Fashion

It is, I think, the belief that Big Occasions require us to step up with a Big Outfit that causes so many sartorial challenges for women. Of course, if your daughter or son (or grand-daughter or grandson or, indeed, stepdaughter/stepson) is the bride or groom, you do feel an obligation to make a big effort to look fabulous and not to let the side down in the photographs.

But, as we witnessed on Friday at the wedding of Kate and William, so many women seem to go into some kind of style frenzy, abandoning all their usual style sense and walking trance-like into style no-man’s land as a result.

There have been the obvious disasters like the Princess Royal (as predicted here) looking as if she had done a “Gone with the Wind” and had an outfit made from the curtains, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie (see previous blog), Sally Bercow sporting Liverpool barmaid chic, Ed Milliband’s partner Justine Thornton, who looked like Little Bo Peep who had fallen in the sheep dip. That navy satin outfit was, possibly, the worst there, even out-nastying the Princess Royal's Harvey's number.

The extended family of duchesses and princesses look, on the whole very chic. Notable among them is the Duchess of Kent who looks divine in pink, possibly by Bellville Sassoon, a favourite of hers. But at least five of them have decided to sport navy, which makes it look a little like it was colour themed.

Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, who can always be relied on to look overdressed and trussed up, do not disappoint. They could do with adopting the maxim "less is more"...

I would be fibbing if I said I was excited about Friday’s royal wedding. Despite the best efforts of the newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and the blogosphere, all of which are trying to hype us into a state of dizzy anticipation, I am really finding it hard to muster any excitement. I wish Kate and Wills well. They have a lot riding on their slender young shoulders, and I imagine the day will be an adorable spectacle. And I really am looking forward to seeing Kate’s dress, though if she had 150 fairies weaving it from magic dust and silk spun by celestial worms and it was then studded with real diamond particles it couldn’t possibly live up to the breathless expectation of a waiting fashion commentariat. And who would envy Carole Middleton on this day in terms of her clothes? It is hard enough dressing well as a regular Mother of the Bride, when guests are scrutinising you to see whether your outfit lives up – or down – to their expectations, whether your hat is more amusing than amazing, whether you are causing a mutton alert, whether you are trying to outshine the bride, or are guilty of some other fashion solecism... But for this poor MoB, who has already been subject to all kinds of unpleasant innuendo because of her pre-marriage career as an air stewardess, it is not only guests and how she will look in the family photos that she has to worry about, it is the fashion writers and bloggers, their fingers poised above their keyboards to offer an instant verdict on whether she got her outfits (there will be more than one) right or horribly wrong. As for the rest of the key players, the Queen will, almost certainly, look charming and perfectly age-appropriate for her grandson’s wedding. Having emerged from a 25-year period when she looked irredeemably frumpy, she now regularly looks perfect for her age and her role in those exquisitely made and wonderfully flattering hats by London milliner Rachel Trevor-Morgan and those pretty dress-and-coat ensembles most often created by London couturier Stewart Parvin. The Princess Royal, on the other hand, can almost certainly be depended upon to look completely awful. This is the woman who, with a little styling and a new haircut, could look utterly stunning. But the bouffant, the bun and the unerring ability to choose unflattering and frumpy outfits, will inevitably ensure that she looks ugly and eccentric. How can anyone be so sartorially wrong, so much of the time. As a woman of similar age, build and colouring, who is also a fashion editor, fashion blogger and fashion website director, there is no job I crave more than to style the Princess Royal. If I am proved wrong on Friday and she looks as gorgeous as she has the potential to look, I will add seasoning and eat my favourite Nerida Fraiman hat... What are your fashion expectations for the Royal Wedding?

Do we love vanity sizing because we feel better buying a smaller size than we believe we really need, or do we hate it because it is another type of deception practised by retailers?

It has become almost routine in the high street for brands to size garments up – i.e. manufacturing a size 10 and slapping a size 12 label (or in some cases, a size 14 label) on it, to lull customers into the fond belief that they are a size 10 when they are really a 14, or a size 16 when they are really a size 20.