Christopher Bailey: how Burberry's creative force transformed the brand

October 31, 2017, 7:54 am

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Departure much more significant than run-of-the-mill fashion business reshuffling, with Bailey’s name synonymous with label

Christopher Bailey, who turned Burberry from an ailing rainwear label into a global luxury brand, is to check out of the company in 2018 after 17 years at the helm.

Burberry shares fell 2% after the news that Bailey’s next Burberry show, which will be held in London in February, will be his last. His departure leaves a plum vacancy for a new designer at Britain’s biggest fashion brand.

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Erdem x H&M: 10 things worth queuing up for – in pictures

October 31, 2017, 11:30 am

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From alpha party dresses to Kate Moss coat and pie-crust collars – here’s our pick of the best garments from one of the big designer/high-street collaborations of the year, launching nationwide on Thursday morning

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Spotify for fashion: does renting clothes signal the end for our wardrobes?

November 1, 2017, 12:00 am

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The walk-in closet – once seen as an ultimate lifestyle trophy – could soon become obsolete, as rental and subscription services offer sustainable and more affordable access to brands such as Dior and Prada

Like many, I laboured under the misapprehension that Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater was the most beautiful house in the world until the day Mariah Carey opened her home to MTV Cribs. From that day onward, there was no contest. Now, that is what I call a palace. Never mind requesting 20 white kittens on your rider, never mind the off-colour penchant for sexy-elf costumes, Mariah will forever be a pop-culture goddess by dint of owning the best walk-in wardrobe the world has ever seen. If you haven’t seen it – and seriously, what have you been doing with your life since 2002? – suffice to say, there is an entire room just for ankle-strap sandals.

The walk-in wardrobe has been an ultimate lifestyle trophy for the living memory of many women. As Carrie Bradshaw once said, “I like my money where I can see it – hanging in my closet.” (Before Carrie had a walk-in wardrobe, she turned her hallway into a walk-through wardrobe.) But the latest fashion trend could one day make your wardrobe as anachronistic as built-in CD shelving. Welcome to the new age of the rented closet.

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What I wore this week: a cardigan

November 3, 2017, 6:00 am

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The type of cardigan you will be wanting this season is probably not one of the ones you have in your wardrobe already

There are days when the wanton extravagance of fashion seems like the grotesque death throes of late stage capitalism, and others when it feels like one of the many small sweet ways in which we manifest our love for fellow humans and honour how lucky we are each day to be waking up and getting dressed on this beautiful planet.

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Silky robes and latex gloves: why Nigella is my style goddess

November 7, 2017, 10:28 am

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From her Audrey Hepburn-like knitwear to her Venice-print robe, Nigella’s new series shows she is more than the patron saint of cupcakes – she’s a fashion icon

I already own the must-have fashion trophy item of this season. What’s more, I’ve had it for years. Sorry to boast, terribly bad form, but giving myself a pass this time for reasons that will become clear. It’s not the sparkly, £6,855 Saint Laurent boots or the Dior beret, but the £65 dressing gown that Nigella Lawson has worn in both of the first two episodes of her new BBC2 series At My Table, first to eat midnight-feast brownies and then to cook breakfast waffles. Nigella’s semi-sheer One Hundred Stars robe features a map of Venice, whereas mine is, somehow inevitably, has a slightly more prosaic map of London– but it is the closest I have ever come to emulating my heroine.

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Edward Enninful addresses diversity debate with first cover for British Vogue

November 7, 2017, 11:00 am

≫ Next: Edward Enninful's new Vogue – a bit more cool, a bit less posh

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Politics and culture push fashion world aside, with mixed-race model and feminist activist Adwoa Aboah as cover star

The first Vogue cover produced under Edward Enninful has been released, signalling the new editor’s mission to make political statements, not just fashion ones.

The coverlines make no mention of trends, It bags or new mascaras. Instead there is a list of power players in politics and the arts, including Sadiq Khan, Skepta, Steve McQueen and Zadie Smith. These names – diverse in age as well as ethnicity - outnumber the more familiar fashion names of Kate Moss, Christopher Bailey, Naomi Campbell and Cara Delevingne.

Early years

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Edward Enninful's new Vogue – a bit more cool, a bit less posh

November 8, 2017, 10:07 am

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With Skepta, Sadiq Khan and Zadie Smith, Topshop alongside Céline, and John Galliano on the No 12 bus, the stylist’s first magazine as editor is about 50% more real. But it’s still very much Vogue

• See the full shoot in the December issue of Vogue, on sale Friday

There is a look on page 312 that sums up what Edward Enninful, in his first editor’s letter, calls “your new Vogue”. A model with tightly braided hair strolls on a gritty pavement past Arnold Circus, east London’s most picturesquely down-at-heel estate, in vintage Kappa trackpants and a North Face rucksack with a cashmere Ralph Lauren coat price-tagged at £2,600. The new Vogue is a bit less posh and a bit more cool. But it is still very much Vogue.

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Sober and cautious: M&S spring style mirrors mood in the boardroom

November 14, 2017, 10:00 pm

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Next season’s long sleeves, midi lengths and muted tones showcase prudent aesthetic in challenging times for retailer

The Marks & Spencer fashion showcase operates on three levels. It is a sneak peek of the choice pieces which will be on sale next season. It is a litmus test as to which catwalk trends will break out of the high-fashion bubble and make it big on the high street. Lastly – and this is why it is viewed with interest beyond the fashion world – it is a biannual insight into the self-image and strategy of a retail giant. Twice a year the mood in the M&S boardroom – bullish or timid, experimental or nostalgic – is spelt out in hemlines, price points and colour combinations.

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How to nail the Christmas party look (clue: don’t try to be cool)

November 17, 2017, 12:00 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: white boots | Jess Cartner-Morley

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The best-dressed person at a party is rarely the most dressed up. Here’s how to enjoy the season

• Razzle-dazzle them: the All Ages team get ready to party

It’s not cool to admit to liking Christmas parties. Cool people go large at pop-up rooftop negroni bars, or at Burning Man, then roll their eyes and make snide jokes about photocopiers when the Christmas Night Out rolls around. More fool them.

I love a Christmas party. Because, first of all, mince pies. Also, panettone. Christmas is the only time of year when, as a grownup, you go to a party knowing you’ll get cake. Result. Also, Christmas parties are about having fun, not about posing and being cool. This is possibly why the cool people don’t like them, come to think of it.

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What I wore this week: white boots | Jess Cartner-Morley

November 17, 2017, 5:00 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: leather that’s not black (or red) | Jess Cartner-Morley

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Breaking out of a black shoe rut is an instant moderniser

White shoes. So practical, in a British winter! Said no one, ever. And yet, a pair of white boots is probably the sensible fashion purchase of the moment. This is the refresh button your look needs, a one-retail-hit wonder to give your new-season wardrobe a kick. They don’t have to be high-heeled, or expensive. Although you will need to get nimble around puddles.

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What I wore this week: leather that’s not black (or red) | Jess Cartner-Morley

November 24, 2017, 4:59 am

≫ Next: All I want for Christmas... by Sali Hughes, Meera Sodha and Jess Cartner-Morley

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When you wear a leather skirt in lilac, the leather becomes less of a Thing and the skirt becomes more wearable

In fashion as in life, there is nothing wrong with making mistakes, you just have to try not to keep making the same ones over and over again. A telltale sign that you are doing this is that you have a wardrobe full of clothes, but nothing to wear. Sound familiar?

In fashion, you pay for your errors in actual money, so boo-boos quickly add up. I have learned this the hard way, through being a leather idiot. It has taken me two decades to stop buying leather skirts and dresses that I don’t wear. That time I bought a leather jacket and realised I looked like Dennis Waterman rather than Debbie Harry was a bit of a downer, but not nearly as much as it was the time I did the same a year later. I did realise a long time ago that I can’t wear leather trousers, full stop, which is a blessing, because that would be a total money pit, as Theresa May’s £1,000 chocolate, flared PR hell testifies.

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All I want for Christmas... by Sali Hughes, Meera Sodha and Jess Cartner-Morley

November 25, 2017, 1:00 am

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From stockings to surprises, our columnists reveal the gifts they like to give – and receive

For more Christmas ideas, don’t miss the gift guide

Julia I met Sal in the early 90s, when she landed in London from south Wales. She was in her teens and I was in my late 20s, and we bonded over a shared love of Madonna, Billy Wilder, Clinique lipsticks and rubbish catchphrases. She moved into my flat in Paddington about 27 years ago, and the stockings began. The first exchange would have definitely included an avocado or mango Body Shop body butter. My all-time favourite item from Sali was a Brenda from Beverly Hills 90210 action figure; we were obsessed with the show, and with Brenda in particular, so this was a massive score. It’s not about being grand and spendy. My biggest thrill is finding some gorgeous three-quid lip balm that has flown below her radar. That is the ultimate achievement.

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Back is the new front: Meghan Markle and the power of a stylish rear-view image

November 28, 2017, 9:36 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: low-heeled party shoes | Jess Cartner-Morley

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How you look from behind is now as important as how you look from the front, as the royal engagement pictures, Roland Mouret and Instagram will attest

I can live quite happily without seeing a closeup of the diamond trilogy ring and I can’t claim to have watched the entire 20-minute interview. I got to the part about the proposal being prompted by roast chicken, which as far as I am concerned is proof that this couple knows how to live – but there was one image from the rolling-news Harry and Meghan engagement-fest that turned me instantly soppy. The back-view candid portrait, in which the couple are walking away from the camera, arms around each other’s waists. Body language is so much more eloquent when there is no rictus camera face. That rear view was the money shot.

Going into 2018, it usually is. The key fashion pieces of the season are as likely to wow from the back, as from the front. Maybe you are eyeing up the £145 open-back crepe-and-sequin midi-length dress by party-season name Needle and Thread, where the bodice is fastened at the rear with delicate sequin ties, leaving a dramatic stretch of bare skin above an elegant grosgrain waist band. Or perhaps you have snapped up a stretch, rib-jersey tie-back black sweater with diamond-shape, bare-back section from Helmut Lang to wear with jeans and boots.

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What I wore this week: low-heeled party shoes | Jess Cartner-Morley

December 1, 2017, 5:00 am

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I have finally graduated from being the barefoot woman who has kicked off her expensive new heels to the one in the sensible flats

You know those features where writers reveal the advice they wish they could give their younger selves? And they are always really erudite and wistful, poignant and touching? Well, this is sort of one of those. Sort of. OK, without the erudite, wistful, poignant or touching parts. But still important.

I am talking about high heels. Specifically, how much I wish I could give my younger self a talking to about not spending insane amounts on shoes I couldn’t walk in. As heart-swelling, motivational speeches go, this is not, admittedly, up there with Robin Williams imploring us to carpe diem in Dead Poets Society. But I really wish I had known then what seems obvious now. Which is that good-time shoes that you can’t have a good time in because your feet hurt are a total waste of money.

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Dapper Dan and Dries van Noten address cultural appropriation debate

December 1, 2017, 9:49 am

≫ Next: Witty baubles and homemade wreaths: how to have a fashionable Christmas

≪ Previous: What I wore this week: low-heeled party shoes | Jess Cartner-Morley

The fashion designers have both had the discussion brought to their door in 2017

Dapper Dan, the Harlem tailor whose bootleg designs once brought a lawsuit from Fendi but are now being underwritten by his new partners at Gucci, was “misunderstood” by a fashion industry that failed to understand the power dynamic of cultural appropriation, he has said.

“The strong determine the course that history will take. The black community which I come from in Harlem, we don’t have the resources to determine that course.”

The strong determine the course that history will take

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Witty baubles and homemade wreaths: how to have a fashionable Christmas

December 5, 2017, 8:47 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: a floral dress in winter

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Melania has killed the twig tree and hygge is very last year. So, how to make sure your festivities are Instagram-ready in 2017?

Melania Trump has officially killed the twig tree. Silver-sprayed sparse branches were until recently a winning festive look – minimalist-Narnia vibes, a bit abstract, perfect for the Cos-wearer who doesn’t do tinsel – but this year’s Miss Havisham’s attic-themed White House corridor has seen to that. A tunnel of spiky white twigs with all the cosiness of that camping trip from the Blair Witch Project, complete with a lighting concept seemingly based on holding a torch under your chin to freak your little sister out, the Trump twigs went viral as the most joyless decor the White House has ever seen.

On the other hand, hygge is very last year. Curling up in a pair of cable-knit socks, with a spice-scented candle and an earthenware mug of herbal tea prettily arranged on your mid-century sideboard – just next to the bell jars full of shells collected on meditative winter walks – is unspeakably basic in 2017.

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What I wore this week: a floral dress in winter

December 8, 2017, 5:00 am

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A floral dress in summer is almost too neat. It is so appropriate that it feels a bit literal, and I am not a big fan of literal dressing

Wearing a floral dress only in the summer months is a bit like watching a TV show for an hour at the same time once a week: life just isn’t that regimented in 2017. You don’t have to be dictated to by fashion convention any more than your viewing has to be governed by 9pm appointments with the television.

I would go so far as to say that it’s not just that you can wear floral dresses outside summer, but that outside summer is, in fact, the best time to wear them. A floral dress in summer is almost too neat. It is so appropriate that it feels a bit literal, and I am not a big fan of literal dressing. That thing where you wear, for instance, a strawberry-print dress to Wimbledon makes me kind of itchy. To me, an outfit that makes such ploddingly obvious connections does not sell the wearer as a scintillating conversationalist. Is that mean? Sorry.

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Stars are the new stripes: why fashion is turning to the spiky side

December 12, 2017, 10:20 am

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≪ Previous: What I wore this week: a floral dress in winter

In Europe, fashion’s ubiquitous stars are wrapped up in astronomy and tarot imagery, in the US they have a more political charge. But, from Dior to Clavin Klein, the message is one of spirituality, renewal and inspiration in our fractured times

Shooting through the sky, they bring good luck. In a tarot card reading they mean hope, spirituality, renewal, inspiration and serenity. On Tinder, a blue one is a “super like” (you swiped up, instead of just right, to show that this potential match is your favourite that day). On Snapchat, a large gold one means popularity (someone has replayed your snap in the past 24 hours), while a cluster stands for friendship (you are in a group chat). A marble and brass one on Hollywood Boulevard stands for celebrity; on Uber, the same symbol relates to your manners on late-night journeys home, with particular reference to whether you can hold your drink or are likely to be sick. A red one is communism, but on the US flag a white one stands for one of the 50 states. (More of which later.)

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Jingle bell frock: which Christmas decoration are you?

December 19, 2017, 9:31 am

≫ Next: What I wore this week: red with more red

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Asking the important questions, the Guardian fashion team has looked deep into their wardrobes and then at their Christmas trees to decode which decoration they are this season

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What I wore this week: red with more red

December 22, 2017, 5:00 am

≫ Next: Manolos in Mar-a-Lago: Melania Trump and the politics of her 2017 wardrobe

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If you have a red skirt and a red sweater, wear them together. Don’t worry about whether the shades are the same; it’s better, really, if they are not

Ridiculous at my age that I still can’t get enough of Christmas. Every year I’m here with my bowl of Christmas pudding and I know I should shout “when” to signal no more brandy cream but… I just never do say when. I say bring it on, instead. I cry at the adverts, including (furtively) at the really rubbish ones when everyone else is eyerolling. I put Mariah on my running playlist from the first of December without fail. (Sounds weird but trust me, totally works.) I never visit fewer than two grottos. I go into John Lewis for some ribbed tights, make a sneaky detour to the Christmas shop (just to have a look) and before I know it have broken my solemn promise not to buy any more tree decorations this year. They had fluffy owls! And tiny wooden cabins! What was I supposed to do?

I would be well up for believing in Father Christmas, if it weren’t for the fact that I foresee some issues over workstream that could result in crucial targets not getting hit on the morning of the 25th. So I will content myself with making sure that “he” gets a mince pie and a largish whisky, which – I imagine – helps the Sellotape marathon go with a bang.

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