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/li> 0 shares 61 comments Ossie Clark almost got me fired. It was the Eighties, and I was working at The Sunday Times Magazine. The iconic Seventies designer who made the romantic, floral uniform of the hippy both mainstream and high end, who gave us the most beautiful, fluid, ethereal clothes in the world, had been interviewed for the magazine. I was editing the piece and was eager to do a good job. ‘I know,’ I thought. ‘I will send Mr Clark the piece so he can check all the facts are correct.’ I phoned him up, and he gave me his fax number. I remember standing by the fax machine, congratulating myself for being so thorough. Ossie Clarke was the iconic Seventies designer who gave us the most beautiful, fluid, ethereal clothes in the world The next day, I was called into the deputy editor’s office. His face was dark as thunder. ‘Why did you fax Ossie Clark his interview?’ ‘I wanted to make sure it was all correct,’ I replied. It turned out Mr Clark was not pl

/li> 0 shares 43 comments Supposing there was a prize for the most ridiculous designer item ever made, it has to go to the trainers worn by Beyonce last week. Made from the skin of stingray, anaconda, ostrich, crocodile and calf, they were the sartorial equivalent of those three-bird roasts Iceland was selling last Christmas: medieval, unnecessary and grotesquely over the top. Her trainers, which looked more moon boot than plimsoll, were custom-made for a star who obviously has more money than taste, or morals. But her appearance in such outlandish footwear was affirmation that the humble trainer has been seized upon by the fashion world as never before. Fitness and fashion combines: But Liz Jones isn't convinced there's a time for wearing trainers other than when jogging Of course, we’ve had the designer trainer for years now. I would say since the mid-Seventies, when  hip-hop stars made this horrible, rubbery form of footwear cool.   More... Stil

/li> 0 shares 45 comments Winner: H&M's little sister, & Other Stories, is a huge vote of confidence in a calcifying British High Street Should you, like me, be tired of the endless tat: lace body-con dresses; drawstring, print pyjama trousers; cheap, nasty, uncomfortable shoes; and the feeling you are too old to browse fashion on the High Street, then there is a new brand on the block. It is the answer to the prayers of the woman who wants to look fashionable and classy, but does not want to be relegated to boring, boxy polyester jackets and bias-cut tiered gypsy skirts, the sort of thing we get at M&S. This new brand, called the rather tongue-twisting ‘& Other Stories’, is an offshoot of the H&M behemoth. It opened its first British shop on Friday in London’s Regent Street, housing ready-to-wear downstairs and shoes upstairs, and a website is also up and running. And the great news is that this new brand is classy without being frump

/li> 0 shares 26 comments Who knew Christian Dior - that most French of the luxury brands - had such close ties with the UK? A new exhibition at Harrods - showcasing designs from his first collection in 1947 to the present day - is celebrating the fact that the father of modern fashion opened a boutique within the Knightsbridge department store  in 1953. Monsieur Dior was an Anglophile: he loved Scottish tweed and houndstooth, even bedecking bottles of scent with the check. And the British certainly loved him back. Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were stopped only from buying his wares by their father, who thought the designs too shocking during the austere, post-war years. Princess Diana wearing Dior in 1996, left, and Elizabeth Taylor in Dior at the 1961 Academy Awards This Harrods display is a wonderful exhibition, showing how Christian Dior single-handedly invented the modern luxury brand and came up with the idea of dressing women head-to-toe,

/li> 9 shares 57 comments I have an alcoholic staying with me in my flat in London. I went out on Wednesday, leaving him in the spare bed, and when I returned at 8pm he was still beneath the duvet. He said he had man flu, but I saw he’d drunk a third of a bottle of gin, which I had hidden inexpertly in a cupboard. So, to appear supportive, I set off in search of low or no-alcohol wine in my area of the capital. In Sainsbury’s Local, it took some time to explain to the chap stocking shelves – who seemed to speak no English, or any language at all, as he remained mute – what I was after. Temptation: Liz Jones argues that alcohol is ever-present in Britain and its access needs to be more restricted He shuffled backstage to emerge with a manager, who looked equally baffled. Imagine Manuel when confronted with an irate Mrs Richards in Fawlty Towers. ‘Have you looked?’ he asked. ‘Well, I have looked but there are hundreds of bottles.’ He looked, too, but could find

/li> 0 shares 151 comments This week Liz Jones tries out the latest footwear trend: flatforms, but will she fall flat on her face? She made the nylon backpack fashionable in the early Nineties and sent an entire collection made from lace down the catwalk in 2008, sparking a trend which is still filling rails on the High Street today. And now Miuccia Prada, creative head of the brand that is about to celebrate its 100th birthday, has given us the strangest trend of all: the flatform. This very high shoe looks like a building block, something as big and solid as Ayers Rock. If someone threw you into the Thames wearing a pair of these babies, you would undoubtedly sink to the bottom. The flatform is not to be confused with the wedge, which has an incline, tipping the foot at a slight angle, or the platform, which generally has a stubby toe and a high heel. No, as its name suggests flatforms are very flat — like Norfolk — and are also very, very high. These shoes w

/li> 1 shares 35 comments When I first heard there was a row between Mary Berry – Great British Baking Treasure, officially the Nicest Woman In The World – and Bakewell, I thought perhaps a tart had refused to come out  of its tin. Mary had probably banged it on her immaculate work surface before saying, 'Oh, crumbs,' because Mary Berry would never, ever swear. (I know – I've been to her house twice, first to learn to cook, the second time to rummage through her wardrobe, pull out clothes and make her model them in a 12-hour shoot during which she emitted not one mew of complaint.) But no, it turns out the row was not with a cake, but with Baroness Bakewell, a woman of less stringent morals, if I remember rightly. Google Joan Bakewell and Harold Pinter and steam comes out of the top of your computer. Row: Baroness Bakewell, left, said she has lived a more 'whizzy life out and about' than Mary Berry, right Apparently, Bakewell thinks

/li> 0 shares 275 comments What's going on in there, Liz? Through the years, I've spent a lot of time talking about my problems. With a friend over the phone. With an endless series of psychotherapists. In self-help groups. Hell, even with the readers of this newspaper. 'What should I do?' I always wail. My main 'issue' is that even when I should be happy - such as when I first lived in my London Georgian townhouse, had a husband and things were going swimmingly - I seem incapable of feeling that emotion. I never feel good about myself and am paralysed by fear. But talking about problems - a cheating husband, say, or a sister who has treated me appallingly - as you do in traditional therapy only reignites upset feelings. It stirs them up, like a stick in a pond. I still wake every night at 3am, heart pounding, with worry swirling in my head that I will be made homeless, be fired, die alone and unloved. So imagine how I felt when I discov

/li> 0 shares 53 comments This latest trend for women revealing their midriffs could be an April Fool's joke, couldn't it? But no, the crop top is everywhere for this summer, instilling fear and loathing in women the length and breadth of the land. It was first seen hovering distantly above pencil skirts on the catwalk at Jonathan Saunders, while at Miu Miu it was less of a top and more of a bra. At Louis Vuitton, the crop top was so skimpy you could see the under-curvature of the models' breasts: the body part that was even banned at the Grammys.  Rihanna and Diane Kruger are just two celebrities getting their washboard stomachs out all in the name of fashion this spring But there is a reason for this madness. Last summer, about the time this designer lot were at the drawing board stage, we were all agog with admiration for the abdominal muscles of Jessica Ennis. Her abs made women believe that Lycra with its middle missing was a good loo