Inspiration: Man Ray

Occasionally a mood lingers, a high fashion style traverses the seasons. A/W09 made heavy styling and fashion references to Modernism. Jil Sanders exaggerated forms and everyone copied Balmain shoulders. YSL ads featuring Christy Turlington (as shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin) were austere monochrome and angular.

Again, this season, Acne’s Float dress revisits the techniques that Man Ray employed to manipulate the light falling onto the body to bend and morph the body’s otherwise familiar forms. What more seductive way to dress than to exaggerate the finest features of a woman’s figure?

www.acnestudios.com

Could you be, the most beautiful girl in the world...

If I was a fashion designer, and not just a fashion commentator, Charlotte Gainsbourg would be my muse. There is something of the Elmira Gulch about her and never-the-less, this woman is beautiful. She is a conundrum. Breathy Anglo-French accent, long limbs and sulky looks make a seductive picture that has beguiled the likes of Balenciaga. Though I cannot now shift the harrowing character she plays in Lars von Trier's film Antichrist there is something of the unearthly about her that I will always see as highly romantic whether she is singing, acting or modelling.

Girl crush.

Tabio

A year or so ago black leggings came to save every girl's wardrobe allowing us all to shorten hemlines without the pay-per-view effect. Leggings gave us leave to take out summer wardrobes into the colder months and fed into layering trends.

Then a horrible thing happened. People started wearing leggings as trousers. Even if you have good legs, if you are wearing year and a half old leggings they are see-through - this includes cellulite. Like having bad breath, no-one would mention it to these girls but people will walk behind them pointing and saying 'tough night' if not out loud, then privately. If this wasn't enough I was in The Diner (Islington) and was sitting opposite a table of 4 girls, three of whom were in Shoreditch uniform - no word of a lie, all three of them in leggings, flowery skirts and denim jackets.

Leggings and flowery skirts; to the charity shop.

Solution: Tabio stirrup leggings. Expensive for tights at £18 but a brilliant investment and leg-longthening. At 80 denier they are not as warm as leggings but are damn sexy with heels. A wise investment trust me!

www.tabio.com