Accessibility links RETURN OF THE JUMPSUIT As a catwalk spectator, I’ve learned to look out for three types of trends: the no-brainers, the no-hopers
and the hideous-sneakies &ndash those garments that elicit almost visceral detestation on sight, but somehow wiggle their way to triumph months later. Smocks were hideous-sneakies, and so, unstoppably, were leggings. Now the newest qualifier is with us: the crazy, impractical jumpsuit, the unlikely hit of this summer. Hands up, I never saw this one coming. Even though Stella McCartney and Stefano Pilati of Yves Saint Laurent showed all-in-ones for summer, to prevent myself whinnying up in the stands, I got my head down and applied mental blinkers every time one passed by. In someone my age, they bring back a tooth-jarring array of reminiscences. One look, and you’re back with the “wimmin” of Greenham Common and early Eighties pop-poseur videos, and deep into flashbacks about the palaver the whole thing caused when going to the loo. Surely no one would fall for it a second time round &hellip but they have. The key difference between now and the last time around is that the idea of the all-in-one has been atomized into a gazillion styles for different occasions, personality types and figures. The most extreme &ndash draped, harem-ish all-in-ones, with bustiers and tracksuit-ankle cuffs &ndash I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole for fear of setting off the muttonometer. Nor should anyone but a teenager go anywhere near shortie playsuits. Yet even I’m edging towards liking the idea in some of the smarter, more grown-up manifestations. Some versions in silky acetates look easy to wear in a casual-chic way, and I am seriously tempted by the sleeveless, black, tailored all-in-one by Reiss: office-proper, and great for this in-between time of year. All that’s necessary, I’ve figured out, is to wear a high, strappy sandal, wedge or court shoe with the thing &ndash and the memories of DMs and dungarees are banished forever. FABULOUS FOLKLORE
This is a charity event, organised by the prodigiously talented set designer Simon Costin, in aid of his drive to set up our first Museum of British Folklore. Costin, who has magicked some of Alexander McQueen’s most theatrical and macabre happenings into being, conceived a love of the collections of amateur eccentrics in small local museums and private houses as a child. Since many of them are being disbanded, he’s raising funds to set up a permanent museum.