Jackie Collins in the Seventies

 Best-selling novelist, Jackie Collins is someone whose features have remained spookily the same over the years.  Jackie likes to attribute her lack of ageing to her famous Collins genes as her face has hardly changed one whit over the passage of time. 

 Jackie’s clothes style also hasn’t changed over the decades as she continues to sport her signature look.  The bouffant shoulder-length hair, the dangling earrings and matching pendant, the v-necked top to show off that cleavage are all ever-present, topped off by a fitted jacket.

 In fact, it could still be 1975 according to La Collins because Jackie still remains completely fossilised in time, oblivious to any style changes.

Jackie Collins and Raquel Welch

However Jackie’s essential look is part of her glamorous persona (coupled with the problem of competing with her elder and more sophisticated sister, Joan).  If she attended a book signing session looking like a bag-lady then her numerous fans would be in for a hefty shock.

 Which causes an interesting conundrum for figures in the spotlight – how far do you have to dress to live up to public expectations?    If you do not, you disappoint your fans.  If you do, however you run the danger of fossilising your looks, pickled in aspic to remain always the same.  And that has happened to Jackie.

Which takes me to actor Peter Wyngarde.  In the 1970s, Peter Wyngarde struck TV gold, playing the part of Jason King in the television series Department S. 

Peter Wyngarde as Jason King

Jason King was famous for his wardrobe, a wardrobe that epitomised the best and the worst of Seventies taste (depending on your view-point) with eye-popping kipper ties and  3-piece suits that sported lapels so wide they could fly you to Madagascar and back.

Alas, playing the cool Mr King was the high-spot of Mr Wyngarde’s television career and he crashed rapidly out of the public view when the series ended.

However earlier this year, a national newspaper berated Mr Wyngarde for being spotted in the street, looking scruffy and unkempt so unlike his uber flamboyant screen character.

Mr Wyngarde replied in writing, pointing out he had played a wide range of parts in his theatrical career so why on earth was he expected to look and wear clothes like Jesus and Genghis Khan, merely because he had acted those roles?

Peter Wyngarde, pictured in the street.

He had a valid point – did the general public really expect him to appear in his 3-piece suits of yester-year.  Why would he look exactly the same as three decades ago? And since he is now relatively anonymous, he has the luxury of dressing exactly how he likes and not to please his public.

Nevertheless, if you are a rock star then it is perfectly acceptable to fossilise your looks.  Francis Rossi, lead singer with Status Quo has worn his rock star uniform of waistcoat, shirt and jeans for 35 years alongside his trade-mark ponytail.  The ponytail got the chop last year as Rossi decided to update his look.

Rossi admitted rather sheepishly it had to go as thinning hair no longer meant a viable ponytail.

“In the past year my hair has got so thin….a few weeks ago it dawned on me that I looked ridiculous so I decided to forget about clinging to my youth”.

Well done Mr Rossi.  It takes a great deal of courage to ditch a fossilised look that no longer rocks.  Far better to remain a national treasure than an ancient ruin.

By Lindsey Nicholls

  Conjoined clothing – the art of dressing like your partner is everywhere this spring.  Nowhere has it been seen more clearly in the run up of the General Election with both the Camerons and the Browns going head to head (and hip to hip) in the aim to create a winning look.  (The Cleggs opted out – the fiercesome Mrs Clegg does not even do ironing let alone matching clothing.)

The message behind conjoined clothing is about putting on a united front and presenting yourselves as a team to the world – it’s the X and Y Factor.  It’s a tricky thing – get it wrong and you are more likely to look gruesome twosome rather than winning twinning so what’s the best way to go about it?

Remember Howard and Hilda from the TV series, Ever Decreasing Circles and those Noel Edmond’s Eighties jumpers?  It was a running gag that Howard and Hilda not only borrowed each other’s words but also each other’s wardrobe.

 In a similar vein, David and Victoria Beckham once sported his and hers biker suits that made them both look like a walking advert for Land of Leather.

 To get the look right, opt for a more formal and classic look.  Make sure the colours suit both of you.  Gordon and Sarah Brown nail it spot-on here.  Both opt to wear linen-look in a chocolate brown.  Sarah’s neat and elegant dress with its wide lapels echoes her husband’s jacket and the cardigan (although a tad mumsy) of lilac-grey softens the look and matches Gordon’s tie perfectly.  The necklace of quartz beads adds the right finishing touch and complements the blue of the ex-Prime Minister’s shirt.

 The Camerons, on the same trail, also hit the right note.  Samantha Cameron’s empire-line dress in dark wool works alongside David’s dark business suit and white shirt.  The message is of uniformity and brisk business is clearly on the agenda.  Only Sam’s pendant necklace and peep-toe shoes hint at a touch of individuality.

Now that the election is over we will probably see the end of this look.  Both sets of partners can return to their individual wardrobes with a collective sigh of relief.  Which is a bit of a shame since it certainly brings a new meaning to putting on your party dress…

  Ah, the colour purple.  Purple’s a difficult colour to wear since it must be treated with right reverence and careful consideration.  It is, however, very popular especially the choice of Cadbury Purple lining as an excellent foil for our Cad and The Dandy suits and jackets.

 Purple has a fascinating history.  The original colour of Tyrian purple is the colour of a dye made from snails and up to 12,000 of the slimy creatures were needed to produce just 1.5 g of dye.  The colour was therefore only worn by the wealthy who could afford it; the imperial robes of Roman emperors were purple whilst royal purple was worn by the medieval kings in Europe.

 Purple became main-stream in the 1850s, thanks to the upstart aniline dye mauve, invented by a talented young chemist called William Perkins.  Now that mauve could be produced cheaply and synthetically, it roared into society, becoming the undisputed colour of high fashion of the masses.  Purple as a colour for the elite had gone forever.

 Yet purple has once again hit the headlines, due the recent election campaigns.  Possibly bored with their red and blue insignia, both the Browns and the Camerons have recently been photographed wearing it.

 David and Samantha Cameron get it effortlessly and silkily right – both chose to dress in midnight blue and Cameron’s purple tie on a crisp white shirt looks commanding and business-like whilst his wife’s blue-green belt softens the lines of her simple dress.   To pose in the same colour could look perilously naff but here the overall effect is chic and co-ordinated.

 Poor old Gordon and Sarah Brown languish behind once again in the fashion stakes.  Gordon’s lilac tie is too soft set against his baby-blue shirt and the look lacks authority; Sarah’s delicate Titian hair suits purple well but her dress, especially the neckline, is too fussy.

 Marry purple to such partners as dark fuchsia to give it a spritz or tone it down with an olive or racing green.  Try not to kill it with black.  Purple is an excellent alternative to burgundy which is a mite too redolent of the old school uniform for many.

 However, despite purple’s links with authority and history, it also carries undertones of a maverick.  The Suffragettes chose it as one of their official colours whilst embarking on their campaigns to obtain the vote for women whilst it is also the colour of the UKIP party.

Finally if any politico has delusions of power and grandeur then they only need to hark back to Spitting Image’s portrayal of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in her last months –  as the mad Roman emperor Caligula, complete with demonic flashing eyes, laurels and imperial robes.  It’s a timely warning…..

In witnessing the emergence of a new breed of ambitious, power hungry woman in the work place and an acceptance of the emotionally in-touch man of the millennia, it should be of no surprise that fashion itself has been a little sexually confused as of late.  Woman have taken to the streets with a certain swagger in all forms of masculine inspired attire, from the military to ‘boyfriend’ cut, and with it edgier crop and elfin hair styles.  In contrast, the catwalks have been awash with cosy knits, thigh skimming cardigans, and looser unstructured garments for men.  Seemingly in acceptance of this, a modern breed of man is sporting hair lengths that at best might be classed the new-new Romantic and at worst, are a whisker away from mullet mania.

Whilst the past year has seen women’s retailers stocking an abundance of formal wear that is infused with male details, and cut with reference to the traditional DJ and three-piece jacket, the fashionistas seek to re-balance this theme in 2009, and bring back the dinner jacket as an important staple in male attire.  In its present guise, it departs subtly from its former association with older men in gentlemen’s clubs and in keeping with the relaxation of dress-codes, is increasingly versatile.  As if taking its cue from fashion gender blurring, the modern dinner jacket is less about boxiness and more about streamlining, with a narrower nipped-in cut and refined detailing.  To compound this modern twist, the formal dinner shirt, often regarded with derision for (more…)