One colour stood out at last week's fashion show in the Design Centre and it was the same one already seen at the international collections during the autumn: white. So if you plan to be fashionable this summer, be prepared to spend a lot of time standing over the washing machine. White is undoubtedly wonderful and no other shade looks fresher but it demands high maintenance and clothes in this colour can really only be worn once (why do you think black has remained so popular throughout the 1990s?)
For summer 1999, white has to be worn in its entirety, not mixed with other tones. The ideal look is a long duster coat combined with loose palazzo pants and either a shirt or T-shirt. If this all sounds like too much hard work, resign yourself now to being unfashionable for the next six months - after which everyone will return to wearing black.
Returning to the subject of clothes maintenance, information on a new dry-cleaning product for the home comes to hand. With the approval of Woolmark, Dryel can be used on "dry-clean only" and hand-wash garments in a tumble drier. It has both a specific stain removal solution and what is called an "in-dryer cleansing system" which takes 30 minutes to work. Just what wearers of white need, the initial Dryel pack costs £9.99, with refills costing £2 less.
We never warmed to the notion - widespread just a few years ago - of babies as a fashion accessory: after all, how would you feel if, after being as essential as a pair of Prada Sport loafers, your parents suddenly decided you were no longer part of their look? The response here was therefore less than enthusiastic to a press-release from cosmetic company E'SPA announcing "Celebrity endorsement has suddenly made motherhood ultra glamorous" and letting us all know that "a cute baby on your hip is definitely the current chic fashion accessory". Well, maybe if you're Madonna or Elle Macpherson, but otherwise being a mother seems to be hard work. Remember: a baby is for life, not just this season.
At last autumn's Paris collections, unexpected entertainment of the high camp variety was provided at Thierry Mugler's show. A quarter century in business, the designer has now released a celebratory book called Thierry Mugler: Fashion Fetish Fantasy (£28 in the UK) which demonstrates just how little his approach to dressing women has changed since he began.
Think clinched waist, exaggerated shoulders, vertiginously tall heels and ample use of leather, Lycra and latex. This is woman as dominatrix, totally in control except perhaps of her tightly encased diaphragm. But, as Polly Mellon of Allure magazine remarks, "Who needs to breathe, anyway?"