From eggy yellow dresses to pointless handbags, there’s more to dressing like a monarch than meets the eye. Ours avoids chic and makes sure she doesn’t clash with grass. Though she did once sport a polka-dot turban
Her governess, Marion Crawford, once said of the young queen that “Lilibet never cared a fig” for clothes. And insofar as we can deduce anything about a public but unknowable person, this still feels true. In 63 years of appearances as a monarch, personal vanity has never seemed to take up much bandwidth; what the Queen cares about, instead, is the art and science of being Queen. But she understands perfectly how clothes pay a key role in this. As she once put it: “I have to be seen to be believed.”
Queen, who has served 63 years and 216 days on throne, will officially break record at 5.30pm. Follow the day’s events here
We’re closing the live blog now, but you can still let us know about your encounters with the Queen via Guardian Witness.
Remember, at exactly what time Elizabeth II will overtake her great-great grandmother’s reign of 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes, remains uncertain as her father, George VI, died in his sleep, but it is thought to be at around 1am. Using that as a basis, and factoring in leap days in both reigns, Buckingham Palace’s formula has chosen the record-breaking moment as around 5.30pm.
Caroline Davies has written about today’s events from Tweedbank, where, she says, the the message was “business as usual”. But for the crowds who turned out to see the Queen officially open the new £294m Scottish Borders Railway, this was a chance to see the longest reigning monarch in 1,000 years of British history.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are holidaying in Scotland and are expected to have dinner with the Queen at Balmoral this evening - though it is not expected to be a huge celebration.
You can watch a video of the crew aboard the Gloriana standing to attention below.
Fashion and portrait photographer David Bailey has spoken about spending the morning photographing the Queen at Buckingham Palace last year. He told ITV News:
We laughed all morning with her.
She’s got a sense of humour I tried to wind her up.
After 63 years, seven months and four days of service, Her Majesty the Queen today becomes the longest-serving monarch in our history. For Australia, the UK, and the rest of the Commonwealth, the Queen has been a beacon of stability for more than six decades.
As we mark this extraordinary milestone, the Queen’s admiration for the Australian people is returned with respect and affection.”
The 1st class stamp is turning purple to mark the Queen’s record-breaking reign.
The classic everyday 63p stamp, which features the monarch’s profile by sculptor Arnold Machin, has switched from its regular red to regal purple for the next 12 months in celebration.
Here are some voices from the crowd as the celebratory flotilla passed along the Thames earlier.
The Queen isn’t as rich as you might think. The monarch’s estimated personal fortune, largely inherited from her family, is about £276m , according to an analysis by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That’s a mere 3 percent of the wealth of the richest Briton, Gerald Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster. Europe’s richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, has a £20bn fortune.
The Duke of Edinburgh and I are delighted to be back in the Borders today and especially to have arrived by train. It is wonderful to have witnessed the excitement which the return of the railway has brought here.
We are very grateful for the warmth of your welcome on this occasion. Many, including you, First Minister, have noted another significance attached to today, although it is not one to which In have ever aspired. Inevitably a long life can pass by many milestones. My own is no exception.
Your majesty, throughout your reign, supported at all times by the Duke of Edinburgh, you have carried out your duties with dedication, wisdom, and an exemplary sense of public service. You are held in esteem around the UK, across the commonwealth and around the world. The reception you have received here today demonstrates how strongly that admiration and affection is felt in scotland.
As you may recall, the very first public opening you performed [as Princess] was the Aberdeen’s sailors home in 1944. You have undertaken thousands of engagements across this station, including last year’s opening of Glasgow commonwealth ghames. Your affection for scotland was shared by your great great grandmother queen Victoria. We are priveleged you have chosen to mark today’s milestone here.
The Queen, Duke of Edinburgh and Nicola Sturgeon have made their way onto a podium while a band plays God Save The Queen. Local school children cheer.
How does the Queen’s reign compare to other monarchs? Our new interactive takes a look.
Walter Bell, 88, a former railway fireman and driver who worked on the railway for 50 years, including on the old Borders line, sat with the Queen for part of her train journey and told her about his life as a driver. He said:
She said to me we’ve both got a special day. It was out of this world to meet her, it’s a great honour, it’s very special.
She was really interested in what I was telling her. I was discussing about where I worked and the mishaps on the railway and other stories.
The Queen is meeting dignitaries. Nicola Sturgeon will make a speech followed by expected remarks by the Queen.
Local well-wisher Imogen Potter, 47, from Earlston, was waiting with her children, Rupert, 11, and Annabelle, eight, at Tweedbank to see the Queen. She said they are “absolutely thrilled” the monarch is coming to the Borders.
My son and daughter were on the very first train on Sunday with their dad and they are very excited. We’re pleased that the Queen had come all the way to see us today.
Scotland has been important to the Queen for a long time and I’m delighted that she’s come here today.
Imogen Potter and children Rupert, 11, and Annabelle, 8: We're "absolutely thrilled" Queen is coming to Borders. pic.twitter.com/6o7TEkSCC2
The Queen’s train has arrived at Tweedbank.
The bells of Westminster Abbey where the Queen was married and crowned have sounded out in tribute to the monarch. Bell-ringers at the gothic church - the site of countless historic royal occasions from weddings and coronations to funerals - rang a quarter peal for 50 minutes. Princess Elizabeth wed the Duke of Edinburgh in 1947 at the Abbey and was crowned there less than six years later when she was 27 in 1953.
On the Thames, vessels set off east from Tower bridge at midday and sounded their horns for one minute in recognition of the Queen’s service. As the procession passed HMS Belfast, a four-gun salute sounded out and the Massey Shaw fireboat shot jets of water across the famous waterway. Smartly dressed Naval officers lined up up aboard HMS Portland, next to HMS Belfast, to salute the flotilla.
A nationwide “Clean for The Queen” campaign has been launched today in a bid to clear up Britain in time for the monarch’s 90th birthday. The initiative will encourage people to tackle the litter problem in the country’s cities, town, villages, roadsides and countryside by June 2016.
Country Life magazine is spearheading the drive, which is backed by the Government and organisations such as the environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Women’s Institute and the Garfield Weston Foundation. An army of litter pickers will be rallied to tidy up their local areas and a special clean up weekend will be staged from March 4 to March 6 next year.
Of course, not everyone is marking today’s milestone. There are many around the world questioning the Queen’s role in the 21st Century. Amongst them are anti-monarchist group Republic. Graham Smith, a spokesman for the organisation, said keeping a job for life was not an achievement and the event should not be celebrated.
The Queen has survived this long in her role as head of state for one reason: she has never had to face election or be held to account.
When anyone survives in public office for this long it is usually a sign of something wrong, either in the country’s constitution or in the political culture. There is either a lack of will to challenge that person or a lack of mechanism to remove them - or both.
A flotilla is currently making its way down the Thames. The Tower Bridge has lifted as a mark of respect.
The Queen’s popularity is riding pretty high - she’s considered the greatest monarch in British history, according to a recent YouGov poll.
Polling also indicates that the royal family as a whole remain pretty popular with the British public. Support crosses all age groups and political affiliations, with 71% of British adults believing the monarchy should remain.
The Queen’s self-abnegation is about self-interest, not just duty, writes Deborah Orr. I’ve included a couple of paragraph’s from Deborah’s article below, but you can read the whole thing here.
In putting duty and service first, the Queen has also put survival first. She carries on so that she and her family and their institution can carry on. Her self-abnegation is really self-interest. The attraction of a scrap of unwanted attention in among all that wanted attention simply creates unpredictability, when predictability is the essence of the entire business.
The Queen’s long reign has delivered more predictability than any monarch before her. Sure, all she had to do was stay alive. But we all know that plenty of monarchs have failed in this task, quite catastrophically. If a Queen can have a crowning achievement, then hers will come at about 5.30 this evening. If there is a God, he has certainly saved the Queen.
And below is our video of Cameron’s tribute.
I’ve got some fuller quotes from Harriet Harman, who paid tribute to the Queen before her final PMQs as Labour party leader. She said:
There can be no doubt of the commitment that she has made and the public service she has given, and continues to give. Her life has been a great sweep of British history - the Second World War, the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and she’s presided over the transition from empire to Commonwealth.
She is now on her 12th Prime Minister. We on these benches had hoped she would now be on her 13th. She reigns over 140 million people - that is a huge number, nearly as many as the number of Labour Party’s registered supporters - and it’s entirely characteristic of her that she has let it be known that she doesn’t want there to be a fuss about today, but we are making a fuss and deservedly so.
Here’s our Guardian video of the Queen arriving at Edinburgh’s Waverley Station, where she met Nicola Sturgeon before boarding the Union of South Africa steam train.
For the fashionistas among you, the Queen is dressed in a Karl Ludwig turquoise and indigo blue wool coat with a turquoise silk and wool dress. Her matching hat was by her senior dresser Angela Kelly.
The Queen’s jewellery was especially chosen in recognition of her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria, whose reign she will overtake. Made of diamonds, her bow brooch is part of a set of three which was made for Victoria in 1858 from her own diamonds. They were later worn by Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary at their coronations. Queen Mary tended to wear all three in a vertical row, but Elizabeth II wears them singly. She inherited them from Queen Mary in 1952.
The cabinet will present the Queen with a gift of a bound copy of the cabinet papers from 22nd October 1952, which records the cabinet discussion of the speech that she would later make at the first state opening of parliament she presided over on the 4th November 1952.
The papers, which are now declassified, show that the cabinet also discussed the draft transport bill, the coalfields in the Saar and the engineering and ship building industries. The prime minister’s spokesperson said the gift highlighted “just how many cabinets there have been since her first”.
The tributes have now ended and Prime Minister’s Questions have begun. Here are some fuller quotes from Cameron. Referring to the Queen’s wish for today to be treated like any other day, he said:
While I rarely advocate disobeying Her Majesty, least of all in her own Parliament, I do think it’s right today we should stop and take a moment as a nation to mark this historic milestone and to thank Her Majesty for the extraordinary service she’s given to our country over more than six decades.
The Queen is our Queen and we could not be more proud of her. She has served this country with an unerring grace, dignity and decency and long may she continue to do so.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth has been a golden thread running through three post-war generations, and she’s presided over more than two-thirds of our history as a full democracy with everyone being able to vote.
And yet whether it’s something we suspect she enjoys, like the Highland Games, or something we suspect she might be slightly less keen on, such as spending new year’s eve in the Millennium Dome, she never, ever falters. Her selfless sense of service and duty have earned her unparalleled respect and admiration not only in Britain but around the world.
Lib Dem leader Tim Farron is recalling the two times he met the Queen. He says she gave him his only experience of dancing of around a maypole. “All of us here are new Elizabethans. Queen Elizabeth II has reigned over us all. The values she embodies are about service and stability. It’s all the more important we recognise that Her Majesty occupies the most senior position in our democracy. It’s on this great day that we pay tribute to her service and humility.”
Farron says on the silver jubilee the Queen gave him his first and only chance to dance around a maypole.
Meanwhile, the Queen has stopped off at Newtongrange, where she is meeting well-wishers.
Lobby journalists have been tweeting about MPs’ tributes. These include a joke by Harriet Harman that the Queen reigns over nearly as many people as Labour’s registered supporters, which received a hearty laugh from the Prime Minister.
PM opens HoC tributes to Queen:"Truly humbling to comprehend the scale of service the Queen has given this country.. a golden thread"
Harman says number of people Queen reigns over is nearly as many as Labour’s registered supporters.
"People who meet the Queen often talk about it for the rest of their lives," Cameron tells Parliament. And that is indeed how it can feel.
PM praises Queen's fortitude in getting through New Year's Eve in Dome #Queen
Untrue Queen's above party politics. Inviting Con ex-PM's Thatcher & Major but not Blair & Brown to Kate-Will's wedding was partisan
The BT Tower in central London is currently scrolling the message “Long May She Reign”.
Sir Gerald Howarth is leading backbench tributes. He says the Queen is the “embodiment of duty”.
Sir Gerald Kaufman says she leads the country in a way no president could conceivably do because she is impartial and beyond politics. “She makes it possible for us to have a stable democratic government.”
Harman says people respect the fact that the Queen has stayed fastidiously neutral and above politics, yet at times she has played a key role in politics, like in the peace process in Northern Ireland.
She’s seen 12 PMs, though the opposition hoped she’d be on 13 by now, Harman jokes.
Harriet Harman has recited words the Queen said at the age 21. “I declare before you that my whole life shall be devoted to your service.” That pledge, remarkable from a young woman, has been kept, Harman says.
The House laughs as Cameron says Queen never falters, even when asked to do things she’s less fond of - such as spending New Year’s Eve in the Millennium Dome.
“She’s been a rock of stability in an era in which our country has changed so much,” he said. “She has recognised the need to embrace change.”
PM: as a diplomat and ambassador for Britain it is hard to overstate what she has done for our country.
PM: as a diplomat and ambassador for Britain it is hard to overstate what she has done for our country.
PM: Even ardent republicans fall under her spell.
.@David_Cameron says seeing the Queen every week is one of the most humbling and inspiring parts of his job
Cameron has said it’s “typical of the Queen’s senseless sense of service” that she has asked us to treat this day as any other.
There will now be brief speeches in the House of Commons to mark the Queen’s reign. Watch a live feed of the Commons below.
While we speculate about the kind of conversation the Queen and Nicola Sturgeon must now be having, Mary Francis, who was one of the Queen’s aides in the late 90s, reveals another side to the monarch. She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “She can be great fun. I’ve seen her on one of the last holidays on the Royal Yacht Britannia - the only time I ever saw the Queen wear trousers. She let her hair down. She told stories. She had everybody in fits of laughter so she can be very relaxed - at times.”
And they're off! The steam locomotive pulls out of Waverley with Duke of Edinburgh also waving to the cheering crowd. pic.twitter.com/CPRBaDyeud
The Help for Heroes charity has issued a message of support to the Queen, stating: “Today marks the 23,226th day of The Queen’s reign, making her our longest serving Monarch. Respect”. The Royal British Legion also sent its congratulations to its patron.
After waving to well-wishers, the Queen, dressed in a blue suit and matching hat, and the Duke of Edinburgh, boarded the steam train to Tweedbank. The train has just departed.
The royal motorcade is now arriving at Waverley Station, where Nicola Sturgeon awaits. The national youth pipe band of Scotland have started up. They previously performed for the Queen at her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Esther Taylor, from Dalgety Bay, Fife, is planning to travel on the Borders railway today with her husband John to mark her 73rd birthday. She said:
We weren’t lucky enough to be invited on the Queen’s train but we’ll get one of the later ones. We didn’t actually know the Queen was coming today until my brother told me so we thought we’d come to the station a bit earlier to see her off.
Esther Taylor is sharing a special day with the Queen, celebrating her 73rd birthday with a trip on Borders railway pic.twitter.com/Az4GyGXBEb
When the Queen came to the throne in 1952, the average house price was £1,888, a pint of beer cost 9p and a pint of milk 3p. Today, the average house price is £277,000, a pint of draught bitter sells for £2.97 and a pint of milk costs 43p.
Martin Willis, professor of English literature at the University of Westminster, decided to calculate when the Queen would overtake Queen Victoria as longest-reigning British monarch two years ago at the request of some students. My colleague Kate Lyons spoke to him.
“I had been saying in my Victorian literature classes that Victoria’s reign was the longest, but that she would soon be overtaken by Queen Elizabeth. They wanted a specific time for that - quite rightly,” he said.
At the time, no specific date for the milestone had been announced, so Willis did some calculations factoring in the leap days in the reigns of both queens and arrived initially at the date of September 10. “When I noted September 10th as the date in my original calculation I had not taken account of the precise times of day [of the deaths of Victoria and King George VI],” he said.
We’ve been receiving your images and stories of your encounters with the record-breaking monarch over the years. Some of them are rather lovely: others are deeply underwhelming.
In 1977, as part of the Silver Jubilee celebrations the Queen visited Derbyshire. My Mum dressed me in a red, white and blue spotty dress, wrapped some Queen Elizabeth II roses from our garden in tin foil and stood me in the crowd on the route that the Queens car was to take through Butterley, to the police HQ. As the car approached Prince Philip spotted me and pointed. The car stopped, the Queen lowered the window and took the flowers. This is the photo my mum took at the time. I was 7 years old.
My mum wrote to the queen and got a lovely letter back from her Lady in waiting thanking us for the roses.
It was the 70s I was about 10. Mum had heard the Queen would be driving to West Cumbria past our house that afternoon. We stood for hours waiting. The only people there. She drove past after 3 hours. We waved. She didn't look up.
We saw the Queen, slightly the worse for wear, coming out of a Mexican restaurant in Liverpool. I should clarify that we were coming out of the restaurant and slightly the worse for wear, not the Queen. She was just arriving (presumably sober) at some kind of event at the Royal Philharmonic Hall in her Rolls Royce, as we stumbled out of El Macho's whilst celebrating my mate Tony's birthday.
I was about 5 or 6 and at infant school when the teachers dragged the whole school off to 'see the queen'. We were given flags to wave and made to stand on the side of the road for what seemed like hours. Suddenly, and without warning, a limo with blacked out windows sped past, and that was that. I´ve been a convinced republican since that day
The Queen’s arrival at Waverley Station was delayed for 40 minutes due to weather conditions. She is due to travel from Balmoral by helicopter and make the final part of the journey by limousine.
The Press Association have taken a look at the Queen’s reign in numbers:
“Elizabeth Windsor”, a popular pseudo-Queen Twitter account which has more than 1.29m followers, has also been tweeting about today’s events.
To do this week: 1) open a train line 2) bollock the PM 3) order more gin 4) become the longest serving monarch in British history #Busy
Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma has sent his congratulations to the Queen and praised her personal commitment as Head of the Commonwealth.
As a symbol of continuity during decades of unprecedented change, and by drawing our people together in their rich diversity, Her Majesty has embodied all that is best in the Commonwealth. With vision and dedication her example has encouraged successive generations of leaders and citizens to embrace the promise of the future.
In congratulating Her Majesty on this historic occasion the Commonwealth joins with a fresh sense of common purpose, committed to advancing in practical ways the shared values and principles now set out in the Commonwealth Charter.”
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is present at Waverley station and is talking to well-wishers.
Preparations for the Queen’s departure from Edinburgh Waverley station are well under way. The train that will take her on the newly opened Scottish Borders railway has arrived, and a crowd of wellwishers awaits.
As we await the Queen’s arrival at Waverley Station, our fashion editor, Jess Cartner-Morley, has written about her majesty’s previous choices in wardrobe.
It’s the ultimate hardworking, personal-brand-building wardrobe for the working woman, and one which masterfully retains visibility for a mature woman. And no, I’m not talking about the new season at Whistles. I’m talking about the Queen, an icon for timeless power-dressing.
Colour is the Queen’s trademark. While lesser celebrities attempt to imprint their image on the public retina by sticking to one colour – Barbie in pink, Angelina Jolie in black – the Queen owns the concept of a rainbow wardrobe. She wears pink, purple, lime, kingfisher blue, lemon yellow, crimson and emerald – and when she wears a colour, she really wears it, matching her hat, dress and skirt for maximum impact. It enables her to play the crucial element of surprise every time she makes a public appearance - “oh, look! She’s in pink!” - but to do so in a much more elegant and less painful way than by showcasing a new tattoo, or finding a new body part to bare, which is how the Miley Cyrus generation achieve pretty much the same effect.
Richard Nelsson has taken a look at how the Manchester Guardian reported Queen Victoria becoming the longest reigning monarch in September 1896.
On 23 September 1896, Queen Victoria became Britain’s longest reigning monarch. The next day, the Manchester Guardian published Congratulations To Her Majesty - reports of the demonstrations of loyalty from various dignitaries and members of the clergy.
Reuters have a live feed of the Queen arriving at Edinburgh Waverley station, which you can watch below. The video will be live until 1.30pm.
Given the exhaustive nature of her duties over the decades, we suspect the Queen may have met some of you along the way. Have you met the Queen? If so, we want to hear your stories and see your photographs. You can share these with us using GuardianWitness and the “contribute” button at the top of this live blog.
Perhaps you are one of the hundreds of thousands who have attended one of her regular garden or luncheon parties at Buckingham Palace. Maybe she came to your area, to open a bit of infrastructure or visit a local site of historic interest. Or perhaps you met the Queen quite by accident, unaware that she was due to be in your town or village that day.
Buckingham Palace also released another photo by McCartney on its Twitter account. The image shows the Queen sat slightly away from her desk, smiling and holding some official papers. Clear handled letter openers are among the items on her tidy desk.
This Mary McCartney photograph has been released to mark The Queen becoming the longest reigning British Monarch pic.twitter.com/ZrsUlIsB7n
The image was taken at Buckingham Palace in July. Her Majesty is seated at her desk, with one of her official red boxes
The red box contains papers from government ministers in the UK and Commonwealth. HM has received a box on almost every day of her reign
In 1842 Queen Victoria described the journey from Slough to Paddington as 'delightful, & so quick' in her journal pic.twitter.com/ngw16FVAcB
Here are some archive images from past issues of the Manchester Guardian of the life and coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
David Cameron has already paid tribute to the Queen, telling Cabinet colleagues at their weekly meeting in Downing Street yesterday that she had a “remarkable record’’ and was “a symbol of Britain’s enduring spirit admired around the world”.
Meanwhile, celebrity photographer Mary McCartney, who has captured the Queen at work to mark today’s milestone, described her as a “beacon for womankind’’.
You can explore the Queen’s 63 year reign through our Guardian interactive. It features images from every year of the 89-year-old’s time on the throne.
Staff at Waverley Station are making last-minute preparations for today’s celebrations, with workers sweeping up and broadcasters’ cables being taped down. White, gold and purple bunting has been put up ahead of Queen’s arrival.
The only living monarch to out-reign the Queen is Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who is two years younger but has reigned for six years longer.
But Her Majesty beats him, and all other monarchs, on one matter. According to Guinness World Records, she holds the world record for most currencies featuring the same individual.
But Buckingham Palace has estimated, to be absolutely safe, she will pass Victoria’s 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes at around 5.30pm. That calculation assumes George VI’s death was around 1am, and factors in extra leap days in the reigns of “Elizabeth the Steadfast”, as she has been described, and the Queen Empress.
Victoria recorded the day she broke George III’s record, on 23 September 1896, in her diary, writing: “Today is the day on which I have reigned longer, by a day, than any English sovereign”. Church bells rang and bonfires blazed from hilltops in celebration.
Good morning, and welcome to our special live coverage of the day Queen Elizabeth II becomes the longest reigning monarch in 1,000 years of British history, with 63 years and 216 days on the throne. Her Majesty will break the record at around 5.30pm – but we’ll be bringing you rolling news coverage of all of the celebratory activities throughout the day.
Not that there are all that many activities – the Queen is said to have wanted to mark the day in a low-key way. She was nevertheless persuaded to take a train ride to officially open the £294m Scottish Borders Railway, which actually opened last weekend.
Kardashian-Jenner family feuds, wild parties, the Fat Jew, Drones – it’s all about to kick off at New York fashion week
*Well, might anyway
1. Caitlyn Jenner will walk for Givenchy
So if you believe everything you read on the internet, Givenchy designer Riccardo Tisci has asked Caitlyn Jenner to walk in the hot-ticket Givenchy show on Friday night, and Kris is all fuming about how literally every other person in her family gets their turn in the spotlight except her and how the fashion industry doesn’t give her the respect she deserves, and Caitlyn is flattered but super-nervous about how the show might go down with the transgender community. Some or indeed all of which may turn out to be true. However, while it seems very plausible that Caitlyn might attend the show – Tisci is a longtime champion of transgender equality, having hired Lea T for campaigns long before the cause became fashionable, and Kendall has walked for Givenchy, and Kimye are the undisputed homecoming king and queen of that frow – there is, we should point out, no evidence at all for a catwalk appearance, however awesome it would be.
The Guardian’s fashion editor gives her view of Apple’s most luxury-focused wearable yet
Apple HQ have announced the launch of an iPad with a pencil, and an iPhone that takes “emergency selfies” [sic] – but let’s cut to the chase, because the new Apple Watch Hermes, which goes on sale 5 October, is clearly the most interesting news from Cupertino. In the story of fashion-tech partnerships, that of Apple with Hermes, home of the Birkin bag, is the most glamorous couple to date.
The original Apple Watch is a good-looking watch, but the Hermes Cape Cod is more elegant, more refined. This watch is Hermes on the outside, Apple on the inside. Look at the slightly deco font of the numerals, the lozenge-shaped face, stirrup-style connection to the leather strap, the second hand in Hermes’ signature orange. The price for the double-strap version (which is The One) is $1,250 (£808), which is considerably less than you’d pay for a non-Apple Watch original Hermes Cape Cod. A bargain? Well, bear in mind that internally this is an Apple product, and unlike luxury watches, Apple products do not last for decades.
‘You need a dress that’s a little bit Bloomsbury, cerebral, original and offbeat – something halfway between Lorraine Kelly and Virginia Woolf’
This year, there’s another thing to add to the long list of things I miss about the summer holidays: wearing dresses. Not from an aesthetic standpoint, so much as from sheer laziness: separates have dominated fashion for so long that I had forgotten the blissful ease of one-step dressing, the satisfaction of pulling a dress over your head and slipping into your shoes; of not having to fuss over whether to tuck in or half-tuck your shirt, or to worry about too-short tops that show your knickers when you bend over.
In hindsight, the years after Roland Mouret’s first Galaxy dress in 2006 were a golden era. All you had to do was find a simple, tailored dress in a block colour – tight in the places that suited, and with a bit of a drape in the places that didn’t – and you were dressed from office to pub to cinema, and on-trend.
You’ve seen the same visual cliches so many times – filtered brunches, wholesome hikes and perfect weekend wardrobes. Now one spoof account is parodying the impossibly perfect lifestyle #liveauthentic #neverstopexploring
Here she is on the sand, barefoot in the lapping waves, wearing cropped skinny jeans and shoulder-robing a blanket. And here she is in a cafe, the sleeves of her utility overshirt pushed up as she reaches for her flat white with its photogenic foam-art. Here she is in the mountains, wearing a beanie hat that perfectly offsets hair blow-dried into soft waves. Oh, and look, here’s a still-life shot of her weekend-away capsule wardrobe laid out on hardwood floors. She’s taking high-heeled hiking boots. But then, she is a Barbie doll.
Socality Barbie, the newest social-media sensation, is on a mission to take down Instagram from the inside. The account is the brainchild of an anonymous wedding photographer in Oregon, who dresses a Barbie doll in mini-hipster outfits and posts Instagram shots of doll-sized hikes (always sunny, lots of photogenic light shafts through the trees), coffee dates (whitewashed wooden tables and a calm, mindful atmosphere) and boyfriends (check shirt, facial hair).
The queen of London fashion week on the high-street brands to buy, who she parties with and her favourite song lyric of all time
If anyone knows how to win in the fashion industry, it’s Ms Alexa Chung. Her new short film on how to break into the industry on vogue.co.uk is required viewing for anyone aiming to be on that front row in future seasons. Here the queen of London fashion week spills about the Topshop trousers she loves right now, partying with the Delevingnes and, um, ducks v dogs.
From Givenchy’s afterparty to H&M, automobiles are the accessory of the season. Battered Ford or swanky Ferrari, it’s your call
Pashley bikes are a cliche, Uber is over. There are only two acceptable forms of transport around London fashion week this season. Number one: walking everywhere in furry Gucci loafers. Number two: a really fancy car. Here are four reasons why a sweet ride is a fashion must-have right now:
‘The double-breasted jackets are a little too severe, the trousers cropped slightly too short. Done like this, suits become subversive’
I have worn all kinds of weird trends over the years, as you may have noticed. Flares, capes, pinafores; T-shirts with frayed hems or French words. In 2009 I was into pannier skirts so wide, I sometimes had to enter a room sideways; two years later, I was squeezed into Carine Roitfeld-esque pencil skirts. There have been bare legs in the snow and ankle boots in winter.
The one look I have almost never worn, though, is a suit. I don’t have to, so why would I? Wearing one would be like wearing uniform to school on mufti day. Also, I’m not sure I could pull it off. A suit says: I’m above frivolities. It says: my mind is clear and laser-focused, and entirely unburdened by stray thoughts of whether the St Pancras branch of Whistles might have that nice new leather jacket in stock. Like I said, it’s a look I can’t pull off.
Star-studded event moves from Somerset House to concrete landmark as practicality and accessibility take centre stage
It might not seem immediately obvious that a move from one of the country’s largest and grandest examples of 18th-century architecture to a concrete multistorey carpark is a step up in the world, but then British fashion has always lived by its own rules. On Friday morning, the 62nd London fashion week – 5,000 visitors, 52 catwalk shows, plus the consumption of an estimated 30,000 espressos and 15,000 bottles of Evian – set up camp in its new home, the Brewer Street car park.
To be fair, Brewer Street is an admired Soho landmark, which English Heritage advised listing in 2002. (It is, apparently, the third-oldest multistorey car park to feature ramps.) The new venue brings the shows “closer to retail”, as the British Fashion Council chief, Caroline Rush, says. Not just literally and geographically closer, but closer in spirit.
The ex-Mulberry creative director debuted her playful new handbags with a pink and sugary show at Claridges
Hill & Friends’ bags close with a postman’s lock fastening in the shape of a smiley face - to lock the bag, you ‘wink’ an eye. This brand is all about happiness, from the comedy iced biscuits for breakfast to the Muppets’ Life’s a Happy Song on the soundtrack.
Topshop and Hill & Friends shows both team animal print with hot pink, a combination rarely seen since the party pages of 1980s Tatler
Jackie Collins, who once said her weakness was “too much leopard print”, would have loved next spring. As London fashion week passed its halfway point on Sunday, leopard print – seen on the catwalks, on a filmy blouse at Topshop, or as a handbag at Hill & Friends – was emerging as a strong contender for trend of the season. What’s more, at both Topshop and Hill & Friends animal print was teamed with hot pink, a combination rarely seen since the party pages of 80s Tatler.
The first collection by Hill & Friends was both a debut and a comeback. The label is a partnership of two Mulberry alumni: Emma Hill, who was creative director until two years ago, and ex-brand director Georgia Fendley. Hill’s Mulberry was once a fashion hit-factory, and her return to the schedule six months before her eventual replacement, Céline bag designer Johnny Coca, is expected to show his first Mulberry collection was keenly anticipated.
The new trend in catwalk casting proves that people matter more than clothes
Haters, form an orderly queue. I probably shouldn’t say this out loud, because it’s not as if you lot don’t have enough anti-fashion ammunition anyway, but I’m going to. This is the 15th year I’ve been going to fashion shows, and for much of that time I barely noticed how thin or how young the models were. I know, I know. I’m a bad person.
I watched shows and came out thinking and talking about the zip placement or the music or the front-row scene, and did you notice such-and-such must have had a falling out with so-and-so because they usually sit together, and only later discovered that the show had hit the headlines because one of the “girls” was generally felt to be shockingly skinny, or was 13 years old. Sometimes this felt like a deliberate missing of the point, because you wouldn’t find a footballer’s new haircut on the back page of a newspaper where the match report would be. But it turns out it was me who was missing the point. I was looking so hard at the clothes that I didn’t see the people in them.
Christopher Bailey’s show took Burberry street while celebrities looked on, and Kane made light of a dark period in his life
When your catwalk show is prefaced by Benedict Cumberbatch kissing his hellos with Sienna Miller and Kate Moss before waving to Anna Wintour across the 32-piece orchestra warming up in the middle of the catwalk, and Cara Delevingne is holding hands with girlfriend St Vincent on the front row as Alison Moyet stands up to sing, it is fair to say your brand is riding pretty high in the status stakes.
At which point, it is perhaps possible to relax a little. In the 14 years he has been at Burberry, Christopher Bailey has elevated the brand out of all recognition, from dodgy checks to A-list chic. He has done so by aligning Burberry with high-taste reference points, from Lucian Freud and the St Ives painters to vintage books and the Bloomsbury group.
It has dropped the upper-class accent and fallen back in love with lo-fi style. Next spring’s trends are anoraks over short skirts, long dresses with flat shoes, spaghetti straps and acid brights
If you want London fashion week in a nutshell, it’s this: autumn is all about This is England ’90 on a Sunday night, not Downton Abbey. It is not long since the catwalks were in thrall to Downton – in 2011, we were awash with velvet and pearls and sparkly hair jewellery – but now, fashion has dropped the posh accent and fallen back in love with the real and the lo-fi.
What this means for what you will wear next spring starts with more black than we’ve seen for a while. Also acid brights, charity-shop leopard and shocks of yellow. Spaghetti straps, and therefore (for bra reasons), yes to nipples but no to cleavage. Tea dresses, but as worn by Courtney Love, not by Lady Edith. Long dresses with flat shoes, as at Burberry, or anoraks over short skirts, as at Hunter Original.
Designer showcases vision of clothes as ‘psycho-geographic maps’ in disused train depot without losing mainstream appeal
Alessandro Michele has changed what the Gucci loafer means. At the beginning of 2015, before Michele’s promotion from accessories to the design hot seat, the shoe was an international symbol for smooth, establishment sophistication and a certain type of expensive-restaurant sex appeal. After two seasons of Michele’s Gucci, the loafer – backless and fur-soled for autumn, raised on a pearl-studded heel for spring – stands for surrealism, androgyny and an avant-garde kind of luxury.
It was a less jazz-hands start to a new era of Pucci than expected, and spring/summer designs looked fresher for it
Massimo Giorgetti, the new designer at Emilio Pucci, has two credentials that will have appealed to luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, who bought the house from the Pucci family 15 years ago.
Fashion house pairs melancholic designs with striking accessories as design director Fabio Zambernardi runs the show
At most Milan fashion week shows, the philosophy behind a sheer skirt is the desire to show a bit of leg, but things are different at Prada. The sheer organza layers were “about the idea of a dress, or the memory of a dress as a memory of another time”, Fabio Zambernardi, Prada’s design director, said backstage.
‘The calibrations that take Victoriana from modern but lyrical and romantic (what we are going for) to tragic, pitiful and antiquated (less so) are subtle’
My gossamer frills suggest a ladylike disposition, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to be blunt.
First, background. I am dressed like this because Victoriana – or pretty gothic, or demure romance – is one of this season’s prime trends. The high street is steeped in white ruffles, apron-front dresses, rustling, floor-length hems and dramatic sleeves.
Forget the catwalk: these days, it’s social media that decides what you wear – and more is definitely more
You know that navy blazer, the really expensive one that you bought because fashion editors like me told you it was a for ever classic, that trends were over? Well, it’s no use this season. Sorry about that. That new age of minimalism that we confidently heralded – the end of the trend circus, a clean slate of perfect white shirts – well, it didn’t last. The new season is about eclecticism and eccentricism, colour and clash. Even Phoebe Philo, whose Céline catwalk shows pushed fashion as close as it may ever get to asceticism a few years ago, embraced print, detailing, quirky humour in her Paris fashion week show earlier this year.
But never mind Paris fashion week. That’s not where trends happen any more. It’s not London, either, or New York, or Milan. Because the catwalk is no longer at the heart of fashion – Instagram is. Just as Twitter has become central to political life, as a filter that quickly and organically separates those issues that grab people’s attention from those that don’t, Instagram sets the fashion agenda.