Would you rather look like Audrey Hepburn – or Oliver Twist?

I have a confession. I haven’t always been completely honest.

I fess up to almost everything: which fashions I think we should borrow from and which I think we should ignore; what I have learned from my own outfits that worked and what I have learned from those that didn’t. The bit that I have sometimes fudged is that when I have these conversations in my head, they focus more on the degree to which clothes are or are not flattering than ends up on the page. I filter it out from what I say out loud.

Related: What I wore this week: an asymmetric skirt

From dreamy Ralph Lauren uniforms to all-white jumpsuits, your summer style directive is courtside SW19 – channelling Meghan and Kate, Anna Wintour and Serena Williams

Can we talk about the weather? Is there even any other subject right now? It is the beginning and end of every conversation. How marvellous it is, how lucky we are, obvs, segueing rapidly into the kicker: what on earth to wear? Holiday weather is a breeze when you are pulling a dress on over a bikini. But when you are still on-duty and expected to look smart, summer dressing is a challenge.

I have been through every iteration of non-black shoe and have come to the conclusion that the shoe of eternal summer is tan

In summer I ditch black shoes. The first tinny siren call of an ice-cream van and I swap black shoes for pale ones. I have been through every iteration of non-black shoe and have come to the conclusion that the shoe of eternal summer is tan. Or caramel, or toffee, even just brown.

Call it what you will, except please don’t call it nude. Nude shoes are the last word in naff. Say the words Leg-Lengthening Nude Court in fashionable company and people will recoil. And not in an ironic, guilty-pleasure, bonding over Love Island kind of way, but in an embarrassed silence kind of way. Nude isn’t a colour, there being no singular shade of skin. But in the shoe business, nude has come to refer to the colour of the sheer hosiery female members of the royal family wear on official engagements. It is a slightly unnatural shade of glossy, pinky brown. A couple of weeks on a sun lounger, topped with a slick of pearlised lipgloss. Where the chic summer accessory tone is darker. More deeply saturated, more earthy.

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

For the perfect summer dress, try pairing skirts with shirts you wouldn’t normally think of

When I’m having one of those moments when I can’t seem to find the perfect dress, it usually turns out the perfect dress has been eluding me because it wasn’t a dress at all. In 2016, I searched for my perfect dress all year, only to discover in mid-November that what I actually needed was a jumpsuit. And now, halfway through the summer of 2018, I realise my summery-but-not-floaty dress has been impossible to find because I should have been looking for a shirt and a skirt.

There’s probably a morality tale to be spun from here about what we think we want and what we need, but we don’t have time for that because, as I mentioned, it’s halfway through summer.

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

Our earliest memory can shape our lives, but new research suggests that many are false. Here, writers and readers reflect on their earliest recollections

It starts as a dreamy state of dizzying vertigo, and then I rattle, headfirst, down the wooden stairs. Falling down the white-painted (I think), definitely uncarpeted stairs of our first house is my first memory, and I must have been around two. But is it real? A new study suggests not, and if you can remember lying in your pram/taking your first steps/having your nappy changed, then you are almost certainly wrong, too.

In a survey of more than 6,600 people, published in Psychological Science, researchers found that 40% of people believe they have a first memory from when they were two or even younger, even though evidence suggests it is not possible for memories from this age to be retained. Around three to three-and-a-half seems to be the agreed age of a first memory, although Martin Conway, the study’s co-author and director of the Centre for Memory and Law at City, University of London, has said it’s “not until we’re five or six that we form adult-like memories due to the way that the brain develops and due to our maturing understanding of the world”.

The denim jacket is fundamentally unimprovable, so never really changes, which is brilliant

This is not about whether you should buy a denim jacket; you already have one. Check the boot of the car. Or that overloaded coat hook by the back door. Told you! The only reason you wouldn’t have one is if you listened to misguided people who tell you to detox your wardrobe and get rid of all the useful stuff in favour of obscure capsule “pieces” that are then deemed over six months later.

The denim jacket is the opposite of a statement jacket. It is so far from being a “piece” that it’s almost invisible, in the same way that a pair of jeans almost disappears from view in a fashion context. It is functional and familiar and essential. You take for granted that it will be there when you need it, like ketchup for your fish and chips. The denim jacket is fundamentally unimprovable, so never really changes, which is brilliant, except that means it never feels terrifically exciting.

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

Forget turning left or right when you get on to the plane, airport glamour now rests on having just one carry-on case

The most glamorous woman at the airport is no longer the one who flies in spike heels and white jeans, and has a Joan Collins-worthy pile of Vuitton or Goyard trunks. She is probably wearing trainers – Fila Disruptors or Reebok Classics – and may well be in a culotte jumpsuit that cost £60 from Warehouse. She may give herself away by wearing a huge sunhat that has no obvious function on the 6am flight to Split or Catania – other than having a wingspan wider than her Away carry-on suitcase. That case, crucially, is the only one she has.

Forget about whether you turn left or right when you get on to the plane. The new travel one-upmanship is all about whether you are one of the enviable few who stride straight from passport control to the car-hire kiosk, wheeling your bijou luggage and bypassing an anxious 20 minutes wondering if your luggage fell off the side of a trailer somewhere back in Luton and avoiding the 45-minute queue that will have built up at Hertz by the time it finally arrives.

The perfect holiday wardrobe is neither all fantasy nor all practicality, but requires a balance of the two

It makes perfect sense that not only do we drink rosé in the summer, we also dress to match

Rosé has gone from being the third colour on the wine list to the default choice from May to September. It is summer, distilled into an oversized glass. I write this knowing absolutely nothing whatsoever about wine, but I don’t think that matters because the point of rosé is that it is wine for people who don’t know their way around a wine list. To choose a white or a red wine you need to know about grapes and vineyards and climates. To choose a rosé, you just ask for the palest one they’ve got, right?

A wine you choose by the colour is a lifestyle choice, not a oenological one. Rosé pink – the liquid kind, not the flower kind – is part of our summer aesthetic. So it makes perfect sense that not only do we drink rosé in the summer, we also dress to match. Rose is nothing new, as a summer colour – we were wearing rose dresses back when a rose was something you grew in a flowerbed rather than poured from a bottle of Whispering Angel – but it’s a bit cooler now that it’s what millennials drink on their balconies rather than what baby boomers grow in their gardens.

Related: How to wear: skirt plus shirt

From Vogue to Elle, we read 1,450 pages of the biggest fashion magazine September issues, so you don’t have to. Here’s what you need to know

Before you even think about shopping next season, memorise Givenchy’s look No 9 : an oversized zebra-print turtle-neck sweater worn over a high-shine black pencil skirt with monochrome court shoes. This photo appears twice in the first three pages of Vogue’s trend report, so if you keep that front of mind you can’t go far wrong. The press samples of Victoria Beckham’s leopard-print coat must have racked up a lot of air miles, too.

On set at a fish and chip shop in north London, @harrystyles appears in the new men’s #GucciTailoring campaign wearing the House’s latest suiting designs by #AlessandroMichele. Discover the collection through link in bio. Photographer: @_glen_luchford Art Director: @christophersimmonds

In a rare interview in the September issue of @britishvogue on newsstands tomorrow, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York tell @ellie_pithers why the time has come to share their world. Styled by @venetialscott and shot by @seanthomas_photo, Eugenie wears a dress and coat by @erdem, belt by @tods and shoes by @simonerocha_. Beatrice wears a jacket by @dolcegabbana, dress by @ashleywilliamslondon and shoes by @chanelofficial. Hair by @chiwonghair, make-up by @lottenholmqvist, nails by @adamslee_. Find out more at the link in bio.

The girl with the straw basket is the new domestic goddess: one part homely and relatable, one part glamorous and aspirational

There is only one place to be seen on a weekend morning, and it is not at a yoga class or brunch – 2017 and 2016, respectively – but at the market. This summer, if you are not spending your Saturday morning floating between stalls, squeezing peaches and gently flirting with artisan cheesemakers, then you need to at least look as if you are.

Pack away the athleisure, and dress as if for a trip to the market. It’s a reasonably practical aesthetic, but firmly sighted on a dream lifestyle. You may be going to buy potatoes and an overpriced pain au chocolat at a farmers’ market in a primary school playground, but should look as if you’re in Provence, browsing brocante in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, or handing over your euros for waxed paper parcels of pissaladière to take home for lunch in Lourmarin.

Related: How to wear: a denim jacket

Since marrying Prince Harry, her tights, messy bun and the way she crosses her legs have all caused controversy. But what do her fashion choices really tell us?

The gooey-eyed, loved-up, you-can-do-no-wrong stage of the honeymoon between the new Duchess of Sussex and the media lasted for three weeks precisely. On Saturday 9 June, for her first appearance on the Buckingham Palace balcony after the trooping the colour celebrations, the royal formerly known as Meghan Markle wore a pale-pink Carolina Herrera dress with a wide, off-the-shoulder collar. “Some were quick to notice that she may have bent one of British royalty’s most steadfast rules,” observed Hello! magazine gravely, noting that “royal protocol usually advises that women should keep their shoulders covered”.

A few weeks later, at Wimbledon’s women’s singles final, the big news from the royal box was the daring return of the duchess’s signature “messy bun”. “Meghan Markle has been sticking to the royals’ elegant style lately … but this weekend her messy hairstyle and casual look were back,” noted Vanity Fair. As if strands of untucked hair were not enough to see the duchess branded the biggest royal rule-breaker since the Duchess of Devonshire scandalised 18th-century society with her affairs and gambling debts, it transpired that at one event she had momentarily forgotten the “duchess slant” and crossed her legs at the knee, rather than the ankle. The Daily Mail expressed concern that she would be “slammed for disrespecting the Queen”, quoting a “royal etiquette expert” who pronounced crossing the leg at the knee one of the “biggest etiquette mistakes a lady can make”.

Over this long, hot summer I spotted woman after woman looking cool and composed in floaty white dresses

If I want to write about something for this column, I have to wear it in the accompanying picture. This constrains, inevitably, the gene pool of topics. It’s not that I don’t have any thoughts on swimwear, for instance, it’s just that – well, you get the picture. Or rather, you don’t.

It also means that if I want to talk the talk, I have to walk the walk. Quite literally, across a studio, in front of a shoot team whose facial expressions I have come to analyse the way a poker player learns the tics and tells of the other players in a regular Friday night game. It is instructive, and humbling, and a reminder time and time again that you never know what will work until you actually try it on.

Related: How to wear: rosé pink

In her years as editor of American Vogue, Wintour has invented soft power dressing and become as famous as her celebrity cover stars. Lionised and satirised, respected and feared – could she now be ready to abdicate?

When Anna Wintour arrived in the editor’s chair at American Vogue in 1988, Ronald Reagan was US president. The White House has seen five further incumbents since then; Wintour, by contrast, has not budged an inch. When the curtain goes up on New York fashion week later this week she will be watchful and inscrutable behind the ever-present sunglasses, the waxed Cadillac curves of her power bob ensuring she can be seen from every seat in the house.

Wintour’s three-decade reign in the front row has seen fashion’s place in popular culture expand from a niche, mostly female interest – an updated version of embroidery, if you like – into a pop culture channel that the whole world is watching. Wintour’s Vogue is where Beyoncé discusses her ancestry and Theresa May wears leather trousers. President Emmanuel Macron is busy courting Paris fashion designers as the chosen ambassadors for his vision of France as a modern creative force; in London, the pulling power of fashion week was proved when Queen Elizabeth attended young designer Richard Quinn’s show last season.

Like big dick energy, this is not literal, but a question of finding outerwear – whether a zingy padded coat or a double-breasted jacket – that says you have total self-belief

Big dick energy is so last season. To be alpha this autumn, you need big coat energy. Before you buy a coat this season, you need to ask yourself not only whether it will keep you warm, but also whether it will project the kind of quietly bulletproof confidence to which other people are magnetically attracted. Just like its NSFW namesake, BCE is not about swaggering or showing off. BCE is what happens when you get dressed and instantly feel more powerful, like Harry Potter after he pulls on his invisibility cloak.

If you have been ignoring this look and hoping it was going to go away, now is a good time to face the fact that it is not

Changing what you wear on the top half is easy; changing your whole silhouette requires more effort than changing what you wear on your bottom half. I mean, it is literally easier: if you want to try on a dress or trousers or a skirt, you must sit down, unlace your shoes and wrangle with your jeans or whatever you are wearing. If you are in a shop, you may have to deal with your knicker-clad image in an unfamiliar mirror, as well as the tediously loaded issue of whether the size you have picked out accommodates your waistline. So much easier to buy a pair of earrings or a new sweater, which you can try for size without having to strip off.

I get it. Except, the easy option is not even halfway effective. If you want to fundamentally update your outfit, you need a root and branch overhaul, because the wardrobe centre of gravity right now is a midi-length dress.

Related: How to wear: a straw basket | Jess Cartner-Morley

It’s all change this season as a new mood of bankability resonates through British fashion. Here Alexa Chung talks about about how she went from muse to creative director of her own label

Nine years ago, Alexa Chung was at London fashion week as a Mulberry muse, watching from the front row as the £750 Alexa satchel named after her starred on the catwalk. This weekend she is back in a different guise, taking her first bow as a designer, when her Alexachung label takes to the catwalk in Bloomsbury on Saturday morning.

It is all change on all fronts at London fashion week. A shake-up has resulted in the most radically different schedule in years. Chung’s debut is followed by the first London catwalk show by Victoria Beckham, a trophy transfer from New York fashion week. Monday will be dominated by the debut at Burberry for Riccardo Tisci. The multi award-winning fashion designer, with a cult following and an appetite for controversy, has promised to reinvent London’s biggest luxury brand – a reboot with the potential power to change what British fashion stands for.

There is a new mood of bankability in British fashion. “The latest statistics are unequivocal. The industry is now worth £32.3bn, and growing three times faster than the rest of our economy,” said Justine Simons, the deputy mayor of London on Friday, before taking her seat for J JS Lee, whose show took place alongside those of fellow designers Bora Aksu, Matty Boven and Ashley Williams on the first full day of fashion week.

Last week’s announcement that Chanel is to move its centre of global operations to London has further bolstered commercial confidence, and a Downing Street reception for fashion week on Tuesday is expected to reflect a newly businesslike mood. What is more usually a cocktail-hour celebration of design talent and creative excellence will this time be an afternoon reception “focusing on the fashion business and the importance of international trade”.

Talking about her transition from muse to founder and creative designer of a label, with a team of 30 employees, Chung said: “It might look like a weird trajectory from the outside, but it’s no surprise to me that I’m in this position now.

High-concept, high-fashion and radical, designer Kawakubo is considered the queen of fashion. Jess Cartner-Morley meets the designer at her headquarters in Paris

• Read more from theautumn/winter 2018 edition of The Fashion, our biannual fashion supplement

I am not here to ask Rei Kawakubo about clothes, because she no longer makes them, though this hasn’t stopped her continuing to be probably the most important fashion designer in the world. Five years ago, her Not Making Clothes catwalk show for Comme des Garçons included a model dressed in a cage of black strips of fabric and a lurid pink teddy which half-hid the wearer behind a riot of frills. Nine seasons later, she is still staging a show at every Paris fashion week, helms a business with a turnover estimated at $280m (£215m) a year, but she still insists she is not making clothes. In other words: Rei Kawakubo is as high concept as it gets.

From 3D avatars to wardrobe advisers, artificial intelligence is shaping the way we get dressed. But can there really be an algorithm for style?

• Read more from theautumn/winter 2018 edition of The Fashion, our biannual fashion supplement

Who do you turn to when you can’t decide what to wear? Your best friend, maybe. Instagram, probably. People like me and magazines like this one (hopefully). But soon, perhaps, it will be none of the above. Instead, you will try on an outfit, turn to a wall-mounted, five megapixel camera with front lighting and dual-antennae wifi connectivity, ask, “Alexa, how do I look?” and within a few seconds the 1.6 watt speaker will deliver the data-driven, empirically-founded assessment.

The Echo Look is Amazon’s first “style assistant”, recently rolled out across the US after an invite-only soft launch. No UK launch date is set, but the technology – which analyses your outfit through a combination of algorithms and (human) “fashion specialists” – is set to revolutionise what technology means to style. Just four years ago, the cutting edge of technology in fashion was Tommy Hilfiger’s solar-powered phone-charging jacket. Horse-and-cart stuff, compared with what is going to happen to fashion next.

“Going to catwalk shows and being photographed wearing nice clothes doesn’t make you an expert on them,” said Alexa Chung on Saturday before her debut show as a fashion designer.

True, but the glamorous version of on-the-job training – which saw Chung become a well-known face at London fashion week long before she launched her Alexachung label – has paid off: her clothes comfortably held their own on the catwalk. Chung hopes this collection, entitled Arrivals and Departures, will show the industry her label is here to stay.

The designer has used a decade at New York fashion week to refine her polish with edginess

On the off chance that there was anyone out there who had not yet clocked Victoria Beckham’s evolution from Spice Girl into sophisticated fashion designer, the opening 10 seconds of her first ever London catwalk show elegantly drove the point home.

The veteran British model Stella Tennant, star of Chanel and Céline shows and still catwalk royalty at 47, stalked down a sweeping marble staircase wearing a white blazer over a delicate lace camisole, one hand in the pocket of the trousers pooling elegantly over her slip-on loafers. Having had 10 years at New York fashion week to refine her formula of grown-up polish with a palatable amount of edginess, Beckham’s London debut oozed confidence.

Related: Are the Beckhams turning into the Kardashians?

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