Object of desire: Topshop Boutique sequin dress

From the Topshop Boutique AW09 collection, via the Topshop blog

New Topshop denim collection

I am not known for my interest in jeans. Sure denim can be useful: in the summer I have plenty of denim short shorts for mooching, and even some Bermudas to wear with heels and a blazer, but jeans? I have maybe three pairs in rotation: some wide legged ones from Gap to wear with Converse & a leather biker jacket, skinny Topshop Baxters that I wear in winter with boots/wellies/whatever I am wearing on my feet to avoid the bone-chilling NY cold, and some rolled boyfriend jeans for slouching around in.

But really, I'm just not a jeans girl, preferring to wear shorts or dresses as for those with good legs, an indifferent middle and an ample bosom, jeans aren't often enormously flattering. That doesn't stop me wanting to wear them tho. I have plenty of pairs in my storage locker, testament to the fact that I have tried - and failed.

And then, of course, there is all the wishful thinking I do. I get releases sent to me that look as if they may hold the key to my jeans antipathy and I imagine myself in the looks on display -but, truthfully, I would need a bucket of Polyjuice Potion to wear the majority.

Today's bout of wishful thinking was courtesy of the Topshop press office who sent out their autumn/fall denim manifesto this morning. They rather optimistically believe that
"For AW09/10 TOPSHOP has all your denim needs sewn up. Whether you’re looking for an
ankle-grazer, a straight-leg, a boyfriend jean, a jogger or the ultimate skinny; with styles featuring rips, slashes, studs, acid washes, paint drips or even sequins, TOPSHOP has your perfect pair."

Moving swiftly past the proffered denim jogging pants, & the promise of a 'denim harem pant' - yes, really - for later in the season, as surely only those who really believe what they read in magazines, are possessed of boundless self-confidence or those under eighteen will wear such things, I swiftly realise that to be cast as a Topshop jean aficionado, the wearer must possess the extremely lithe & toned legs of a supermodel.

The keys styles are:

The Jamie £40
Made from super-stretch denim, the ankle has Topshop’s narrowest ever circumference, 17cm. Washes will include pale grey, faded blue, black & indigo.


The Pullon Jegging £35:
A pull-on jean/legging hybrid with an elasticated waist and drawn-on fly/pocket detail. Versions include ruched sides, stirrups, zips and slits, in a variety of colours & acid washes.

The Cyber Panel Skinny £45
Features zips by the front pockets & raised linear graphic panels at the top front & on the knees.

The Anti-fit £40
Loose around the hips, for a comfortable fit with a tapered ankle. (Surely only for the EXTREMELY brave, as the loose hips & tapered ankle will give the dread carrot leg effect to all but the skinniest Minnies)

There's also a knitted denim jegging, and promise of various ripped/shredded/studded skinny numbers. And Hallelujah, Corey - a boyfriend jean and Martha - a classic straight leg make an appearance in the core collection and are worth a look.

But, if you want to sport a fashion forward pair of jeans this winter, according to Topshop, you'll need matchstick legs and a bucketload of confidence as skinny is the only way to go.

Kate Moss for Topshop

I really cannot compete with Jezebel's comments on the hideous Kate Moss collection for ToSho.

Topshop gladiator sandal

This is the shoe of the summer. £20 at Topshop. Slightly unfortunate that it's going to look very wrong on a lot of women. Do not even think about it unless your legs are up to it.( No point in diminshing the allure of your assets.) There is nothing more unflattering than an ankle strap chopping up your silhouette, giving you tree trunk calves. (I include those fug ugly mid calf boots in the dodgy silhouette group too: I have one word. Trotters.)

What Jane Did Next

We knew Jane Shepherdson had something up her sleeve after she left her job as brand director at Topshop. You don't become arguably the most influential woman in British retail and then leave to spend more time with your cats/children/lover.*

But who knew she'd be getting in bed with Baugar? It was announced today that she has finalised a deal with investment company Baugur to purchase Whistles with immediate effect. Jane becomes CEO of the retailer and is joined by Finance Director Keith Wilks and Marketing Director Jo Farrelly, both of whom worked with Jane at Topshop.

As a result of the management buy-in, Whistles will be separated from its former owner Mosaic Fashions through a newly-created company owned in part by Jane and her team. Commenting on the development of the brand Jane said, "We see a great opportunity to create something unique for the woman who loves great design, isn't scared of a little edginess and who wants to reference but not slavishly follow trends."

I adore Whistles. Not for its own label safe knits & trademark pretty tops, but for its clever buy of labels like Antik Batik & Michael Stars. (And I love its bargain sales too.)

But my love of Whistles goes way, way back. My very first black tie outfit came from Whistles in Oxford. When I was 16, my contemporaries all seemed to sport taffeta evening dresses with sweetheart necklines and poofy skirts (this was in 1988 before fashion had filtered down to teenagers) and, if you were really cool, you wore black DM lace ups or eight hole boots with your dress. Laura Ashley and Monsoon were popular, or else girls made their dresses in the Textiles classroom after school.

Me, I wore a curvy nipped in waist, black double breasted wool evening jacket with a low square neckline and long sleeves, matched with a staggeringly trendy (at the time)Ghost anthracite, dropped waist, full circle knee length skirt in Ghost's trademark wrinkled viscose. No one 'got' my outfit, but I loved it -and I loved my mother more for buying it for me from her meagre salary. I remember that the jacket cost £125 - an absolute fortune back then, and the skirt was £85. I still have both pieces, but the skirt no longer works now that I have hips, and the jacket strains over my bust. I've wrapped them both in tissue paper, and stored them in my parent's attic.

*delete as applicable

Topshop finally confirm Manhattan opening

Topshop have just confirmed that they will be opening a 40000 sq ft store in Soho in September. Two more stores are planned for New York, with flagship roll outs planned in Miami, Los Angeles and Boston. That should shake up the moribund under $150 fashion market in the US.

Let's just hope they don't use the useless UK press office to handle the PR.

Coda to my Cavalli rant

I could rant for quite some time about big name diffusion collections, designed by their studios, produced in horrible fabrics, and sold in High Street chains, but I;ve written about it at length elsewhere, so here I will content myself by pointing out that if I want diffusion designer on the High Street, then I look for the new and interesting designers who I know will have designed tiny capsule ranges themselves, which support their main line and raise consumer awareness of their nascent brand not their over-priced handbags and umpteen licences for fragrance, cosmetics, sunglasses and the like.

Topshop Boutique is good at this: Preen, Jonathan Saunders and Emma Cook have done stand out collections of maybe ten or twenty pieces for them, and I’m particularly looking forward to Next Big Thing Osman Yousefzada’s SS08’s collection of twelve little black dresses for Mango.

My new party dress

Topshop 100% silk £70/$140 AND they deliver to the US. (See it's only the Topshop press office I dislike.)

Random stuff

1) The last time I bought anything from Oasis was in Summer 1999, when lots of us girls in Vogue House bought these cool stretch shirtdresses in forest green and in black. And all my girlfriends and my sister bought one too once I'd marched them down to Oxford Street. I haven't seen anything in the intervening 7 years that I'd bother with but, having seen their AW07 collection, I can safely say that Oasis is back on form. The coats! The dresses!

2)There is nothing like walking into the chippie and saying "Bag a chips, open please." Yum. Now I don't have to do it for another year.

3)The dachshund now has its own Facebook page, courtesy of my sister.

4)According to The Evening Standard, TopShop has been ordered to pay £12 000 compensation for copying a Chloé yellow dungaree dress. It has also had to shred all the copies. About bloody time too. I am getting a bit sick of rifling through the High Street rails, saying to myself, "Temperley" (Principles), "Marc"(Hennes), etc etc etc. 'Inspired by' is one thing. Blatant rip-off quite another.

5) Taxis in London: £15 to the Angel from Bond Street! Bloody Hell. Tea at Claridges: £11.55 for a pot of Earl Grey for two! Thank Christ for an expense account.

6) Clare Waight Kellor: possibly the most intelligent, switched on fashion designer I've had the pleasure of interviewing.

7) Indian takeaways in London are spectacularly good. New York ones are fit for the bin and nothing else. (Although I'm desperate to be persuaded otherwise).

8) Men in New York are much sexier.

How to get the pregnant Britney/Jordan look: Head for TopShop

One of the things that influenced my flight to Manhattan from London was the endless stream of girlfriends getting knocked up. Don't get me wrong, I rather like small children - so long as they are a) clean b) at arms length, and c) nowhere near my cream sofas but, for the time being, I've no desire to have my social life tramelled on a daily basis by the demands of other people's offspring.

However one of the things that I enjoy most right now is torturing Miss P with inappropriate sartorial suggestions for her bump. She'll be seven months gone when she gets married in September, so it's been joyous looking for staggeringly ridiculous garb for her wedding and for her honeymoon. TopShop Maternity, in particular, comes up trumps in this arena:




I PARTICULARLY like the way they've named the denim skirt 'Pelmet'.

Pictures from topshop.com

On-line shopping: my love hate relationship with TopShop

On-line shopping is an addictive past time. It's simple at 3am, when it's hot and humid and sleep is impossible, to idly flick through pages of frocks. And, of course, I always seem to end up at topshop.com (by way of netaporter.com and all the rest). Although I have a love/hate relationship with the store, and I just can't abide the slovenly approach to PR as practiced by their press office, from 3710 miles away the odd piece starts to seem rather attractive. Although, as suggested in my post below, I should be buying pencil skirts and stilettos for next season, I have at least two more months of super hot, sticky weather in Manhattan and all I really want to buy right now are loose frocks. Still, at TopShop prices this isn't going to break the bank, and the postage is only £5 more to the US. (Although their system cancelled my order twice for no apparent reason, costing me a VERY expensive call back to the UK - hmm, a lot in common with the press office then.)

So I bought, gulp, five dresses, including these two:

Liberty Bell Sleeve Dress. Colour: Vibrant Pink. Code:10Y15RPNK £75

Tulip Flower Tier Dress. Colour: Yellow. Code: 10F31QYLW
£40

TopShop - Sir Philip Green confirms permanent presence in US

“We are one hundred percent coming to America. It’s not if but when,” Sir Phillip Green told me Tuesday night. Rumour has been rife concerning a possible TopShop opening in the US, with some commentators speculating that the Kate Moss collection collaboration with upscale department store Barneys signalled the end of parent company Arcadia’s independent US expansion plans. Not so, said Sir Phillip, when I asked him, “In fact we were looking at sites today.”

It has always been presumed by business commentators that TopShop would be unlikely to open first in New York, as the city is not thought to be reflective of retail trends in America as a whole. This would make it difficult for a Manhattan TopShop store to provide a reliable barometer for the success of the brand elsewhere in the country. Prior to the launch with Barneys, the only places to buy TopShop in America have been at Opening Ceremony in Downtown Manhattan & in LA, which stocks a very small range in its upstairs gallery.

And that is my very last word on TopShop for quite some time.

Rant du jour - The TopShop Press Office

Up their own arses beyond belief. It’s TopShop for Christ’s sake, not Balenciaga. I emailed different people at the office four times, and called seven times over two days to get ONE lousy press release, which never appeared. And this problem is not germane to the Kate Moss collection, it's always been like this.

I suppose one could grudgingly admire their across-the-board incompetence crossed with a certain fuck off insouciance (ignoring both the poor interns toiling at the coal face of the fashion cupboard AND editors), but personallyI do expect a little help to enable me to do my job accurately & professionally. (When I'm speaking on the BBC World Service to over 25 million people, I want to know that I've got my facts right.)

Needless to say I was invited by the lovely people at Barneys to the Kate Moss party last night. I doubt the UK Topshop press office even note which journalists file to the UK from abroad. That would be FAR too intelligent a concept for their tiny little minds to process.*

It really gets my goat that the British fashion press are so scared of losing their TopShop 250 cards (40% press discount) that they hardly ever criticise ToSho in print. Sure, TopShop can be good, brilliant even, but it’s not consistently so, as the Kate Moss collection neatly encapsulates, so the press office might like to consider keeping the press onside by being efficient rather than by bribing them.

* Nov 07 ADDENDUM: Unlike the UK Banana Republic Press Office who do exactly that, for example.

Absence / Kate Moss for TopShop

My blogging has not been up to speed. I have so many entries pending, but all blogging has had to be postponed by the announcement that I am being audited by the Inland Revenue. I have spent the last four days with a bucket of receipts and several assistants trying to make head or tail of my un-filing system.

In between I am jumping into cars to go to TV Centre to do umpteen TV & radio interviews. The burning topic of the hour? The launch of Kate Moss' dull, dull, dull collection for TopShop. More of my views on this later, but suffice to say I think it sucks. (Oh yes, I am a writer, yes I am. But really, sucks sums it up so well.) Celebrity as designer? Come off it. Sure every piece has been designed - by someone else -in that the collection has been copied/inspired by the contents of her wardrobe. If not, at best they are a collaboration between Kate & the (usually very good) TopShop inhouse team. Where's their credit amongst all the hooha?

HIgh Street: London vs New York

The lack of well-designed cheapo clothes in Manhattan is starting to exercise me greatly. My wardrobe looks tired: my AW clothes have been worn & worn, and it's too bloody cold to break out any acceptable SS pieces. When I want a quick fix here there's literally nowhere to go. I've always relied on a mix of New Look/ToSho/Miss S etc, vintage and sample sale/private order designer to pull my look together. Sure, vintage here is particularly strong, esp in Williamsburg but I just don't have time for half a day's rootling. I'm still waiting for my SS private orders to arrive from London and the sample sales I've been to here so far are crapola. I tried Forever 21 yesterday but got scared & ran away. Think New Look on acid. 10 000 pieces of clothing rammed on rails, some so far above yr head that you get arm ache just reaching for them, and nearly everything in size twiglet and poly blends.

Banana Republic is all very well, but it's not cheap enough and everything is taupe or navy. Zara - I'd rather save up to buy real Chanel. Proenza by Target? I don't think so - the good pieces sold out within seconds. And the ubiquity of Hennes here means that everyone has the same few pieces. Dull dull dull. I want NEON, print and interesting. A couple of clever bargains is all I ask.

Unless someone comes up with a solution, I am going to acquire an expensive online shopping habit and a v gd relationship with Fedex.