T-shirt folding is the new shopping – bring on Marie Kondo’s decluttering revolution

January 11, 2016, 6:39 am

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Retail therapy may have lost its lustre, but Kondo’s ‘spark joy’ message promises to cleanse your wardrobe and your soul as well

Shopping is over, and tidying up is hot. A drawer in which a spare, thoughtfully chosen, selection of socks stand to attention like little soldiers is as much an of-the-moment status symbol as Paris Hilton laden down with ribbon-tied Fred Segal packages was in the 00s. If you want to nail this season, it’s not about spending £320 on the Givenchy I Feel Love T-shirt you saw on Brooklyn Beckham’s Instagram. No, it’s about spending half a day ridding yourself of any T-shirts that don’t “spark joy” – in the buzzphrase of decluttering guru Marie Kondo – and then the rest of the day folding the ones that do into perfect rectangles.

Kondo’s “Spark Joy” revolution, with its aim of making neat-freaks of us all by encouraging us to throw away any belongings that no longer bring us happiness, has gained traction where a million New Year resolutions have failed by rebranding a chore as millennial me-time. Shopping is supposed to be me-time, too – remember when we called it retail therapy? – but it has lost some of its lustre, thanks to our overindulgence. Perhaps now that we click and buy from Amazon via our phone while waiting for the kettle to boil, shopping doesn’t feel like so much of a treat any more. This year, we spent an estimated £728m online shopping on Christmas Day.

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Michella Obama's State of the Union dress – stylewatch

January 13, 2016, 6:59 am

≫ Next: Model house: let Kate Moss style your living room

≪ Previous: T-shirt folding is the new shopping – bring on Marie Kondo’s decluttering revolution

What colour was the Narciso Rodriguez outfit? Did it reference the yellow she wore at the 2009 inauguration? Is it the “great goodbye dress”? So many questions

The meaning of Michelle Obama’s upper arms is a topic to which we will clearly need to return at length before this presidency is out, but for now let’s talk about the dress. The colour was the prime talking point of the State of the Union address, before designer Narciso Rodriguez confirmed that it is officially “marigold”. (The exact same colour was mustard when J Lo wore it to the Golden Globes two days earlier, but go figure) The sunniness of the tone was a deliberately upbeat note, chosen as the Obamas begin the final, legacy-minded stretch of their White House tenure. Compare and contrast with last year’s serious, dark-toned skirt suit, which chimed with her husband’s 2015 speech focussing on income inequality.

The dress evoked elements of the first lady’s greatest fashion hits. The inauguration of 2009 is a key reference here. First, the intriguing colour recalled the dress and coat she wore that day, a a paler yellow which sparked a similar naming frenzy. (For the record, some called it citrine, but here at the Guardian we backed lemongrass.) For Obama’s arrival last night, her marigold dress was teamed with a purple coat, a daring colour combination which also harked back to that inauguration, when the first lady wore olive green gloves with her pale yellow coat, and Malia and Sasha wore bright, jewel-toned scarves in contrasting colours. Bright colours for optimism, and surprising combinations for daring: these are central to the Michelle Obama fashion message.

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Model house: let Kate Moss style your living room

January 14, 2016, 11:21 pm

≫ Next: What I wore this week: a faux-fur gilet

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With the rumoured launch of Kate Moss Interiors, can the queen of the skinny jean make the leopard-print cushion 2016’s must-have item?

Put all thoughts of that Danish mid-century teak armchair you’ve been stalking on eBay out of your mind, and start looking for a leopard-print sofa. Kate Moss is swapping her Saint Laurent duffel bag for a book of fabric swatches and a Farrow and Ball discount card. Moss is reported to have registered a new Kate Moss Interiors Ltd business at Companies House, signalling an intention to diversify from fashion into interior design. If Moss is even a fraction as influential on our sitting rooms as she has been on our wardrobes, our homes will never be the same again.

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What I wore this week: a faux-fur gilet

January 15, 2016, 5:00 am

≫ Next: The Friends style legacy: more than just oversized Gap shirts and tartan pyjamas

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I feel the appeal of the furry gilet as much as anyone: cosy, duvet-like, Flintstone primal

The furry gilet falls into the following important, underdiscussed category: things I love and wish weren’t as naff as they are so I could indulge in public. See also: elaborate hot chocolates with whipped cream; romcoms with actors from Friends.

A furry gilet is so cosy. But it isn’t cool. It is a bit School Gates Glam. As in: yummy mummy, car keys in hand. The gilet over skinny jeans, say, or over running leggings and a sweater. And School Gates Glam is probably my least favourite dress code in the world, my issue being that it is a peculiarly infantile form of glamour. It is glamorous in the way a three-year-old in a nylon princess dress is glamorous: ie, the wearer believes herself to be glamorous, rather than anyone else.

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The Friends style legacy: more than just oversized Gap shirts and tartan pyjamas

January 18, 2016, 10:20 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: why rainbows are super-cool right now

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Before normcore, they were just normal. With most of the cast due to reunite for a TV special, it’s time to re-evaluate the show that provided style lessons for the Zuckerberg generation

Twelve years is an uncomfortable length of time in fashion. Long enough ago to feel outdated, but not quite long enough for nostalgia to erase embarrassment. It’s like bumping into a friend you haven’t seen since that time a few months ago when you bumped into them and made vague plans to get together which you never followed up on. If you could avoid them for another few years, you could be long-lost soulmates, but for now it’s just a bit awks.

So next month’s almost-reunion of the cast of Friends, who will appear together in NBC’s tribute to director James Burrows, doubtless won’t get the style fanfare it deserves. But, no matter that Perry has thrown the symmetry off by being unable to attend – typical, can you BE any more Chandler? – this should be, if there was any justice in the world, an all-time Fashion Moment. Sex and the City, which, like Friends, left the small screen in 2004, gets all the airtime for being the iconic style show of its era. But it was Rachel and her floppy-shiny-haired crew who truly defined not just what to wear in the 90s, but what to wear as a grownup in a post-business-suit world.

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What I wore this week: why rainbows are super-cool right now

January 22, 2016, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Directorless Dior proves it does not do turmoil in classic haute couture show

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A rainbow is to the other winter months what a Christmas tree is to December: a light on the horizon which tells you there is sunshine out there somewhere

This week’s trend is so white-hot, so in demand, that I am not actually wearing it, because you can’t find the real thing for love nor money, even when you beg and swear on your life you’ll send it back to the showroom wrapped in tissue paper the moment the camera stops clicking. What I want to be wearing right now is a rainbow stripe sweater, ideally the Gucci one Alexa Chung teamed with a gold midi skirt to the dinner thrown in the designer’s honour at Milan Fashion Week last autumn. But you can’t get that anywhere – at £600, it is sold out at 458 online retailers, the aggregator sites inform me – and the inevitable high street copy had failed to materialise by the time we took this photo. So here I am wearing these pastel, rainbow-light stripes, which are very nice indeed, but don’t have the My Little Pony gaudiness I crave. Any day now, there will be a great rainbow sweater on the high street, and when there is I will race you to it.

The stupid part is that a rainbow-striped sweater is a ridiculous item for a grown woman to want. Rainbow stripes are brash and unflattering. They disregard all the understated, don’t-let-your-clothes-wear-you principles on which your wardrobe is built. Yet there’s something about a rainbow that is fundamentally happy-making. Sunsets are beautiful but melancholic; rainbows are optimistic. A rainbow is to the other winter months what a Christmas tree is to December: a promise, a light on the horizon which tells you that while it may be raining there is sunshine out there somewhere. Which is why rainbow hues are a surefire Instagram hit, from the Hummingbird Bakery’s rainbow cake to the dip-dyed hair de rigueur for fashion week streetstylers.

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Directorless Dior proves it does not do turmoil in classic haute couture show

January 25, 2016, 10:17 am

≫ Next: Get the Davos look: what Sheryl Sandberg teaches us about power dressing

≪ Previous: What I wore this week: why rainbows are super-cool right now

Three months after Raf Simons’ departure, show at Musée Rodin evokes Dior’s eternal muse: the spontaneous, relaxed Parisienne

The house of Christian Dior is in turmoil. The unexpected departure of Raf Simons three months ago has left it without a designer, the design studio plunged against its will into an interregnum period, stirring up unhappy memories of the anxious year that followed John Galliano’s scandalous exit in 2011.

Responsibility for this haute couture collection, and for the ready-to-wear collection that will be presented in a month’s time, rest for now on the shoulders of the design team – a thankless task, as the audience out front gossip endlessly about which star designer is about to sign a contract.

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Get the Davos look: what Sheryl Sandberg teaches us about power dressing

January 25, 2016, 10:29 am

≫ Next: Karl Lagerfeld takes Chanel on a nature trail in Paris

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While the Facebook COO debated terrorism at the Swiss winter conference, her outfits came under scrutiny. Did anyone seriously expect her to swap high heels for moon boots?

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg made some pretty bold statements at Davos about how social media could lead the fight against terrorism. By giving a platform to “counterspeech to the speech that is perpetuating hate,” she argued, Facebook could be an instrument for peace.

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Karl Lagerfeld takes Chanel on a nature trail in Paris

January 26, 2016, 6:15 am

≫ Next: From the joy of capes to the great tights uprising: seven style lessons from couture

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Designer’s chic spring collection was presented on an eco-themed runway complete with blue sky and trees in full leaf

At Chanel, the show starts long before the clothes appear. Karl Lagerfeld’s overture began a few days ahead of this collection with the show tickets: simple slabs of eco-friendly plywood looking nothing like haute couture’s traditional beribboned and gold-embossed invitations.

Once inside the Grand Palais on the day of the show, guests found themselves transported from the leaden skies and frenetic streets of Paris to a blissed-out, spa-like stage set, with a painted blue sky lit by floodlights and a backdrop of trees in full leaf. A minimalist pavilion in slatted wood sat in the centre of a lawn edged by paths picked out in yet more pale wood.

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From the joy of capes to the great tights uprising: seven style lessons from couture

January 26, 2016, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Armani Privé: lilac blooms on Giorgio's couture catwalk

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This season’s high-fashion shows have schooled us on hosiery, eggs and what the industry is determinedly calling ‘athevening’. Here’s everything we learned from the Paris catwalks

The 2012 Oscars was The One When The Artist Won Everything and Gwynnie wore a cape. With the benefit of hindsight, the film was sweet but Gwyneth was everything, and the spirit of that white Tom Ford gown is all over this couture week. Karl Lagerfeld – who was spotted hanging out with Paltrow in his design studio days before the Chanel show– finished the show with supermodels dressed as superheroes. Gigi Hadid wore a pale-gold full-length cape, open at the front over a matching floor-length embroidered dress. At Giambattista Valli, even short cocktail dresses came with a highwayman flourish at the shoulder. At Ralph & Russo, the finale bridal gown was worn with a cape embroidered with metallic thread, silver bullion, crystals and glass beads. It was so heavy that it required six attendants to help the model turn at the end of the catwalk. Only Wonder Woman need apply.

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Armani Privé: lilac blooms on Giorgio's couture catwalk

January 27, 2016, 3:40 am

≫ Next: Rags and riches: John Galliano’s Martin Margiela collection

≪ Previous: From the joy of capes to the great tights uprising: seven style lessons from couture

Mauve, violet and lavender set the tone for Armani Privé’s Paris collection, with standout moments from two Oscar dress contenders

Even the 12th richest man in the global fashion industry dresses up for Paris haute couture. As the models emerged on to the mirrored Armani Privé catwalk, the man himself could be seen half-hidden behind the curtains dressed in a black suit, crisp white shirt and black tie, giving the final nod to each model as they stepped out. It was a much more formal look than the navy T-shirt which is Giorgio Armani’s trademark look on show day in Milan.

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Rags and riches: John Galliano’s Martin Margiela collection

January 27, 2016, 5:16 am

≫ Next: Curvy Barbie: is it the end of the road for the thigh gap?

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At this Paris catwalk show, the philosophy of Maison Margiela was clear: to unpick fashion rather than use it to brandish wealth

In the light of Oxfam’s recent report that 62 individuals own as much of the world’s wealth as the poorer half of the global population, the Paris haute couture collections hawking six-figure cocktail dresses embellished with gold leaf or mink trim make a twisted kind of economic sense.

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Curvy Barbie: is it the end of the road for the thigh gap?

January 28, 2016, 7:51 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: the new handbag I’m championing

≪ Previous: Rags and riches: John Galliano’s Martin Margiela collection

With four body shapes, seven skin tones, 24 hairstyles and 22 eye colours, Mattel’s new Fashionistas range has expanded the options for its famous dolls

Let’s get straight to the point here, because this is huge news. Barbie has a bum, and thighs that meet in the middle. The doll whose name has become a byword for unrealistic body ideals now comes normal-sized.

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What I wore this week: the new handbag I’m championing

January 29, 2016, 5:00 am

≫ Next: Brooklyn Beckham, Burberry and the new celebrity aristocracy

≪ Previous: Curvy Barbie: is it the end of the road for the thigh gap?

Switching handbags is fraught with peril. It’s like a miniature house move. But could this new style be worth the hassle?

Please believe me when I say that a change of handbag is not a suggestion I would make lightly. This is a serious matter, worthy of careful consideration, and I’m not just talking about price tags. Switching handbags is fraught with peril, because when you move to a new bag, you take all your stuff with you. It’s like a miniature house move; and if that sounds overblown, then you underestimate the amount of stuff I carry in my bag.

Those dusty inner pockets, once investigated, are a rabbit hole into which your entire morning will disappear as you attempt to repatriate pen lids, while risking your health as you munch on a chewing gum pellet of unknown vintage. Not to mention the inescapable fact that, however thorough you are, you will almost certainly leave your office security pass or your hairbrush in the old bag.

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Brooklyn Beckham, Burberry and the new celebrity aristocracy

February 1, 2016, 8:20 am

≫ Next: Leopard grunge, groutfits and waterwings: the new style rules

≪ Previous: What I wore this week: the new handbag I’m championing

So what if he’s 16 and new to photography? To criticise Brooklyn Beckham’s new Burberry Brit gig smacks of snobbery – and misunderstands the power of having 5.9 million Instagram followers

It’s Brooklyn Beckham’s world, we just live in it. And the sooner we accept this as the natural order of things the better, frankly. Six months after taking his GCSEs, the 16-year-old just shot an advertising campaign for Burberry fragrance.

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Leopard grunge, groutfits and waterwings: the new style rules

February 2, 2016, 9:50 am

≫ Next: The hair-choker – throw away your hairbands and tie your hair to your neck

≪ Previous: Brooklyn Beckham, Burberry and the new celebrity aristocracy

From sleeves to socks, from troulottes to lampshading, here’s how to Fashion your outfit in 2016

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The hair-choker – throw away your hairbands and tie your hair to your neck

February 2, 2016, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Westminster Abbey gets a Gucci makeover – stylewatch

≪ Previous: Leopard grunge, groutfits and waterwings: the new style rules

This is not a drill: spring’s best beauty hack is Christopher Kane- and Dior-approved, and it’s free

Fashion quiz: this season, should you let your hair down, or wear it up?

Trick question! You should tuck it in. But you knew that, of course. The whole hair-inside-the-turtleneck look is, like, entry-level chic. You’ve been all over that since March 2011, when we reported on Phoebe Philo leaving her hair tucked inside her sweater to take her bow on the Celine catwalk. The I’m-too-cool-to-pull-my-hair-out-of-my-collar is now a near-basic styling trick. (Zara are all over it.)

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Westminster Abbey gets a Gucci makeover – stylewatch

February 3, 2016, 7:38 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: the perfect skirt length

≪ Previous: The hair-choker – throw away your hairbands and tie your hair to your neck

Westminster Abbey will host its first catwalk for Gucci in June (but it’s been fabulous for a millennium)

New style icon klaxon! And it’s not some 19-year-old streetstyle whippersnapper, weirdly. This year’s name to drop is 1,000 years old. And 68 metres tall. You’re not going to guess this, unless you’ve looked at the picture, so I’ll just tell you. It’s Westminster Abbey.

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What I wore this week: the perfect skirt length

February 5, 2016, 5:00 am

≫ Next: Why Formation is Beyoncé’s most high-fashion moment ever

≪ Previous: Westminster Abbey gets a Gucci makeover – stylewatch

It’s knees that are the problem. Not yours specifically, all knees. Your skirt needs to be long enough to meet the top of your boots

In fashion, as in food, best-before dates as proclaimed by the manufacturer should be neither slavishly followed nor wilfully ignored, but instead viewed through the prism of your own considered judgment. As a rule, the flashy stuff goes off more quickly. You don’t want to risk 10-day-old prawns; by the same token, the headline-grabbing must-have pieces fall hard when they fall. (I’m thinking of those Isabel Marant wedge-heeled hi-top trainers that spawned a million copies and that everyone wore, me included: they’re now unacceptable in polite society.)

But most cases are less black and white. If the yoghurt in the fridge is a few days past the date on the top but smells fine, I’d eat it, but I wouldn’t give it to kids or guests. The same goes for fashion trends. If practicality or speed demands, I can survive a day in a outfit that is curling around the edges without my self-esteem crumbling. But some people are sensitive to the merest whiff of style that’s anything less than box-fresh, and I would not wish to offend such delicate sensibilities, so I take my diary into account.

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Why Formation is Beyoncé’s most high-fashion moment ever

February 8, 2016, 9:24 am

≫ Next: Vogue at 100: models in the blitz, Diana with a tiara and the Kate Moss creation myth

≪ Previous: What I wore this week: the perfect skirt length

The singer’s clothes have always been about reinforcing her image as a superstar, not scoring fashion points. So why is she wearing Gucci catwalk looks in her new video?

You are going to think I have spectacularly missed the point of the Formation video when I say we need to talk about the Gucci blouse and skirt Beyoncé is wearing as the New Orleans police car she is lying on sinks under the Katrina floodwaters, but wait up. The fact that Formation is Beyoncé’s most high-fashion moment ever – she wears two new-season Gucci looks head-to-toe, exactly as they were seen on the catwalk – is not beside the point. As of this weekend, Beyoncé runs the world again. And this time, she is using fashion as armour and ammunition.

Until now, being fashionable has not really been what Beyoncé is about. Say what? That sounds counterintuitive, I know. Beyoncé is the one of the most glamorous, distinctive, gorgeous, stylish women in the world. But being glamorous and distinctive and beautiful and stylish are all things you can achieve solo; being fashionable is something you can only do as part of a dialogue with what is happening in fashion. Until Formation, Beyoncé’s clothes have been about reinforcing her image as a superstar, not about winning fashion points.

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