I was playing with my virtual self the other day, if you’ll pardon the expression.

Building your virtual self is a useful exercise even if - like me - you have no intention of buying any of the clothes featured. You can dress yourself up like a tressy doll and see what sorts of things might suit you without going to the time and trouble of actually trying stuff on and getting hot and sweaty in the process (ye gods, who enjoys this?). It also allows you to gain some objectivity because you see yourself full-on as it were, like you do in a photograph, rather than allowing you to focus on your ‘bad’ bits.

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How must it feel to be Elizabeth Fritzl? How must it feel to be her mother?

In this nightmarish tale of abduction, rape and abuse in Austria, how does it feel to enter a cellar as a girl and leave as a middle-aged woman?

When Fritzl’s father pushed her into the basement, she was only 18 years old. It was 1986. Now she is 42 and emerges to a very different world.

All that time, she has spent in one tiny space, seeing no-one, never seeing daylight, being raped and beaten, giving birth to child after child - presumably with no pain relief or medical attention.

Aside from the fact that this should never have happened in a civilised society and the trauma she has suffered in being at the mercy of a psychopath, her father has stolen her life.

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The weather finally improved over the weekend, so I decided it was time for the big spring changeover

I normally do this on the first of April, or the weekend closest to it, but this year’s been so cold and dark, and spring so late, that I left it for the first proper spring day instead. For some reason this year (global warming?), we seemed to switch directly from winter to summer without really going through spring at all, and at the weekend, temperatures rose dramatically.

Changing over your house between winter and summer is a very wabi-sabi thing to do because it acknowledges the turn of the season and reflects the fact that you use your home in different ways in winter than in summer. Making dual use of your space in this way also makes it feel twice the size - like you have your very own holiday home.

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Chloe Marshall’s weight is causing a furore in the UK

For those who don’t know, the reason is that Ms Marshall is the first plus-size girl to ever get a place in the Miss United Kingdom beauty pageant. That fact has brought out doctors, dieticians, bloggers and journalists in droves to comment on her fat/curves/health/BMI and the rest, and whether she should be a role model for young girls or considered a fat disgrace. Can’t be easy when she’s only 17.

Marshall is 5ft 10 tall, so a standard catwalk height, and weighs 176 pounds (12 stone 8), which gives her a BMI of 25.3 by my calculations. Her measurements are 38, 32, 42 and she’s a UK size 16 (for women of my age, that used to be an 18).

I dunno. I have to admit that, for myself, she does look fat. Maybe it’s the photograph that makes her look so heavy but I would have guessed she weighed far more than this.

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The end of cheap clothing is nigh, and bloody good riddance, say I

The BBC is running a story today entitled ‘The end of cheap clothes is near‘.

It was obvious this was going to happen, as I prophesied a while ago. With a worldwide rise in food prices, not only will everyone from east to west have to curb their clothes-buying to stretch the family budget, land that is currently producing cotton will turn back to food production as the prices for food crops increase.

Every which way, clothing is going to cost more to produce. Even third and second-world workers have seen wage rises over the past few years (gee - I thought they were going to eat straw forever), fertiliser costs are rising, and as transport costs increase because of the oil crisis, clothing will cost more to ship from production site to retail outlet. That means the price increase will be loaded onto individual garments at retail level, so we will be able to buy fewer of them.

Getting on my puritan high horse here, I can’t help thinking that a bit of this could be a very good thing. (more…)

As you get older, you’ll probably find your eyelashes aren’t what they once were - here’s some tips to restore the balance

For a lot of women, a side effect of ageing is that their lashes get thinner and sparser - and their immediate reaction is to switch to a volumising mascara.

This is a mistake. As your lashes get thinner, they also get shorter, and a thickening mascara can give you a very clumpy look, like a teenager who’s just learning. Far better is to switch to a lengthening mascara, with very very fine fibres in it, and apply two or three coats as needed. As with all mascara, open your eye wide and apply the product to the roots, then wiggle the brush up through your lashes. This way you get a natural look, and a strong eyeline. For daytime, stick to brown mascara unless you have jet-black hair, as anything else tends to look too harsh.

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The kimono is a fabulous way for a woman over 40 to look individual - and it is flattering to every figure type

When it comes to talking about kimono, I’d better confess an interest. I am a kimono addict - I have over 80 of the things, all vintage, and all bought on Ebay.

This isn’t something you could do even 10 years ago, but with the rise of the Interwebs, you can now get kimono direct from Japan for very modest sums, plus about $12 postage and upwards (it depends on weight). They date from Victorian times (the Meiji era) onwards, but the majority are from the 1960s or more modern, and many have either not been worn, or show hardly any wear.

I am not talking here about the long kimono we’re all familiar with, that you can wear for dressing gowns and for lounging around in. I do have a bunch of those, and will write about them another time, but what many women don’t know is that there are kimono jackets too, which are eminently wearable over normal Western clothing. These go by various names such as hanten, michiyuki and hippari, but the ones that are really interesting from a fashion viewpoint are called haori. These images are of a red rinzu haori with embroidery, applied goldwork and shibori dyeing.

Haori come in various lengths, from hipbone to about knee-length. Unlike a full-length kimono, which wraps over, a haori is designed to be open at the front, and it has long, turned-back lapels, and ties that fit across the bustline. These long lapels give you a slimming vertical line that is very flattering.

Haori are very beautiful. As with all Japanese traditional garments, because the shapes hardly vary, all the design energy goes into making the fabric gorgeous. Therefore haori come in a very wide range of colours and patterns, from plain black to screamingly bright, and use all kinds of techniques in their manufacture, including hand-painting, shibori tie-dyeing, embroidery, applied goldwork and metallic brocade weaving. They are almost all made of silk. These images are of a matt silk haori with urushi brocade chrysanthemums.

Although you needn’t go as nuts with haori as I have, even one is a great addition to a wardrobe and gives you a chance to own genuine art-to-wear. More times than I can mention, people have crossed restaurants to ask me where I got mine from, and my sister has had the same results with one that I gave her. Meanwhile, my MIL wears hers indoors as a warm lounging jacket. Some haori linings are so beautiful that western women prefer to wear their haori inside out, as I am doing in this picture.

How to wear them
When you wear a haori, you should pull the collar down at the back, away from your neck, and then the front will fall properly. This feels a bit odd to a westerner, but Japanese garments aren’t designed to fit close to your neck at the back, as you can see in this picture. Haori are voluminous, but if you have a fuller bust, you may find the central gap is still too wide. In this case, you’re better off flipping the lapels forward (they’re often held with cross-stitches that you have to snip), ironing them flat and holding them shut with a long pin or with ties. Quite often, what I do is use proper haori cords (these are like short, thick, woven ribbons) looped around a couple of buttons sewn onto the front lapels. These pictures show the haori I’m wearing above, as photographed by the vendor. As you can, the garment is always photographed flat - it will not give you any idea of how it looks on the body.

Haori are easier to wear than you might think, so don’t be put off by the long, dangling sleeves. Obviously, you won’t want to do the washing-up in one but eating at a table, for instance, isn’t difficult. If you have to lean over the table, just hold the sleeve out of the way with your other hand (this is what the Japanese do), but while you’re actually eating, the sleeve is kept out of the way by the table edge. You can easily wear a haori to go out to a restaurant, or for evening events such as the theatre or cinema, on top of a black dress, skirt or trousers, or even over jeans. For stand-up events, choose a haori with a beautiful design on the back - many of these are plain black at the front and function like a tuxedo jacket. I wear my single-layer transparent haoris over bright clothes that I want to tone down, while longer haori make lovely evening coats: my favourites are in the technique known as ‘urushi’, which is metallic brocade weaving. These images show a rinzu haori covered with shibori tie-dye, which puckers the fabric.

How to buy them
I buy my haori on Ebay, and the following vendors are foolproof: Yamatoku, Ryujapan99, Ichiroya. However, there are many other reputable vendors - look for those with very full descriptions, and LOTS of crisp photographs, including close-ups or a map of any stains or wear. Start with something fairly cheap in case you’re hit for Customs Duty and until you get a feel for things (but be warned - once you get the bug, it can be difficult to stop). These pictures show a 1930s haori with hibiscus pattern and a bright lining - you can’t tell from the picture, but it is very long, almost knee-length on me.

I am currently writing a book about kimono, and looking for a publisher, but meanwhile, here’s a brief glossary of terms you might come across.

Rinzu - silk jacquard weave which may be used shiny or matt-side out.
Omeshi - thick, heavy, glossy silk of almost furnishing weight, often coupled with urushi (see below)
Meisen - thick, glossy silk like a thick taffeta
Chirimen - silk crepe with a matt finish and flattering drape
Urushi - metallic brocade weaving usually in gold or silver
Yuzen - hand-painted dye technique
Bokashi - watercolour effect (usually a print)
Shibori - tie-dyeing, often in tiny dots that give the fabric a texture similar to seersucker

The so-called ‘recession’ is really beginning to bite, and there’s no clearer sign of it than my supermarket trolley

I did the second shop of the week yesterday, and frankly it was painful. Since we downshifted to France, money’s always been tight - not allowing much leeway for clothes, or books or holidays etc, but at least we’ve always been able to eat well. Now, with work fast disappearing into the ether and the strong Euro making our UK earnings sink to a pittance, we’re also being hit by the third whammy of food pricing.

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Deconstructed fashion has some pretty big names, but it also has many smaller players, ranging from one-man-bands making one-off clothes to small firms making limited-edition clothing.

Wall
One of my favourite small companies is Wall. I would LIVE in these clothes if I had the budget. Sticking usually to a narrow palette of greige, beige and black, Wall clothes are very timeless and flattering, and suitable for all figure types - clean, intellectual clothes for women with a brain. The firm concentrates on high-quality fabrics such as alpaca and pima cotton, and loose, wrapped or body-skimming designs with flattering necklines. (more…)

The French Government today passed a bill to make the promotion of anorexia in the media illegal

It’s a been some time in the making. In contrast to countries like the United States, obesity, although on the rise in France, is not a major problem compared with anorexia, which has been an issue here since the 1970s.

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