From the Jackie Kennedy styling at the inauguration to the misguided stilettoes she wore en route to meet flood victims, we can learn an awful lot about US politics from Melania Trump’s 2017 wardrobe

The first lady does not dress like a first lady. She doesn’t dress like a politician’s wife at all. Melania Trump’s look is that of the wife of a wealthy businessman – it is about money not people. But then her husband, the US president for the best part of a year, does not identify with being a politician. “I’m a businessman” remains one of his catchphrases, a year after his inauguration.

On inauguration day, when Melania made her debut appearance as first lady, there were signs that she intended to adopt the aesthetic of a traditional White House chatelaine. The raised collar of her skirt suit was a nod to Jackie Kennedy’s iconic tailoring, and duly remarked on as such by every fashion commentator, as was surely the point. The Tiffany-blue colour and the matt glow cashmere suggested the kind of patrician east-coast elegance with which the Kennedys are closely associated and which the Trumps are not. That Melania had been dressed by an iconic American designer – Ralph Lauren – was a retort to Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs and the other New York fashion names who had publicly snubbed her business.

Analysis of 30,000 articles reveals that fashion’s key word of 2017 is ‘power’ – reflecting big changes in the balance of power throughout the industry

An analysis of 30,000 articles published in 2017, across 100 different online fashion and lifestyle publications, threw up surprising results when analysed for the most important fashion words of the year. The global fashion search platform Lyst broke down the articles into their 8,610,630 component words and tracked the most popular combinations to find that fashion’s key word of the year was “power”. (Also in the top 10: woke, statement, floral, millennial, ugly and vegan.)

That power was the key word of 2017 was due to the fact that the key moves of the year were in the balance of power, not the lengths of hemlines; 2017 was a year in which the elitist structures of fashion were challenged on the catwalk, in the boardroom, and on the newsstand.

Dress to go out, even if you are staying in. I can’t recommend this highly enough

One of the signs that you have reached adulthood is that it becomes de rigueur among your peer group to tell anyone who will listen that, actually, you hate New Year’s Eve. This is a rite of passage. First you have to give up on Father Christmas, then you have to forfeit any excitement for the New Year countdown.

It is undeniably true that New Year is not the most sophisticated of occasions. It is the alcopop of party season, not the martini. It is when the bridge-and-tunnel set who have just discovered the concept of out-out get to use it in all of their Instagram captions. Although the bridge-and-tunnellers are frankly charm itself in comparison to the appalling snobs NYE makes out of everyone else. Me included.

Related: What I wore this week: silver | Jess Cartner-Morley

From Gigi Hadid’s ‘shrobed’ version to Vetements and Levi’s Frankenjacket, the humble jean jacket will be ubiquitous

You can tell a lot about a decade by its most overused words. The noughties had “bling bling”, which evolved into the slightly more refined but essentially similar “fabulous”.

The nineties were all about irony, though we didn’t really know what it was, so we said “as if!” and “whatever!” a lot.

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Never lose sight of the fact that wearing a T-shirt isn’t the same as activism

Every like-chaser on Instagram – and that’s all of us, by the way – knows that pretty visuals are all very well, but that a great caption seals the deal. So it stands to reason that we should apply the same logic to our outfits. The best way to caption yourself? A slogan T-shirt.

Grownups didn’t use to wear slogan T-shirts, but now we do. There are, however, rules. Number one being: no jokes. Lols are almost never chic. My Auntie Went To Las Vegas And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt stays in the painting-the-house pile. Rule two: keep it clean and above board. So no swearing, nothing saucy and keep it positive. (If you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say anything.)

Related: What I wore this week: red with more red

Female stars will wear black dresses to highlight Hollywood sexual harassment on Sunday, but not everyone is supportive

Anyone shopping for a little black dress in Los Angeles this weekend can expect slim pickings. The Time’s Up campaign, which has called on women to wear black on the Golden Globes red carpet to support the fight against sexual harassment in Hollywood, has seen a run on black gowns.

“Every request we’ve received thus far has been for black,” a representative of an LA fashion showroom told the Hollywood Reporter. There have also been reports from Paris of brightly coloured gowns, laboured over for weeks, being mothballed in favour of last-minute black alternatives.

Related: The Golden Globes’ all-black protest dress code is confirmed – with even some male stars obliging

With their dresses and their dates, Hollywood’s female stars demonstrated that there will be no ‘business as usual’ after sexual harassment scandal

This Golden Globes red carpet was not a fashion show, but a show of power. The cynics dismissed a black dress code as a lazy form of protest against harassment and gender inequality, but when it happened, many of those watching felt the impact. With an almost airtight blackout and a sea of Time’s Up pins, the images from this year’s ceremony spoke of women in terms of power and solidarity rather than glamour or competition.

This was a dazzling kind of blackout. There was Angelina Jolie in feather-trimmed black tulle, arm-in-arm with her teenage son Pax sporting his Time’s Up pin. Reese Witherspoon and Emma Stone stood (bare) shoulder to shoulder with Billie Jean King, founder of the Women’s Tennis Association, whom Stone portrays in Battle of the Sexes. Claire Foy and Mat Smith, stars of The Crown, wore matching tuxedos; Laura Dern, in black Armani, stood with Monica Ramirez, a campaigner who fights sexual violence against farmworkers.

Related: Red carpet highlights from the Golden Globes – in pictures

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Curve, M&S’s new plus-size range, targets a modern woman who wants more fashion, not just bigger clothes

Danielle Vanier is a fashion blogger. A recent post sees her in a keyhole-front leather-look jumpsuit teamed with red lipstick and matching ankle boots; on her Instagram feed she is captured in modern faux-candid selfie style, gazing out of a window in black lingerie. Vanier is 30 years old, beautiful, an ambassador for Nike, and a digital influencer with 100,000 followers.

She is also – to use her preferred descriptor – fat. The aforementioned lingerie selfie is captioned “Three Cheers For Back Fat”. “I have always felt that I could have belly rolls, I could have chubby legs, and I could still look great,” she says. Vanier is a consultant to Curve, a new Marks & Spencer range available in sizes 18-32, the first pieces from which go on sale today. That M&S, which is already the biggest retailer in the UK plus-size market with womenswear available up to size 28, has created a separate plus-size collection is a reflection of how plus-size women are demanding the industry serve their needs with the same degree of attention to detail as women shopping for a size 10.

An unexpected colour is one way to nudge people into realising you are wearing corduroy in a soulful-and-cultured sense, not in the grumpy-and-outdated sense

In case you’re wondering, the look I am going for here is east-coast-liberal-arts-lecturer-hosts-brunch. That is how I like my corduroy: a bit campus dreamboat, a bit arthouse cinema. Accessorised with a strong scarf game, and maybe an elbow patch; some reading material (either news or fiction but printed on actual paper) and deep conversation peppered with hand-gesture quotation marks.

In other words, nothing to do with Jeremy Corbyn. No offence, Jezza, but I’m thinking more along the lines of Ali MacGraw in Love Story crossed with Diane Keaton in Annie Hall crossed with Tina Fey. There is a whole late-70s-staffroom piece that happens around corduroy in Britain that I choose to ignore, because I prefer what’s on my moodboard.

Related: What I wore this week: a floral dress in winter

From the Golden Globes black-dress-code protest to Kim Jong-un’s suits and Meghan Markle’s M&S jumper, fashion is the news channel to watch

The Oscars are six weeks away, and already my red-carpet predictions for this season have been proved wrong. When the Weinstein scandal broke last autumn, I assumed that red-carpet pageantry would be sidelined in the new world order. In 2018, surely no one would care what actors were wearing?

I could hardly have been more wrong. Last weekend’s Golden Globes may go down in history for the emergence of a new presidential candidate, but the black dress code that symbolised feminist solidarity against sexual harassment will be a significant footnote. The importance of the dress code was reflected by the fact that it was faithfully followed by almost everyone, potential presidential candidates included. At one of the most political award ceremonies in memory, clothes mattered more than ever.

I have hit upon a formula for January dressing that is comfortable and cosy, but looks sharper than Uggs and cardigan-coats

With the honourable exception of those poor souls who have to step right out of their Twixmas cosies and into corsets and sequins on the Hollywood red-carpet circuit, in pursuit of award‑season glory, no one in their right mind has any interest in dressing up in January. The best that can be said about this month is that it too shall pass. Soon it will be February, which is still cold and dark, but at least has the grace to be short, and comes with pancakes and heart‑shaped chocolates.

However, it seems to me important not to give up completely in January. By which I mean I take a dim view of a look overreliant on comfy old trousers, Uggs and cardigan-coats. These are not clothes so much as nightwear modified for the purpose of – reluctantly – leaving the house. It is more obvious than you realise, as you shamble into the office clutching a takeout coffee the size of a hot-water bottle, that your spirit remains on the sofa.

Related: What I wore this week: corduroy | Jess Cartner-Morley

Slimane is one of the most iconoclastic and charismatic characters in modern fashion

Hedi Slimane, one of the most iconoclastic and charismatic characters in modern fashion, has been named the new creative director of Céline.

London fashion house is the sole heir to a grand British couture tradition

The aesthetic of Ralph & Russo, the only extant British haute couture house, can be summed up as dresses in which to marry a prince. So while Kylie Minogue sat front row between the supermodels Karlie Kloss and Natalia Vodianova, and despite the actors Lupita Nyong’o, Tracee Ellis Ross and Allison Williams wearing the label on the red carpet at the Screen Actors Guild on Sunday evening, the most significant name currently linked with the brand belonged to a certain Meghan Markle, who was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps Markle, who sparked rumours of a Ralph & Russo wedding dress when she chose the brand for her official engagement photo, is one of the brand’s 1.7 million social media followers. If so, she will have seen the show’s finale, an off-white duchess satin gown with a draped bodice, long train encrusted with leaves of Swarovski crystals and lace veil embroidered with silk petals.

The Tunisian designer died in November, but with his first London boutique opening ahead of a major UK exhibition in May, his work has long proved to be far ahead of its time

The king is dead; long live the king. Azzedine Alaïa’s heart failed last November, but his presence will be more keenly felt in Britain this year than ever before. A major exhibition opens at the Design Museum in May, with his first London boutique coming to New Bond Street before that. After the outpouring of emotion on his death – from Naomi Campbell, who lived with him as a teenage model and always called him Papa; from the Parisian great-and-good who ate couscous at his table; from the clients who worshipped how he made them look – 2018 will be the year when Alaïa is recognised not just as the man who changed what models wore, but as the man who changed what we all wore.

“For me, fashion is the body,” Alaïa said in 1982. The rest of us took a little while to catch up, but we certainly got there in the end. Since the mid-80s, the skin and curve and flesh and muscle of women’s bodies have been the beating heart of how we want to look, with the role of fabric being to enhance that. That was how Alaïa saw it from the start. “I make clothes, women make fashion,” he would say, or: “I am not a designer, I am a couturier.” What he was saying, every time, was that it was the body that mattered most.

Related: The king of cling: Azzedine Alaïa's best looks – in pictures

Flowers were ever-present at summer 2018 Paris show, where designer revealed a new look

In politics, a rose garden strategy refers to an incumbent candidate using the trappings of office to project an aura of power for the purpose of re-election. Karl Lagerfeld, who has presided over Chanel with an air of kingly invincibility since 1983, has been using the method for years.

The awe-inspiring catwalk shows he stages for Chanel each fashion week – think space rockets that actually take off, full-size replicas of the Eiffel Tower, real icebergs – have successfully quelled any desire for change by inspiring shock, awe and simple devotion.

If you don’t have this jacket (tailored, checked, on the grey-to-beige scale of soft neutrals), then get one

Please tell me you have this jacket, or one very similar, already. And if not, then if you wouldn’t mind explaining what exactly you have been doing with yourself for the past four months? Because that is how long it is since the checked grey-or-beige blazer established itself as the new key piece in the wardrobe of the grown-up fashion connoisseur. At New York fashion week last September, I wore mine for the first time. By the London shows a week later, it had become front-row uniform, making us look like a lineup of fashion-swot prefects. (Which, in a way, is what we are.) At Gucci in Milan, I counted 11 versions on the catwalk. By the end of Paris fashion week, I had to have it relined, because it was falling apart. (Oh, the joys of a high-street bargain.)

In other words, if you don’t have this jacket (tailored, checked, on the grey-to-beige scale of soft neutrals) then get one. Do that, and you have my blessing to ignore all other style diktats for the foreseeable future, because the jacket will stand your look up completely by itself.

Related: What I wore this week: corduroy | Jess Cartner-Morley

The 36-year-old Georgian, now Balenciaga’s creative director, is bored of fashion as fantasy and has eschewed the tropes of Parisian glamour for flea market catwalks and crumpled styling. Where can he go next?

To understand what makes Demna Gvasalia the hottest designer in Paris right now, you first need to forget everything you think you know about Paris. Forget Catherine Deneuve, forget Jane Birkin, forget Françoise Hardy. Forget trenchcoats, silk blouses, ballet pumps and straw baskets. Forget Amélie in Montmartre and Carrie Bradshaw in Ladurée.

The Paris of Gvasalia, designer of Vetements and Balenciaga, is not that Paris. Instead, it is the Paris you might recognise if you were gripped by the latest series of gritty French police drama Spiral. It is the city we glimpse through the eyes of Louise, the nanny in Leïla Slimani’s novel Lullaby, when she makes the after-work journey from her employers’ chic 10th arrondissement home to her down-at-heel neighbourhood. It is a city of phone shops and fast food, a city where glamour means tight jeans and fake handbags, a city where background noise is a different language on every street corner, not a harmonious Édith Piaf soundtrack.

A long coat looks great on the catwalk – and Prince Harry’s fiancee shows how it can work in real life, too

So Meghan Markle is 5ft 6in, maybe 5ft 7in, says the internet. I Googled this because of a coat she wore, one day last month on a walkabout. It was oatmeal, single-breasted, by the Canadian tailoring label Smythe. It’s sold out now, naturally, but that’s not the point, because it wasn’t so much that particular coat I was taken with, nice though it is, so much as seeing a long-line coat trend work in a non-catwalk scenario.

Long coats invariably look incredible when you see them on the catwalk. A strong shoulder, a weighty fabric and a calf-length hem create a lean, dramatic line. Plus there is an air of romance and intrigue that you just don’t get with a padded jacket or a sensible three-quarter-length. This is the coat you’d wear, surely, for a long kiss goodbye on a station platform. It looks marvellous when it sweeps past you on a catwalk, on a model with bouncy, blow-dried hair nudging 6ft.

Related: What I wore this week: corduroy | Jess Cartner-Morley

The hotly debated issue will not be hemlines but whether fashion is truly addressing its problems

The most public moment in the fashion industry calendar has arrived at a moment when the industry is in turmoil. The Bottega Veneta catwalk show, held at the American Stock Exchange on Friday night, opened New York fashion week just three weeks after Mario Testino and Bruce Weber, two of the most powerful photographers in the American fashion industry and front row regulars, faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, which they have denied. The most hotly debated issues of this week will not be hemlines, but whether an industry facing its own #MeToo moment can retain its dignity in the oversexed and underdressed environment of fashion week.

The blackout on the Golden Globes red carpet, when actresses wore black as a statement of feminist solidarity, proved the power of fashion as a lever to engineer change. Last week it was announced that the Baftas, which will be held during London fashion week, would have the same dress code. Yet internally, the fashion industry is proving slow to embrace the collective mood of reflection and re-evaluation that the red carpet blackouts signify in the film community. While Condé Nast International and major brands have cut ties with the named photographers for the foreseeable future, a root-and-branch overhaul of an industry that the Vogue cover girl Edie Campbell described in an open letter to Womenswear Daily as “too accepting of abuse in all its manifestations” has not been instigated. “The ritual humiliation of models, belittling of assistants, power plays and screaming fits … we have come to see this as part of the job,” wrote Campbell.

Her first show a decade ago was a novelty act, but her departure is a significant blow to the event

Victoria Beckham made her first appearance at New York fashion week a decade ago as a novelty act, but she leaves as a headline one.

Her Sunday morning catwalk show was her last before she joins London fashion week in September. That it is seen as a significant blow for New York fashion week is testament to a remarkable success.

Related: New York fashion week: industry faces its #MeToo moment

Related: Victoria Beckham: I used to feel famous, but now I feel successful