Hats off to a new fashion entrepreneur who says there is style after chemo…

Who would have thought, given the proliferation of online fashion sites, there would be a yawning gap in the market.

But, according to Sarah Turner, who tomorrow, December 19th launches her online millinery site, women who have lost their hair and their confidence after chemo are very badly served indeed. 

Having been diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2010, just four months after giving birth to her daughter, Lizzie, the 37 year old former PA found there was nothing stylish on the market to cover her head once she lost her hair.

And so she contacted lots of up and coming British milliners and high profile established names including Misa Harada (whose hats were worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City), to come up with designs that sit low enough on the head, are flattering, not too hot and above all are well made. They are perfect for hair loss whatever the cause.

All the milliners gave their services for free, and Sarah now has 15 styles available online for winter.

Future plans include evening hats (imagine a Gatsby-style cloche), lingerie (‘My mum, who has also had breast cancer, had a mastectomy, and finds it very hard to find flattering bras’), and a range of tops for women to wear post breast surgery. The entire business is run out of her home in north London.

'I did try wearing a wig,' she says, 'but I felt false, and hot. It’s important the hat covers up the whole of the scalp, so you really do feel normal. 

'Oooh, and elaborate earrings are something I want to expand into,’ she adds. ‘They are so important for making you feel feminine, and a bit frivolous…'

Misa Harada hats are £150
Karen Henriksen from £110 to £150
Izzy Lane hand-knitted hats from £110 to £120
Chloe and William Millinery - white faux fur hat with blue satin lining and faux leopard skin - £110 to £140
Karen King - leather and suede turbans - £200 to £220

Also on the website will be a small collection of Alexia Fashion scarves ranging in price from £125 to £145.

Visit www.elizabethroselondon.com

That banned underage Miu Miu ad, and why we need to be worried

The Miu Miu campaign, shot by Bruce Weber, depicting True Grit actress Hailee Steinfeld, has been banned by the advertising regulator. The reason seems not to be her age (which is 14; many models start their careers this young. Current top model Karlie Kloss was in UK Vogue aged 15) but that she was shown in a dangerous situation, i.e. sitting on railway tracks.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but it is not the obvious, life-threatening hazards that should concern us, but the more subliminal ones. Young women realise it is not a good idea to wander onto rail tracks, or walk at night along cliff tops and so on. It is the subtle brainwashing we should be more vigilant about. The model prone, as if she has been raped. The model who just looks dim, or thin, or is in need of an expensive bag to make her happy…

Buy a bag and save a child's life

On November 24, Save the Children are launching an online auction of celebrity bags to raise money to alleviate the famine in East Africa. Bags by Prada, Miu Miu and more have been given by Samantha Cameron, Sienna Miller, Cameron Diaz and almost 50 others. Below is the bag given by Helen Fielding: hers contains a packet of fags, a hand written diary, a mini bottle of Chardonnay, chocolate and an unopened condom. My bag is up for auction, too: a brand new Evelina Satchel in summer khaki very kindly donated by Mulberry. I have added a bottle of Acqua di Parma bath oil, a £350 voucher for non-surgical treatments from Mr Karidis at Kallima, the spa at London Syon Park, and a selection of books including my first pony paperback, along with scribbles. 

To bid for any of the bags, go to www.savethechildren.org.uk/bag2savealife

 

The auction will end on December 4th

 

 

 

Versace at H&M. A bit of a crush now, actually

 

I am not usually a fan of designer/high street collaborations, feeling in the past these have just been an excuse to hike up prices. But, having just examined at close quarters the collection for H&M inspired by the Italian fashion house's greatest hits, there are some wonderful, collectable pieces. Sure to be sell outs are the two cropped biker jackets in soft leather, with studs and padding, at £149.99 and £179.99 for a more elaborately studded one. Also fabulous are the very heavy chain mail dresses in either gold (below) or silver for £149.99, which I'd team with the teeny tiny evening pouch with studs and chain strap, £69.99. Joining the queue at 9am on the 17th will be worth it just to snap up these few items, things you will wear and wear. Great too is the leather studded dress, £179.99. The quality isamazing, with the signature Medusa head on buttons and zip fastenings.

I was less keen on all the palm print and leopard spot, but I guess the very young will love the palm print leggings and cropped biker jacket. My only gripe is the prices: while £150 for a Versace dress is great value, it is still way out of the reach of the typical, very young H&M shopper (the menswear is better value, at £100 for a plain black tux jacket, while I'd avoid the black and white zebra print skinny jeans).

The cruise collection will go on line on January 19, when it will also be on sale in Selfridges: this is far cheaper, with mainly holiday wear (white, tight jeans with gold edging: just the thing should you be off to Capri). If all this is too pricey, the mainline H&M collection is its best ever: orange trousers, an acid yellow sheer dress and a lovely knife pleat chiffon top over a leather mini skirt. Ooh, and pink suede shoe boots, should you feel so inclined...

 

 

You need proof impossible heels are bad for you?

This is the foot of model Sojourner Morrell at the Louis Vuitton show in Paris. New York Magazine calculated she had walked for 14 designers, all of whom showed difficult, skyscraper, ill fitting shoes. She has crusty heels, blisters, bruises, hard skin and probably a hammer toe or corn or too festering under those £800 straps. At the few shows where I was allowed to sit front row, I saw models with broken veins, over-developed calves, and curvature to the lower back. This is not to mention the fashion editors and stylists who struggled on the steps and the cobbles of Paris and New York. Does what has happened to Morrell's feet qualify as abuse?

 

Was this Mary Portas' Gerald Ratner moment?

 

Mary Portas is currently championing the older woman with her venture in House of Fraser. She has a Channel 4 documentary series to make sure it works. She has personally trained her staff to make sure we, older women, feel good about ourselves. In the Guardian last week, she says,'There are all these fabulous, sexy, innovative, brilliant women out there, in their late 30s and their 40s. Why is nobody dressing them?'
Why then, does she also say, 'What gets me is that the minute you start saying you are dressing 40-year-olds you get the 60- and 70-year-olds coming in saying, Where's my stuff? If I was doing a range for teenagers, I wouldn't expect to have thirtysomethings coming in and saying, there's nothing for me. But I get these old biddies coming in and saying [adopts faltering Old Biddy voice], "Ooh, I won't be coming back" and I'm, like, good riddance!'
I am shocked and appalled. Here is an email I just received from an incredibly stylish woman in her late sixties:'I am deeply offended by her old-fashioned prejudice and preconception that because we have reached our sixties and beyond we are over finished, not worth bothering about. It has made me see red!'Mary, an apology please for calling women in their sixties old biddies!

You thought dancing on a yacht was bad? The latest ad for M&S is the height of naffness

You thought Twiggy and Lisa Snowdon dancing on a yacht was the height of naffness? Then you haven’t seen the new M&S ad campaign...

It has a name. ‘The Rendezvous.’ It premiered tonight on our TV screens. The latest ad for M&S shows you ‘don’t have to be going on a first date to get all glammed up’.

The ad is packed full of clichés, with the sort of production values you get from contestants on The Apprentice. Directed by Jordan Scott, daughter of film director Ridley, the ad shows actress Charlotte Weston pulling on stockings, then trying out a number of different awful frocks. She glides downstairs, eschews the hunk at the bar, and is kissed by an old guy with grey hair, portrayed by the sort of actor who lands those Grecian 2000 commercials. In the second ad, which airs on Friday, model Claire Durkin chooses an Autograph wrap and finds her beau (and now I am quoting the press release) visibly moved by how stunning she looks.

The clothes are awful. Ghastly suede platforms, £49. A pedestrian bow clutch, £15. A faux fur coat, £79. And the ubiquitous cheap tea dress. God, do women over 30 really want to dress like a granny?  Do they really think the height of sophistication is to carry a £15 bag. Look at what men of a certain age get: sexy car ads with men like James Bond, cruising around in the South of France.

Marc Bolland must be losing his mind if he thinks this is an improvement on the Florida campaign back in the summer when we, grown women, were treated to Dannii Minogue in rollers having a PILLOW FIGHT….

All I can say is, bring back Erin O’Connor. At least she was cool, not mumsy…

Adele is on the cover of British Vogue, by why do we only get to see her face?

I applaud the fact Vogue has at last put a woman who is not only talented, but has a figure that does not conform to the usual one-size-fits-all policy on the cover. But why does the photographer, Solve Sundsbo, say the damning, 'Adele has such a beautiful face...' Why does the interviewer, the parchment-thin Christa D'Souza, say, 'She is terribly pretty in the flesh, with that luminous skin and those unflinching green eyes. And why does not one shot portray Adele below her bust? Yes, she has a heartbreakingly beautiful face, but she has a spectacular body, too. Let's see it! And then and only then will all those other 'normal' young women out there be able to think that they are beautiful, too. Adele has nothing to apologise for. But Vogue should apologise for not being a little bit braver.

The PC inverse snobs are at it again, and this time the barbs are aimed at Kate

'The Duchess of Cambridge wears an £800 blouse!' screamed The Times on Saturday morning. Inside, the story also added the fact her skirt, also by Alexander McQueen, cost £580. The newspaper moaned that Kate has ditched LK Bennett for Jimmy Choo, and that even if she shops on the high street, she isn't shopping on any street you and I know, given a dress from Reiss is over £100. Oh, come on! She is married to our future king! What do you want her to do, wear head to toe Next she bought in the 60% off sale? There is this sort of inverse snobbism in the air as well as our newspapers, bashing women over the head who bother to dress well. I get it in the neck all the time. But no one castigates men who spend money on cars, or couples who go on expensive holidays, or eat £60 meals for two in organic pubs, or spend £400 on ready meals! Cheap fashion not only looks awful, it damages the planet, given it lasts barely a few months. Look at the recent story that Zara, a brand I thought manufactured in Spain, was using slave labour in Brazil, with workers as young as 14! Budget chains are squeezing their suppliers because the cost of raw materials has gone up, and they know the average British female shopper wants prices to drop, not rise. I went in Zara not too long ago, and prices were on the whole £10 cheaper than they were two years ago! So let's leave the princess alone, and celebrate her for looking fabulous, and cheering us all up, which is surely her job. 

 

 

 

Fur flies over Louis Vuitton store display of 'tigers'

 

 

 

 

My spies tell me that the Louis Vuitton store in Cannes in the south of France features a rather tasteless window display: tigers, all be they not real, are at the ends of chains, worn as a sort of fashion accessory by the tiger print-clad store dummy. The pictures here were taken last week by a supporter of TigerTime. This campaigning organisation has written to Louis Vuitton to express its dismay, but has yet to receive a reply. Vuitton's autumn ad campaign features models draped in fur, clutching bags made from exotic skins… and holding puppies. It seems Marc Jacobs, who I'm sure probably has a couple of designer dogs he loves dearly,  ranks living creatures according to a strict, arbitrary hierarchy.  

The TigerTime campaign was set up about 12 weeks ago to highlight the fact that while 80 years ago there were 100,000 wild tigers, now there are only 3,200.  Already, it has attracted a lot of celebrity support – see www.isupport.tigertime.info  

The campaign was set up by David Shepherd, the British artist and conservationist, on his 80th birthday. The main threats are habitat loss and poaching wskins or other body parts for use in so called ‘traditional medicines’. This glamorisation of big cats -- I hated the Julianne Moore ads for Bulgari, where she embraced leopard cubs -- can only lead to their ultimate demise.