How depressing! Just when the temperature soars to where it should be at this time of the year (around 30 degrees, and, guess what? I'm loving it!) the city's shops go all wintry. In the window displays I walk past on my way to work every morning, everything has gone black, woolly and heavy. I can never understand how people can buy winter clothes at this time of the year, but apparently they do. A friend who works in a designer boutique said to me over dinner earlier this week that they are already selling out of the season's key looks. "It's crazy," she said. "We have to stand in the shop looking happy and pretty in this heat, as fashion crazed women try on coats to be worn in the depth of winter. I'm looking forward to this month's salary because I've already sold tens of thousands of pounds worth of stock."
That the inhabitants of Planet Fashion are a bit on the cuckoo side is no big news. My theory - which I might have shared with you already - puts it down to the fact that at any given time, anyone who works in the production and distribution of fashion is living through at least three seasons (for example, in summer 2008, I am working on autumn 2008 and summer 2009 simultaneously, while preparing for autumn 2009). This is very disconcerting and confusing, and often results in not quite having an idea of where one is calendar-wise.
Ask me what the date is and chances are I'll return your question with a blank stare.
When back in April I heard about Italian Vogue's decision to publish an all black issue I thought 'Oh dear! There's another one of those ideas that are going to fall flat on their face". Even though some models like Iman, Naomi Campbell and Alek Wek have become big stars, they are still a minority in an industry where a woman of colour is more prized for her "exoticism" than anything else. And Italy, let's remember, is not noted for its racial tolerance. I would have bet any money that the only way out of that one would have been disaster.
Well thank goodness I didn't because I would have been that much poorer. Not only does the issue look very good from an aesthetic point of view, it has also achieved what it has set out to do: bring to the forefront an international debate that has - for a long time - been largely ignored.
At one point, the excuse was that black women on the cover didn't sell magazines. With this issue that argument has been totally destroyed: Condé Nast has had to print 40,000 extra copies. So a big thumbs up to the Vogue Italia team, which has boldly gone where no other Vogue has gone before.
That the inhabitants of Planet Fashion are a bit on the cuckoo side is no big news. My theory - which I might have shared with you already - puts it down to the fact that at any given time, anyone who works in the production and distribution of fashion is living through at least three seasons (for example, in summer 2008, I am working on autumn 2008 and summer 2009 simultaneously, while preparing for autumn 2009). This is very disconcerting and confusing, and often results in not quite having an idea of where one is calendar-wise.
Ask me what the date is and chances are I'll return your question with a blank stare.
When back in April I heard about Italian Vogue's decision to publish an all black issue I thought 'Oh dear! There's another one of those ideas that are going to fall flat on their face". Even though some models like Iman, Naomi Campbell and Alek Wek have become big stars, they are still a minority in an industry where a woman of colour is more prized for her "exoticism" than anything else. And Italy, let's remember, is not noted for its racial tolerance. I would have bet any money that the only way out of that one would have been disaster.
Well thank goodness I didn't because I would have been that much poorer. Not only does the issue look very good from an aesthetic point of view, it has also achieved what it has set out to do: bring to the forefront an international debate that has - for a long time - been largely ignored.
At one point, the excuse was that black women on the cover didn't sell magazines. With this issue that argument has been totally destroyed: Condé Nast has had to print 40,000 extra copies. So a big thumbs up to the Vogue Italia team, which has boldly gone where no other Vogue has gone before.