1990+67-34+59-72=2010

...the thing i love about the 90s is that no-one actually thought any of it was going to come back into fashion

(From top: Louis Vuitton SP10, Alexander Wang SP10, 50th Anniversay Dr. Martins via GQ.com, Marc Jacobs SP10, Proenza Schouler SP10, Lanvin SP10, Balmain AW09, Viktor & Rolf SP10 (all images via style.com))

FYI!!!! "Beloved by everyone from sixties skinheads to Belgian style icon Raf Simons, on 1 April Dr Martens will celebrate the half-century of the original bad-boy, eight-eyed boot, the 1460. Named after the date it first rolled off the production line (1.4.60), the company are marking the occasion in two very different ways.
Firstly, they're releasing 1460 limited edition boots for the "Made in England" collection. Key design features include polished pebble leather and an embossed insole with the gold 50th stamp on the heel. Available in cherry red and classic black, the 1460 boot is available for £110 at selected stores.
Secondly, to mark the occasion Dr Martens for one day are selling the classic 1460 boot for a mere £14.60. Only available on 1 April in the flagship Neal Street store in Covent Garden, London, it could be the best value pair you ever buy" Noah Strang, for full article see GQ.com

Alice in Wunderkind

I don't like the current move away from the skinny model. Perhaps it has something to do with the sentiment that, for me, fashion is that magical world that Alice muddled through as she fell through the rabbit hole into the realm of the obscure. It doesn't make sense, and it certainly does not have to adhere to the rules that we mere mortals live by as we plod through our lives day by day. Reality and the world of fashion co-exist, as (to both exist) they must, but they do not necessarily align as one. So it doesn't bother me that all models are gorgeous, tall and skinny, because these models play their own characters on the runways, and are more than reality - they are the unreal.

This is why it annoys me so much that models are portrayed as the anti-christ for being airbrushed and not representing the average sized woman. I don't understand why people would want to open the newest issue of Vogue and be faced with Jodie Bloggs who is an average size 12 and makes us feel like we could be her friend because, look, we have love handles too. I understand it is in our human nature to relate to one another, but is this instinct so strong that we deny the model the opportunity to be more than us? Editors and photographers are flown half-way across the world to capture images that are meticulously arranged and unnaturally beautiful, and we accept it, but place a skinny model arching over the waterfall that has been made to look like it is flowing lava and, no no we are being taken for fools!

My point is i wish that everyone could look to models and admire how amazing they look, rather than beckon the reality of growing obesity and eating disorders ever closer. Just as i didn't watch Finding Nemo to find that i ate Nemo with some vinegar and chips two weeks ago, i didn't watch Paris Fashion Week to find my slightly overweight friend strut down the catwalk. We watch for the dream, and for the happy ending, and i think we all need to believe the magic more and stop taking everything so literally. At the end of the day, no-one is bringing Johnny Depp up on the fact that his portrayal of the Mad Hatter isn't a rounder and more accurately shaped middle aged man. If fashion and photography is an art, why must we burden it with our own insecurities?

Emma Watson - fashionista or fraud?

I have always had a problem with Emma Watson. It baffles me how one minute no-one really noticed her at all, and then the next she has a campaign with Burberry and is everyone's new favorite style-icon. How can she be a style icon? What is HER style? Granted she is beaut, and classic, and everything the british pride themselves on being, but if she didn't have the world's best designers courting her to wear their collections - would anyone really care?

H.O.H C.R.I.N.G.E

I love british design. Out of anyone, we are the ones that can laugh at ourselves and have a laugh whilst doing so. But i find myself a bit stuck with Henry's most recent journey into the land of 'what can i do with a t-shirt'. His AW07 collection consisted of playful couplets like 'Do me daily, Christopher Bailey', which were hilarious (well, in any case they were just my sense of humour) and put two fingers up at everyone as they strutted along the fine line that stands between something being playful and just a bit naff. But what are we meant to do with t-shirts that consist of prints such as "C.T.F.O" (chill the f*** out) "F.F.S" (for f***'s sake) and "I.Y.F (in your face)?? For want of a better word, are they not just, well, just a bit cringe?

Conclusive proof that smoking is cool

Lady Gaga is cool?

I find Lady Gaga annoying. I find all people that are so consciously obscure and 'out-there' annoying. I find it annoying that her new video is kind of good (although is it just me of does Gaga make Beyonce look a little chub??) Viktor & Rolf's prison outfit is ridiculous. In a good way. It features in the pairs AW10 'Glamour Factory' show

Gareth Pugh. Murderer

My little sister just told me she thought Gareth Pugh looked like the murderer from Changeling. Can anyone confirm/ deny this?

Victor and ROFL

For me, fashion is like theatre. The shows are short performances that are designed to inspire, reflect and refute preconceptions that we may have had of what was to come. They carry stories, which in turn carry the hearts of the audience, so that when the designer gasps, we gasp - when they laugh, we laugh - when they cry, we cry. This, for me, is what is truly inspirational about the industry. It allows us to escape from reality.

Think i'm overly romanticizing the whole thing? Probably. But please refer to Alexander Mcqueens' Spring 1999 show, in which Shalom Harlow met her fate with machine aka one of the first moments that i recognized fashion as theatre. Then came his SP10 show...incredible

It is, however, Victor & Rolf who i wanted to bring attention to. I love them. They are beyond cool. Beyond edgy. Beyond ridiculous. Their first collection together was named 'Victor & Rolf on Srike' and was designed to highlight, and in turn rebel against the apathy and lack of originality which they thought was present in the fashion industry. This attitude has continued to be ever present in their work, with their FW09 show opening with a pop-out 'NO' transforming a grey trench into a statement about how they thought the industry moved too fast and that everything should slow down and, in not so many words, be so flakey. I was reminded of this when watching their SP10 show, where the front row of editors and photographers all jumped up and were leaving the venue before Horsting and Snoeren had even brought Roisin Murphey down from her platform to take a bow.

Victor & Rolf's AW10 show was by far my favourite of the season. Kristen McMenamy walked out wearing 10 layers of huge yet gorgeous jackets, which were then layered off onto following models, before being layered back on to create an outfit the model later said thought weighed three times her body weight. AMAZING!!!

At my last meeting someone shuddered whilst saying "eww i hate the highstreet". True story.

Has anyone else wondered how it is that whenever you see Americans in the media they are all incredibly stylish, but then when you go shopping at the local mall you are surrounded by nothing but tacky cropped tops and garish tracksuit bottoms. Really, there is nothing there (Alexander Wang's SS10 varsity inspired jackets is probably the closest 80% of all Americans will be to being on trend) Which begs the question of where do all the stylish Americans buy their clothes?? (if anyone has an answer to this then please do let me know) This mystery got me thinking of where we Brits buy our clothes, and i had what you could only describe as an epiphany about the British highstreet.

There are two scenarios that i would like to quickly share with you to add context to, and have affected my view on highstreet fashion.

Scenario number one: Last winter i bought some amazing thigh high suede boots that i lived and died in, and which attracted all sorts of attention. The thing is, every time someone asked me where i got them from i cringed and mumbled something about a thrift store that i conveniently couldn't remember the location of. Did this make them seem a more desirable? Maybe. But that fact that i was i so reluctant to disclose that anyone could actually walk down the road and buy them for twenty quid has been bugging me ever since...

Scenario number two: Someone at work complemented me on my patent woven stitch bag, and asked where i got it from. So i told her, "Zara" and then for some unknown reason waffled on about how i didn't really like it but it was SUCH a bargain i just couldn't turn it down. The truth is i love my Zara bag and, despite the fact that for the last 22 years my mum has been telling me i'm going to get mugged and should essentially walk down the street in the fetal position, along with the fact that all of its zips have now broken and continue to show the rest of the world my most prized possessions - i still won't turn it in. Why? Because it's a great bag.

The thing is, i love the highstreet. And it knarks me that i feel embarrassed to tell people i shop there. The reality is, in no other country is trend-led fashion so accessible to the masses. Gone are the days where you went to Topshop for a sturdy pair of jeans, or to H&M for a staple white tee. These are the places where you go when you are wanting to pick up the latest "sport-inspired" a la Wang or "underwear as outerwear" a la Prada led pieces for the summer. Probably the only good thing that came out of the recession was that highstreet design sharpened as people's price points dropped, which resulted in everyone being able to taste a piece of the stylish but affordable pie. I think it is this huge amount of option that is offered to the public that makes London one of the most changeable and vibrant fashion capitals of the world. And yes, we are all starting to get bored by Kate Moss' 8 millionth collaboration with Topshop, but Christopher Kane's embellished dresses and printed tee's were a refreshing, albeit short, distraction for the punk-prone British public. The fact that Topshop's Unique line is being shown on the runway, and was commented as having "so much wit and ingenuity...that you felt mushrooms might even have been involved in the creative process" (Tim Blanks) is a significant signal to the ever growing interchange between high-end and highstreet design. Many an editor would have laughed if asked if Topshop would show at LFW 8 years ago. My point? Times are changing. And so should our opinion of highstreet. I'm not saying we should walk about with the latest 'River Island' logo print bag stapled to our foreheads, but perhaps we could at least embrace highstreet and acknowledge it less like a leper relation. It's about the clothes, not the label, right??