'When you wear a dress with a waistband and a pencil skirt, your posture is guaranteed for the rest of the day'

Since the days of arguments over leaving homework until Sunday night, it has been drummed into us all that delayed gratification is the secret of success. But it's so square. I mean: snore. Except now it's 2013, everyone's on the 5:2 diet and delayed gratification is zeitgeisty cocktail party chat, so it is time to jump on the bandwagon.

When you come to think of it, though, serious fashionistas have always gone in for delayed gratification, and not just the starving-yourself kind. For instance, packing. The diligent put in the work in advance of their holiday. What they absolutely do not do is tip a bag of summer clothes into their suitcase (along with a black cardigan, on the basis that it works with everything) and then add a carrier bag of Accessorize hats and scarves at the airport. Oh no.

Instead, they plan their outfits with a strategic vision that would shame a chess champion. They decide on a "colour palette" for the trip – neutrals and blues, say – and stick to it in everything they pack, so every piece works together. Stereotypically joyless fashionista behaviour, right? Except they are the ones enjoying their holiday and basking in the glow of Instagram glory for weeks after, while the rest of us spend every evening in the same black cardie we wore in Kefalonia the summer of Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Delayed gratification also pays dividends on a daily basis. What I am wearing today is a structured day dress, which is a case in point. You might think the easiest thing to wear on a busy day would be a loose dress; something basic and comfortable. But while a structured dress might be slightly more effort to put on – what with doing up the zip, and not being able to take the stairs three at a time when the toast is burning – it will save you time and effort the rest of the day. When you wear a dress with a waistband and a pencil skirt, your posture is guaranteed all day. And at 4.30pm, when you are clean out of poise and presence, and have another meeting to go to, a structured dress can carry you through. It will walk the walk for you, in other words. Delayed gratification is the secret of success. And you don't even have to skip breakfast, although the toast might be a bit burnt.

• Jess wears dress, £699, by Preen, from fenwick.co.uk. Sandals, £42, asos.com.

Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Tonee Roberio using Mac Cosmetics.

Red and pink is the colour combination for next season. The key is to make it bold. Jess Cartner-Morley picks some combinations for your wardrobe

'There's something about combining two colours that are close together on the colour wheel that makes you look sophisticated'

So I've got this pair of pink jeans, which I really like. (No, trust me. They're nicer than they sound.) Thing is, I have only two tops – a short-sleeved navy silk blouse and a navy T-shirt – that I wear them with. (Navy and pink is brilliant. Obviously.) I am too proud to wear them with black, because that's so lamely obvious. I can't quite pull off wearing them with grey without feeling like I'm an extra in a 1980s bratpack movie. White: well, the thing is, the jeans are pale pink and I am a total scruff, so 10 minutes out of the house and I'd be streaked with pavement grime and coffee drips, looking like a marshmallow that fell into the coals.

So, anyway, what to do when the navy tops need washing? Or ironing, which is just about my least favourite activity in the world? The answer, at least as far as the autumn/winter catwalks are concerned, is clear. Alpha girls wear their pink with red.

Except: really? Pink with red? Pink with red is a Hallmark Valentine card, the kind where the roses are in bristly relief. Pink with red is the stripes on a Victoria's Secret carrier bag. Pink with red is everything that pink with navy is not. However, according to the Jonathan Saunders catwalk, pink with red is Chic Now, and what Jonathan Saunders doesn't know about being Chic Now isn't worth knowing. So I'm willing to give it a shot. Especially since those navy tops still aren't ironing themselves.

And you know what? It works. There's something about combining two shades that are close together on the colour wheel that makes you look quite sophisticated. (See: navy and black.) The key is to make it bold and decisive, so everyone knows you are making a deliberate choice to wear red and pink together. (In other words: no, pink hairclips with a red top doesn't count. Although a statement pink necklace might.) A colour combination such as this says: I can see beyond the obvious. I am beyond the nursery slopes. If black-and-white is the two times table of fashion, then pink and red is, like, the sevens. One of those tricky ones. And the best part is, it's still loads easier than ironing.

• Jess wears trousers, £30, riverisland.com. Courts, £65, office.co.uk. Satin long-sleeved top, £170, by Stills, from harveynichols.com.

Hair and makeup: Tonee Riberio using Mac Cosmetics. Styling: Priscilla Kwateng

Jess Cartner-Morley shows you how to wrap up warm but retain a summery look

She doesn't mix silver and gold, she doesn't do selfies and she's a grammar snob. Kate Moss illuminates the Guardian's fashion editor over lunch at the Ivy Club in London

So I had lunch with Kate Moss today, as you do. This is what I learned:

1. She is on Instagram, though you may have trouble finding her (which is how she likes it). "I have about 10 followers and six of them
are children."

2. She prefers to speak rather than text, because she is "a grammar snob. Capital letters, commas – everything has to be perfect, I can't
stand it otherwise. So it takes too long so I just call instead."

3. She doesn't take selfies. Busman's holiday, I guess?

4. She was wearing Prada: a black zip-front sundress.

5. She doesn't miss a trick. After lunch, she pulled me up on having
"Bitchy Resting Face".

6. Her new Carphone Warehouse range includes a black mock-croc iPhone cover, and a zip-up iPad cover with tiny anchor motifs, modelled on her wrist tattoo, on the lining. "I wanted to do something that was feminine, not tacky and plastic," she says.

7. The one you will see everywhere is the black-and-silver zigzag design phone cover. It is very Aladdin Sane.

8. She changes phone accessories to match her clothes – eg, a dress with a silver zip means a black-and-silver phone case, not black and gold, because: "I am a bit OCD about not mixing silver and gold."

9. At the lunch, for 28 people at the Ivy Club – a mix of journalists, Carphone Warehouse executives and the Mossy posse – Kate ate a shellfish cocktail starter and rib of beef main course, with white wine. She
did not partake of the peach pavlova dessert.

10. Kate's favourite app is Dumb Ways to Die. "You will so regret you asked me that. It is totally addictive."

'If it's June or July or August then we want to feel like it's summer, whatever the weather'

Climate chaos brings us a whole new fashion problem. (Whoa there, with the sarky email. I do realise this is not the most significant of the problems it poses, thanks all the same. Why not write to your MP instead?)

Now, where was I? Right, the "summer" wardrobe… Have you noticed how summer is becoming one of those words that gets used with that little speech-mark hand sign, as if it were a hypothetical concept? Anyway, now that we're in the second year running in which months we think of as summer have had long spells of chilly, wet weather, people have started talking about "summer" in the same knowing, yeah-right tone they use for the tooth fairy, or for José Mourinho's newfound humility.

We have got used to weeks of nice weather (if we're lucky) interspersed with weeks that are calendrically summery but empirically closer to mid-November. So what do we wear? Because, although the meteorological evidence may no longer support the existence of summer, most of us remain emotionally invested in the concept. If it's June or July or August, we want to feel that it's summer, whatever the weather – and that means dressing in a way that looks summery, but keeps us warm.

I think colour is the answer. You need to plot your outfit like an Agatha Christie novel. Make a big song and dance about a red herring of a clue, and no one will notice the real villain. Pale pastel shades give such a sense of lightness, of sunniness, that hardly anyone will notice if the sleeves are long and the fabric is heavy.

Here I am wearing a long-sleeved shirt with a camisole, and a lined brocade knee-length skirt. I am adequately wrapped up for October, or thereabouts. But because I am wearing a summer-sky blue and a fluffy-cloud white, the effect is summery. The pale pastels are the red herring, in this scenario. Personally, I hope "summer" is but a passing trend; I much preferred summer, myself.

• Jess wears sheer shirt, £205, by DKNY, from harrods.com. Flared skirt, £170, by Stills, from harveynichols.com. Courts, £58, by office.co.uk.

Hair and makeup: Tonee Roberio using Mac Cosmetics.

The demure Jenny Packham dress donned by Duchess of Cambridge as she left hospital was surprisingly Diana-esque

Her absolute normality, her girl-next-door-ness, is a key element of the Duchess of Cambridge's popularity. And on these, her own terms, she got the Lindo Steps Look absolutely right. Her cornflower-blue polka dot dress was a safe choice, being demure and pretty and by a British designer, Jenny Packham. The colour was clunkily literal. (One assumes there is a rose pink version hanging in a cupboard somewhere.) Kate loves a fancy frock when the occasion demands it, but 24 hours after having a baby is absolutely not the moment to be experimenting with directional looks. That would be weird, and weird is one thing that Kate is most certainly not.

The one surprising element was how Diana-esque the look was. The image of Diana in polka dots on the same steps in 1982 has been much revisited in recent days, and there was a clear echo of that dress here. Whether the echo was a conscious one, or made unconsciously via the sleep-and hormone-muddled haze of new motherhood, we can only speculate. Like Diana, Kate has the glamour-hair of her generation.

Where Diana had her frosted and flicked fringe, Kate has her thick Disney waves. Good hair imparts glamour whatever you wear. As for the baby Prince, the neutral shawl gave little away. The scoop on the first royal babygro is still out there for the taking.

Jess Cartner-Morley chooses some vamp-it-up shades for your fashion wardrobe

'Walk into a party wearing OTT sunglasses, and half the people there will write you off before you've opened your mouth. You've typecast yourself as a baddie, just like that'

Should you ever want to character-assassinate yourself, you can do this with the help of one simple accessory. All you need to look like a tosser is a monster pair of sunglasses. Walk into a party wearing an OTT pair of shades, and half the people there will write you off before you've opened your mouth. No need to go to the trouble of formulating and voicing offensive opinions: you've typecast yourself as a baddie, just like that.

Today, however, I will attempt to defend the indefensible. My goal is nothing less than the rehabilitation of power sunglasses – the unnecessarily large, deliberately expensive kind.

The benefit of big sunglasses is that they are a no-effort way to turn up the volume on your summer wardrobe. A serious pair of shades packs a lot of attitude, and this can be turned to your advantage if you want to make your summer wardrobe more punchy. Much easier, in hot weather, than adding high heels, and with just as much added glamour. And a pair of shades isn't just a low-maintenance addition – it's positively time-saving, because you can skip eye makeup.

This summer's most on-trend sunglasses are boxy, squared-off shades that seem to channel 3D specs. There is nothing particularly face-flattering about them, but they are unmistakably Fashion. Aviator styles, by contrast, were an off-beat vintage classic two years ago, but, having been discovered for their cheekbone-enhancing properties, have become slightly Wag. Wear square shades to edge up a flirty dress, or aviators to make the utilitarian more alluring.

The classic vamp-it-up shades are the big, curvy, movie-star kind; the "who does she think she is?" sort. If you are trying to look approachable and down to earth, these won't do you any favours. But if you're trying to ratchet your look from normal to reasonably glamorous, there is no faster way. A pair of these transforms a subtle, demure look into a statement of Grace Kelly intent. Key word here: intent. To harness the impact of sunglasses without turning the world against you, remember you are not, actually, Grace Kelly, but just wearing large sunglasses. That way, you get to look like the star, not the baddie.

• Jess wears dress, £1,055, by Rochas, from matchesfashion.com. Sunglasses, £320, by Linda Farrow, from brownsfashion.com. Sandals, £45, riverisland.com.

Hair and makeup: Tonee Roberio using Mac Cosmetics.

Donatella's Marlboro Reds are gone, but back is her label's confident glamour as Naomi Campbell makes a guest return

With 45 minutes to go before the Italian house of Versace will opened Paris haute couture week, one familiar element was missing backstage. The supermodels were there including Naomi Campbell making a guest return to the catwalk at Donatella Versace's request; Diet Cokes were being sipped through straws so as not to smudge lipsticks; Donatella herself was, as always, nut-brown and vanilla-blonde, her tiny frame neatly wrapped in black, and one of her constant companions – Audrey the jack russell – is by her side.

But her other constant companion was conspicuous by its absence. After 30 years in which Donatella was accompanied by a packet of Marlboro Reds and a crystal-encrusted lighter, she gave up smoking two months ago. "For the first month and a half, I had no desire to smoke. Now, all of a sudden, I see someone with a cigarette, I want to steal it," she jokes. In fact, she seems calm and focused.

That Donatella has finally found the strength to kick the Marlboros seemed indicative of a new confidence within the house of Versace, which finds itself on a more solid footing than it has been since before the murder of Gianni in 1997.

The devastation wrought on this family-run business by that death was not just the loss of Gianni himself, but the destabilisation of his sister and closest collaborator, Donatella. Donatella shouldered her brother's roles and responsibilities as chief designer almost immediately after his death, but for a decade this was a company existing on a knife-edge. The psychological fragility of a woman who had channelled her grief into upholding the family name in her brother's honour made for a compelling narrative, but a shaky foundation for business. For all their toughness, the motorcycle leathers, gold studs and Medusa heads on the catwalk could never disguise the eggshell delicacy of Donatella's state of mind.

But last week the CEO, Gian Giacomo Ferraris, who joined from Jil Sander in 2009, indicated that the family was ready to take the brand to the next level, with the company close to selling a minority stake in order to fund further growth. (Donatella owns 20% of the company, her brother Santo 30%, and Donatella's daughter Allegra 50%.) In 2011, Versace returned to profit after successive years of losses. In 2012, net profits rose further by 7.6%. Although the brand remains materially small – smaller than its high profile would suggest – it is growing. Ferraris has said that the target of €500m (£428m) revenue, which had been set as a goal for the end of 2014, will be achieved much earlier.

(In 2012, revenue was €408.7m, a 20% increase on the previous year.) Global reach, a profitable focus on the younger lines, and a clampdown on counterfeiting have all helped make Versace a more serious player on the luxury stage.

Donatella's talent as a fashion designer is devastatingly simple. She wraps and engineers fabric around the female form in a way which makes sparks fly off the catwalk. This is an art form which is simultaneously old as the hills and daringly modern. A knee-length cocktail dress is entirely covered in tiny sequins, delicately hand embroidered so that they quiver over every curve, with a keyhole section in sheer net mesh revealing cleavage, and the full-length seam tracing the back view lined with large hook and eyes, to spell out rather than simply suggest the possibility of undress.

The hook and eyes, Donatella said before the show, were there to convey that "you can reveal a shoulder, a little of your back, it is up to you. To be able to do that, in a strict black dress: that is what makes the dress powerful".

The other interpretation of an external row of magnified hook and eye fastenings, of course, is that it invites an observer to feel that he (these dresses are, undoubtedly, designed for male eyes) can undo the dress. Versace wouldn't be Versace without this static electricity between the idea of a woman celebrating her sexuality and that of a woman advertising her sexuality.

The starting point for this collection was the black and white fashion photography of Horst and Man Ray. "What is extraordinary about those pictures is that they are perfect, in an era when there was no retouching," said Donatella. "The perfection comes from the lighting, and the make-up, and the hair and the clothes. All those things have to be perfect. And this seems releveant, because couture needs to be that impeccable." The crisp silhouettes and arch attitude of those fashion photographs found its way into the gowns and tailored suits on the catwalk, causing front-row guest Uma Thurman to exclaim after the show that it was "just wonderful - like real old-time glamour".

Haute couture shows are still a novelty for Donatella , who took a hiatus from this most elite branches of the fashion industry "during the big [financial] crisis, which hit everybody. I had to compromise. We didn't have the budget for a couture show so I made a choice to concentrate on ready to wear, and on expanding worldwide." Now that the business is healthy enough to fund a couture show, she has returned with "a more experimental feeling about couture. Couture will always be elitist for the customers, of course. But visually, it is not elitist at all. Everyone sees it. So it has to be relevant to the twenty first century. I feel passionate about that." Unfortunately, Donatella's willingness to experiment has not as yet emboldened her to ditch the bootcut trousers which she remains wedded to; but if the Marlboros can go, there is surely still hope on this front.

Campbell, who opened the show in a sequin tuxedo and closed it in a mink cardigan, was "an iconic woman for Gianni, and is an iconic woman for my Versace now," Donatella said. "I feel like today is an iconic moment for my Versace. Naomi has personality. She is a fighter. She is not shy about showing her power or using her power. And she is not afraid to take risks. That is why she is a Versace woman."

Outfits created by Christian Lacroix for one-off collection will not go on sale – at any price

Schiaparelli has never been an ordinary fashion house. Elsa Schiaparelli was a fashion designer whose clothes grew out of art, not dressmaking. Salvador Dali described her studio in the 1930s as "the beating heart of Surrealist Paris".

Her famous putdown for her lifelong rival, Coco Chanel, was to call her "that milliner", a reference to what she saw as Chanel's prosaic approach to the issue of what women wear.

Yves Saint Laurent, a great admirer of Schiaparelli and her work, lists "her particular charms" as "her brutality, her arrogance, her self-possession, disdain, storms of anger, odd whims" in his foreword to her biography.

So the return of the Schiaparelli name to Paris fashion was never going to be an ordinary comeback. To be true to the brand, it had to be Shocking – the name Schiaparelli gave to her signature colour, a violent blue-toned pink which Saint Laurent described as having "the nerve of red".

The first subversive note was that the 18 outfits shown at the Musée Arts Decoratifs were created by Christian Lacroix, a legendary fashion designer, but one whose association with Schiaparelli is limited to this collection, and ends now. The second was that these clothes are for display only and not available to buy, at any price. Order books will not be opened at the house this season, however much money is offered by the super rich clients of haute couture.

The third subversive note was that even now – six years after Diego Della Valle, owner of the Italian Tod's group, bought the Schiaparelli house and announced their attention to relaunch – there is no official confirmation of who the Schiaparelli designer will be, although it has been widely reported that Marco Zanini of Rochas will be given the job.

This is, by any standard, an unconventional way to relaunch a brand – which, of course, is exactly the point. And in keeping with the unorthodox mood this was not one comeback, but two. This was Christian Lacroix's first fashion week appearance since his label was forced to close four years ago. Lacroix has since forged a stellar career designing costumes for opera and ballet, curating exhibitions, and designing hotel interiors, and proclaims himself happy to have moved on from the catwalk; many in the industry, however, still mourn the loss of his vividly coloured, richly evocative catwalk shows.

The Schiaparelli installation was held in the wood-panelled rooms of the Musée Arts Decoratifs where Lacroix presented his last catwalk show. On that day, the windows overlooking the Louvre courtyard rattled in the rain, and his adoring seamstresses sobbed backstage. Four years later, the sun streamed through the windows onto the 18 outfits Lacroix had designed for Schiaparelli, and he was welcomed as a returning hero.

The appointment of Lacroix to create this curtain-raiser for the Schiaparelli brand was inspired. There are natural synergies between Lacroix's aesthetic and that of Elsa herself, particularly in gloriously eccentric colour combinations (billiard green with Shocking pink, paprika red with electric blue) and flamboyant silhouettes untramelled by narrow metropolitan ideas of chic. (Lacroix, a native of Arles, told Womenswear Daily this week that he and the Rome-born Elsa Schiaparelli "were really the same, from the Mediterranean, Latin people fascinated by Paris.")

Lacroix initially produced 99 sketches, each based in some way on a design or an idea of Schiaparelli's, and then worked with a team of 12 in the Schiaparelli atelier to produce a final 18 outfits.

The cage which stood at the door of Schiaparelli's Place Vendôme boutique was reconstructed in bamboo at the entrance to this display. Virtual hummingbirds on mini iPads fluttered among the silk cherry blossom, a neat modern update on Elsa Schiaparelli's obsession with birds, bugs and insects.

On the clothes themselves, displayed on mannequins on a golden carousel, Lacroix paid homage to Elsa the surrealist with a golden bug brooches menacing the hip of a tailored jacket. The sharp points of a corset neckline were modelled on an upside down heart. Lacroix echoed the deeply artistic nature of Schiap's studio, by abandoning any notion of wearability: one crinoline skirt in this collection is made up of so many layers that it weighs almost 40kg.

But he also signposted the ways in which Schiaparelli's vision as an emancipated woman in the 1930s was daringly modern and practical: the zippered jumpsuit she pioneered was revived by Lacroix, as were dresses with deep pockets, an innovation she championed.

Schiaparelli have indicated that the announcement of a designer is imminent. From next year, they will present clothes commercially both on the elite haute couture schedule and on the ready-to-wear catwalks. The headquarters at 21 Place Vendôme will house a Schiaparelli boutique once again.

The relaunch is unlikely to be easy. Almost sixty years have passed since the Schiaparelli name was last on the catwalk and while the name is still revered in fashion history it has taken on a dusty academic note. To most consumers, it means little.

But Elsa Schiaparelli herself is proof that doing things differently can pay dividends. In 1937 she conceived the perfume, Shocking, whose name, fragrance, pink packaging and bottle – modelled on Mae West's tailor's dummy, it was the first in the form of a woman's body – caught the public imagination.

Shocking became an important source of revenue for her business, allowing her the freedom to design cocktail hats modelled on pork chops in collaboration with Salvador Dali, and make a silk dress with a larger-than-life hand-painted lobster on the skirt for Wallis Simpson's trousseau. Lacroix has got Schiaparelli off to a flying start – it remains to be seen whether Della Valle can keep the dream alive.

Dior designer Raf Simons ditches haute couture elegance for multicultural collection aimed at international audience

A year into his reign at Christian Dior, Raf Simons' mission to shake up the fashion world is still gathering speed. His feet may be firmly under the desk, but rather than relaxing into a comfortable position in the Paris establishment, the Belgian designer is looking at this rarified world with the fresh eyes of an outsider.

His haute couture collection was not Simons' most beautiful Dior show. This time last year, he had romanced and seduced us – the venue carpeted with flowers, the dresses chiming with our drilled-in belief in the primacy of Parisian chic.

This time around, the mood was more challenging. The collection was divided into four geographical realms: Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa. Each had its own mini-collection, each of which had been shot by a celebrity photographer, so advertising-campaign-style images were projected on to the walls, which formed the backdrop to the square catwalk.

"I began by looking at women from different continents and cultures who wear couture, their personal style", Simons explained, and "the collection evolved to be about Dior not just being about Paris and France, but about the rest of the world and how many fashion cultures impact on the house and on myself."

The sense of calm, clear, thought-out strategy, which was such an appealing part of Simons' first shows for Dior, was absent. Moving screens presented the interpretations of Patrick Demarchelier, Willy Vanderperre, Paolo Roversi and Terry Richardson while the models walked, with the result that five large fashion egos, including that of Simons, were competing for oxygen throughout the show.

The air of elegance, which the couture world holds so dear, was notable by its absence: it was as if the Glastonbury spirit of anything goes had seeped into this week's couture fashion shows. The clear blue water which Simons had put between himself and the sometimes glorious chaos of the Galliano years was muddied, just a little.

The first message of the collection seemed to be that the couture customer base is not just global but strongly skewed toward new markets in Asia, the Middle East and South America. That is news to precisely no one who has glanced at a front row photograph in the past five years, of course.

Simons, who has been criticised for using overwhelmingly white models in previous shows, made good with a line-up representative of women from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. The choice of photographers seemed a little gauche, however. Was Richardson really the best person to represent an African point of view?

By presenting a couture show that didn't feel like one, Simons made another point: that the hoity-toity attitude that surrounds haute couture is irrelevant, when these events are as much about brand-building to a global audience as they are about selling clothes.

It makes little difference to the average potential purchaser of a Dior lipstick or sunglasses whether a dress is haute couture (£100,000) or ready to wear (£3,000) – they are both equally out of reach, but both contribute to the brand image.

Strip away the conceits and complications, and the clothes were consistent with the modern Dior look for which Simons is laying down foundations each season. A strapless neckline, cut straight across, continues to be key on the catwalk. This will influence the red carpet and eventually impact on high-street party dresses.

And with a celebrity audience that included everyone from Oscar-winning actor Jennifer Lawrence to K-Pop star Psy, this was a show whose sights were set way beyond the salons of Paris.

Bombed-out scene in Grand Palais, complete with piles of rubble, brings dreamlike intensity to designer's creations

To call a Chanel haute couture production a catwalk show would be to do Karl Lagerfeld a disservice. It would be like calling the Place Vendôme a roundabout, or Versailles a country cottage. There is a scale of ambition when Lagerfeld creates for Chanel that is on a quite different level to that operated on by any other designer. (It is a different level, indeed, to the scale Lagerfeld operates on when he designs under his own name, or for Fendi.) And there is no doubt that it pays dividends: the Chanel atelier, where the haute couture dresses are made, has recently expanded to keep up with demand. In London, the brand recently opened a three-storey Bond Street flagship, complete with a giant art installation of dripping pearls.

For his latest extravaganza, Lagerfeld recreated the shell of a burnt- or bombed-out theatre. Hidden within the Grand Palais was a full-sized theatre which guests entered to find the plush curtains drawn, the floor banked to allow all a clear view of the stage, the ceiling blasted away to allow sunlight to stream through from the domed glass roof of the Grand Palais. In between the rows of vintage wooden seats – to which the seat numbers of each guest had been screwed in tiny antiqued brass plaques – were prettily dishevelled piles of rubble. In the aisles, ushers handed out programmes from wicker ice-cream baskets.

The effect of such elaborate, immersive scene-setting is that the audience experience is one of an almost dreamlike intensity. At many catwalk shows, the personality of the fashion designer is something glimpsed only briefly when he or she takes a bow; here, it was all around, heavy in the fake-brick-dust-laden air the audience breathed.

The message of the collection, said Lagerfeld, was of the old world meeting the new. So the curtains opened to reveal a backdrop of a futuristic skyline, city landmarks from London, Dubai and Shanghai merging together. The tall, column silhouettes came in skyscraper shades of steel and iron, belts dropped to hip height to create a long straight line. The effect – especially when the sun caught the rows of tiny sequins, fracturing the light in the way that sunlight catches on glass – was that the models looked like walking versions of the buildings on the theatrical backdrop.

Lagerfeld never deigns to be pinned down to just one era, or even two. The dropped waists and spaghetti straps were slightly 1920s, while the squared-off hats and striped-on makeup had something of the 1980s London Blitz club look about them. But the real point was the notion of one era imagining a future one. So there were elements of Star Trek, and visual references to Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film classic Metropolis. Lagerfeld, who has a collection of memorabilia of the film, took it as inspiration for a couture show two years ago, and there were echoes of that collection here, in the gunmetal greys, and angular hairstyles.

Above all, of course, this was an event firmly rooted in 2013. Two shows were held in order to accommodate not one but two front row special guests. Rihanna held court for the paparazzi at the first show, Kristen Stewart did the honours at the second, without any need for an unseemly battle for celebrity supremacy, and with a corresponding doubling of publicity for all. Everyone's a winner – especially, of course, Karl.

If you wear a dress with structure, attitude and poise, then it will walk the walk for you. Jess Cartner-Morley chooses a selection for your wardrobe

'When you wear a dress with a waistband and a pencil skirt, your posture is guaranteed for the rest of the day'

Since the days of arguments over leaving homework until Sunday night, it has been drummed into us all that delayed gratification is the secret of success. But it's so square. I mean: snore. Except now it's 2013, everyone's on the 5:2 diet and delayed gratification is zeitgeisty cocktail party chat, so it is time to jump on the bandwagon.

When you come to think of it, though, serious fashionistas have always gone in for delayed gratification, and not just the starving-yourself kind. For instance, packing. The diligent put in the work in advance of their holiday. What they absolutely do not do is tip a bag of summer clothes into their suitcase (along with a black cardigan, on the basis that it works with everything) and then add a carrier bag of Accessorize hats and scarves at the airport. Oh no.

Instead, they plan their outfits with a strategic vision that would shame a chess champion. They decide on a "colour palette" for the trip – neutrals and blues, say – and stick to it in everything they pack, so every piece works together. Stereotypically joyless fashionista behaviour, right? Except they are the ones enjoying their holiday and basking in the glow of Instagram glory for weeks after, while the rest of us spend every evening in the same black cardie we wore in Kefalonia the summer of Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Delayed gratification also pays dividends on a daily basis. What I am wearing today is a structured day dress, which is a case in point. You might think the easiest thing to wear on a busy day would be a loose dress; something basic and comfortable. But while a structured dress might be slightly more effort to put on – what with doing up the zip, and not being able to take the stairs three at a time when the toast is burning – it will save you time and effort the rest of the day. When you wear a dress with a waistband and a pencil skirt, your posture is guaranteed all day. And at 4.30pm, when you are clean out of poise and presence, and have another meeting to go to, a structured dress can carry you through. It will walk the walk for you, in other words. Delayed gratification is the secret of success. And you don't even have to skip breakfast, although the toast might be a bit burnt.

• Jess wears dress, £699, by Preen, from fenwick.co.uk. Sandals, £42, asos.com.

Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Tonee Roberio using Mac Cosmetics.

Red and pink is the colour combination for next season. The key is to make it bold. Jess Cartner-Morley picks some combinations for your wardrobe

'There's something about combining two colours that are close together on the colour wheel that makes you look sophisticated'

So I've got this pair of pink jeans, which I really like. (No, trust me. They're nicer than they sound.) Thing is, I have only two tops – a short-sleeved navy silk blouse and a navy T-shirt – that I wear them with. (Navy and pink is brilliant. Obviously.) I am too proud to wear them with black, because that's so lamely obvious. I can't quite pull off wearing them with grey without feeling like I'm an extra in a 1980s bratpack movie. White: well, the thing is, the jeans are pale pink and I am a total scruff, so 10 minutes out of the house and I'd be streaked with pavement grime and coffee drips, looking like a marshmallow that fell into the coals.

So, anyway, what to do when the navy tops need washing? Or ironing, which is just about my least favourite activity in the world? The answer, at least as far as the autumn/winter catwalks are concerned, is clear. Alpha girls wear their pink with red.

Except: really? Pink with red? Pink with red is a Hallmark Valentine card, the kind where the roses are in bristly relief. Pink with red is the stripes on a Victoria's Secret carrier bag. Pink with red is everything that pink with navy is not. However, according to the Jonathan Saunders catwalk, pink with red is Chic Now, and what Jonathan Saunders doesn't know about being Chic Now isn't worth knowing. So I'm willing to give it a shot. Especially since those navy tops still aren't ironing themselves.

And you know what? It works. There's something about combining two shades that are close together on the colour wheel that makes you look quite sophisticated. (See: navy and black.) The key is to make it bold and decisive, so everyone knows you are making a deliberate choice to wear red and pink together. (In other words: no, pink hairclips with a red top doesn't count. Although a statement pink necklace might.) A colour combination such as this says: I can see beyond the obvious. I am beyond the nursery slopes. If black-and-white is the two times table of fashion, then pink and red is, like, the sevens. One of those tricky ones. And the best part is, it's still loads easier than ironing.

• Jess wears trousers, £30, riverisland.com. Courts, £65, office.co.uk. Satin long-sleeved top, £170, by Stills, from harveynichols.com.

Hair and makeup: Tonee Riberio using Mac Cosmetics. Styling: Priscilla Kwateng

Jess Cartner-Morley shows you how to wrap up warm but retain a summery look

She doesn't mix silver and gold, she doesn't do selfies and she's a grammar snob. Kate Moss illuminates the Guardian's fashion editor over lunch at the Ivy Club in London

So I had lunch with Kate Moss today, as you do. This is what I learned:

1. She is on Instagram, though you may have trouble finding her (which is how she likes it). "I have about 10 followers and six of them
are children."

2. She prefers to speak rather than text, because she is "a grammar snob. Capital letters, commas – everything has to be perfect, I can't
stand it otherwise. So it takes too long so I just call instead."

3. She doesn't take selfies. Busman's holiday, I guess?

4. She was wearing Prada: a black zip-front sundress.

5. She doesn't miss a trick. After lunch, she pulled me up on having
"Bitchy Resting Face".

6. Her new Carphone Warehouse range includes a black mock-croc iPhone cover, and a zip-up iPad cover with tiny anchor motifs, modelled on her wrist tattoo, on the lining. "I wanted to do something that was feminine, not tacky and plastic," she says.

7. The one you will see everywhere is the black-and-silver zigzag design phone cover. It is very Aladdin Sane.

8. She changes phone accessories to match her clothes – eg, a dress with a silver zip means a black-and-silver phone case, not black and gold, because: "I am a bit OCD about not mixing silver and gold."

9. At the lunch, for 28 people at the Ivy Club – a mix of journalists, Carphone Warehouse executives and the Mossy posse – Kate ate a shellfish cocktail starter and rib of beef main course, with white wine. She
did not partake of the peach pavlova dessert.

10. Kate's favourite app is Dumb Ways to Die. "You will so regret you asked me that. It is totally addictive."

'If it's June or July or August then we want to feel like it's summer, whatever the weather'

Climate chaos brings us a whole new fashion problem. (Whoa there, with the sarky email. I do realise this is not the most significant of the problems it poses, thanks all the same. Why not write to your MP instead?)

Now, where was I? Right, the "summer" wardrobe… Have you noticed how summer is becoming one of those words that gets used with that little speech-mark hand sign, as if it were a hypothetical concept? Anyway, now that we're in the second year running in which months we think of as summer have had long spells of chilly, wet weather, people have started talking about "summer" in the same knowing, yeah-right tone they use for the tooth fairy, or for José Mourinho's newfound humility.

We have got used to weeks of nice weather (if we're lucky) interspersed with weeks that are calendrically summery but empirically closer to mid-November. So what do we wear? Because, although the meteorological evidence may no longer support the existence of summer, most of us remain emotionally invested in the concept. If it's June or July or August, we want to feel that it's summer, whatever the weather – and that means dressing in a way that looks summery, but keeps us warm.

I think colour is the answer. You need to plot your outfit like an Agatha Christie novel. Make a big song and dance about a red herring of a clue, and no one will notice the real villain. Pale pastel shades give such a sense of lightness, of sunniness, that hardly anyone will notice if the sleeves are long and the fabric is heavy.

Here I am wearing a long-sleeved shirt with a camisole, and a lined brocade knee-length skirt. I am adequately wrapped up for October, or thereabouts. But because I am wearing a summer-sky blue and a fluffy-cloud white, the effect is summery. The pale pastels are the red herring, in this scenario. Personally, I hope "summer" is but a passing trend; I much preferred summer, myself.

• Jess wears sheer shirt, £205, by DKNY, from harrods.com. Flared skirt, £170, by Stills, from harveynichols.com. Courts, £58, by office.co.uk.

Hair and makeup: Tonee Roberio using Mac Cosmetics.