.

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How to dress: silver

May 23, 2014, 8:30 am
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'I have gone for silver with black. It's not life-changing, but it works for most scenarios'

There are trends in everything: trends in which juice to order, which takeaway coffee to get and what herbs to use in cooking. Trends in how to exercise, what dog to have, how to sign off emails, what to name your children. And now the trends are breeding, and creating trends within trends.

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How to wear pointed flat shoes video

May 28, 2014, 4:00 am
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The ballet pump that round-toed, flat, flimsy shoe, possibly with a little bow on the front, that you may have been wearing for the last five years is finished. So what's the alternative? According to Jess Cartner-Morley, it's the pointed flat shoe. Here she shows a selection for your wardrobe Continue reading...
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How to dress: the new flat shoe

May 30, 2014, 8:30 am
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'Today it is my sad duty to inform you that the ballerina pump is dead The good news is the replacement doesn't have to be scary'

I don't wear flat shoes in front of the camera unless I absolutely have to. In fact, I go to some lengths to ensure that whatever I'm wittering on about on this page can be wittered about in high heels. (For much the same reasons, dear readers, I may boss you around till kingdom come on every other topic but when it comes to swimwear, you are on your own.) So you should understand that my outfit today foretells serious news. For today it is my sad duty to inform you that the ballerina pump is dead.

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How to wear a sun dress video

June 4, 2014, 4:00 am
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Sun dresses can look elegant, formal and grown-up it's a classic 1950s look. Think Audrey Hepburn in the film Roman Holiday. But worn with an edgy sandal, they can look modern. Fashion editor Jess Cartner-Morley looks at a variety of sun-dresses for your wardrobe Continue reading...
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How to dress: summer dresses

June 6, 2014, 8:30 am
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'We're dressing to worship the sun gods, not to please the fashion police'

Today, we're having a day off from fashion, a bank holiday from brocade, an inset day from It bags because, much as I love fashion, I love summer more. Much, much more. And so, when the perfect summer day arrives (it may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but one must be prepared), it seems to me a matter of principle, of priorities, that you dress for summer and not for fashion.

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Hillary Clinton's scrunchie: the truth

June 10, 2014, 9:18 am
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Hillary Clinton joked about calling her book The Scrunchie Chronicles because her hairstyle was the focus of constant debate. Now we know the real story behind her unexpected devotion to the accessory

Hard Choices? Meh. Hillary, for once, has taken the soft option. The title she joked about using for her memoirs The Scrunchie Chronicles, 112 Countries And It's Still All About The Hair would have been so much better. I mean, I'm sure Hard Choices is a great book and all I haven't read it, so if you're looking for a precis you're on the wrong article but The Scrunchie Chronicles is the book the world needs more.

And Hillary would have been the woman to write it. In 2001, giving the commencement speech at Yale, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton drew on her eight years as first lady to give the students the following life advice. "The most important thing I have to say to you today is that hair matters," she said. "Pay attention to your hair, because everyone else will." Alongside her trouser suits, Hillary's devotion to her scrunchie ponytail ties has been one of the most scrutinised aspect of her image in 22 years in the public eye. "Hillary in UN Hair Fail", read one headline during her tenure as secretary of state.

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How to wear spezzato - video

June 11, 2014, 4:28 am
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Spezzato is an Italian fashion term for mix and match, specifically a jacket and a pair of trousers that are not a matching suit but compliment each other. Often used for menswear Jess Cartner-Morley applies it to this week's look and shows off a variety of contrasting jackets and trousers and ways to master the mismatch Continue reading...
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Guardian fashion's fantasy World Cup football team

June 11, 2014, 9:53 am
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How to dress: spezzato

June 13, 2014, 8:30 am
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'Spezzato describes the Italian art of putting together a jacket and trousers which are not a suit but complement each other'

Everything sounds better in Italian. We say tomato, they say pomodoro. We say cheese and green beans, they say formaggio and fagiolini. We say pureed ice with coffee flavouring, they say Frappuccino. OK, not that one. But how about this: spezzato, the Italian for mix-and-match.

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Alexander McQueen leads the way forward at London Collections: Men

June 16, 2014, 11:18 am
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Sarah Burton shows a vision for the future of McQueen, while Jimmy Choo makes its catwalk debut

Sarah Burton, who as Alexander McQueen designer headlined the second day of the London menswear shows, had already been thinking about Japanese kabuki theatre before she visited the Matisse Cut-Outs exhibition at Tate Modern this spring. The two came together in a colourful, upbeat McQueen catwalk show on Monday that expressed renewed optimism and a forward-looking attitude for the brand.

"I wanted it to be less period than usual, without so much historicism" said Burton back stage after the show. "What I got from the references was an idea of scale and proportion, and the impact of the simple shapes on a clean background."

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How to wear pastels and metallics video

June 17, 2014, 5:37 am
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Jess Cartner-Morley combines two fashion hits of this year, pastels and metallics, bringing them together into one look. She picks pieces from M&S, Top Shop, Pippa Lynn, Zara, French Connection, Dries Van Noten and Hobbs to give zippy summer combinations Continue reading...
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How to dress: new life for tired trends

June 20, 2014, 8:30 am
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'Remember when spring's big trend appeared in store in March and hung on in there till it was swinging from the discount rail four months later? These days a trend lasts six weeks, maximum'

Recently, Rihanna's stylist was bemoaning how hard it is to find fun stuff to wear at this time of year. "It's the end of May," Mel Ottenberg told the New York Times, "and we've already used up all of fall/winter." As in: RiRi has already worn and become tired of the best looks not just from this summer's clothes, but from the autumn collections, which don't even go on sale to us norms for another two months.

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Tales from the fashion shop floor

June 24, 2014, 10:17 am
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What's it like working in a fashion store when you're young, inexperienced and unable to fold a cardigan? Guardian writers share their stories of life behind the retail counter

Shopgirls TV review

I would love to say I became a Saturday shop girl because of my lifelong love of fashion, but the truth is more tawdry. In 1987, bars and pubs were annoyingly fussy about proof that you were 16, and I was 14 and looked, if anything, younger; so shops it was. I started out selling records, then on the hosiery floor of a department store; there was a Christmas-holidays stint folding angora cardigans in Hampstead to I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus on a loop. But by the time I was 17, I had found a job I loved at a fancy women's boutique just off Portobello Road; I worked there at weekends until I left school, and most of my university holidays.

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