Handbag Heaven

by Alderson, Maggie

38 You bought it because it has a designer label and was 50 per cent off.

  39 You bought it because it was cheap and cheerful. It’s just cheap.

  40 Your two-year-old bursts into tears when he sees you in it.

  41 Your mother bursts into tears when she sees you in it.

  42 Your partner goes quiet when he sees you in it.

  43 Your best friend laughs hysterically when she sees you in it.

  44 You see yourself in a shop window. And do all of the above.

  45 Someone at a party comments on your ‘interesting’ dress.

  46 A kindly bus driver asks when you are due.

  Watertight solutions

  There are two conditions that make achieving a sense of glamour impossible: head colds and rain. A running nose, red scaly nostrils and a brain full of porridge render any amount of personal grooming redundant, although I’m never sure if you look as bad as you feel when you have a vicious case of the snotters. It’s like wearing a mucous helmet that cuts you off from the world and distorts all perception.

  Heavy rain just makes you feel like a hobbit.

  It’s impossible to walk tall and stride out when stair rods of cold water are coming randomly down your neck and people at street crossings are giving you impromptu retinal surgery with their umbrella spokes.

  The only thing that makes a day of falling water bearable is the prospect of the sofa, the quilt, cable television featuring Gregory Peck, and lashings of hot chocolate. So what are you supposed to wear when it’s pouring with rain, but it’s hot? A bikini?

  It’s the one sartorial brainteaser harder than smart casual, but I do know who I don’t want to look like – the man I saw at the station this morning who was wearing a long plastic rain mac over shorts and reef sandals.

  Still, he may not be as mad as he looked; open shoes are quite a cunning solution for the hot rain dilemma, as the water can go straight through and out the back. And at least you can dry wet feet and start again – an office redolent of steaming wet socks can be a very bad start to your week.

  Working on this principle, on hot rain days I tend to wear my black rubber Spice Girl shoes, which are like beach slides atop 10-centimetre platforms, in the hope they will work like seventeenth-century pattens and elevate me above the mud and swirling drainwater. You do have to be a bit careful on slippery surfaces, however, because it’s a long way to fall. As Geri Halliwell will tell you.

  But for cooler days, at least one pair of closed rain shoes is an essential in any wardrobe. Not just tragic old trainers you don’t mind sloshing through puddles in, but a pair of shoes that look decent enough to wear to work and don’t let the deluge in. The key is integral rubber soles. Those stick-on ones I sometimes ruin good leather-soled shoes with, out of some misguided notion of practicality, just don’t do it. In fact, they seem to seal the wet into the leather and keep it there.

  On a wet day your outfit will always start with your rain shoes – and it should end with a raincoat that you don’t loathe. It’s bad enough that the weather is foul without looking like Columbo (the crumpled crimebuster) on top. So it’s really worth investing in a decent raincoat – ideally one that keeps out the rain. Beware the word ‘showerproof’. You’re not going to be wearing it in the shower. A bloody great tropical downpour demands serious protection – but that doesn’t mean you should have to wear something totally at odds with the rest of your life (i.e. a drover’s coat or Annapurna parka if you live in the inner city).

  But I do warn you that the pursuit of such a coat can take on the Arthurian dimension of the quest for the comf-elegant work shoe. I finally found my dream coat in Prada last year, but still wake whimpering in the night after a dream about how much I paid for it…

  And my last tip for surviving the rainy season: buy the nastiest umbrella you can find. That way, you are guaranteed never to lose it.

  The real thing

  One of the most interesting fashion shows I ever saw in Paris didn’t involve any designer clothes. It was the rehearsal for a Chanel parade, held several hours before the show was due to begin, with Karl Lagerfeld and his right-hander, Lady Amanda Harlech, watching in earnest concentration. (I was just there perving.)

  The models, about sixty of them and none of them ‘names’, trooped along the runway in their own clothes. Quite a few were smoking, most were wearing very scruffy jeans (in the then new ‘dirty’ denim) and one of them was carrying a small dog. Most of them wore sandshoes of great decrepitude, several were barefoot and the only one in a pair of shiny high heels stuck out like an air hostess in a mosh pit. It was fascinating.

  Because they were all about the same height and thinness (180 centimetres, size 8), they didn’t stand out the way models do when they move among normal earthlings. In fact, they just looked like a big gaggle of skinny schoolgirls on a geology field trip. With no make-up, their hair greasy and lank from three weeks of being tortured into high-concept fashion-show ‘looks’, it was hard even to perceive them as particularly pretty, let alone beautiful. There was certainly nothing ‘super’ about them.

  What a contrast to a memory of ten years ago, when I saw Linda Evangelista outside the Louvre, after a Chanel show funnily enough, jumping onto the back of a Vespa in a red Chanel suit and high heels. She knew how good she looked as the handsome courier ferried her off to the next booking in her packed schedule and, as they zipped into the traffic, she threw back her head and laughed.

  The rest of us just gawped, looking around for the American Vogue camera crew, but it was no shoot – it was real life as lived by the most super of the supermodels at the height of the supermodel era.

  That moment is now well and truly over, and the girls at the Chanel rehearsal looked as if they would be catching the bus to their next show (unlikely, actually). But while they didn’t have Linda’s Eva Perén charisma, they did have something far more interesting – reality. Real people are the most fascinating thing in the world, much more interesting than models (unless you’re one of the sad ‘modeliser’ men in ‘Sex and the City’).

  Of course, all the women tramping the catwalk that morning were models by profession – but before the depersonalising application of highly stylised make-up and hairdos, they were still discernible as real women. A fashion show is all about imposing a unified look on a bunch of disparate individuals to express the designer’s vision for the collection. But while they were dressed in their own clothes, you could still determine different personalities – this one a little sulky, this one flashing cheeky looks at Kaiser Karl, another looking vague and fey.

  Some of them just plonked along, bored to death; others practically trotted round, clearly eager to get back to the book, the CD or the gossip they had been caught up in backstage before the rehearsal call. One or two – including the one in the heels – gave it all they had, walking the walk with head up and hips forward, charisma set to stun, clearly hoping to stand out.

  Three hours later, I watched them do it all over again. The same group of tall young women, reborn in wigs and slap to create a master race of expressionless replicants, with funny walks. I loved the clothes in that fashion show (especially the classic Chanel tweed jacket reincarnated as a zip-front coat), but I preferred the women as themselves.

  Martha knows best

  Do you shine your shoes? Do you give your jacket a once-over with a clothes brush before you leave the house? Do you put things with missing buttons in the mending basket and not back into the wardrobe? Do you let suits air for twenty-four hours after they’ve been in a smoky environment?

  I ask these questions because you do see a lot of ‘smart’ executive types walking around the CBD wearing the thirstiest little shoes and with great drifts of scurf on their shoulders. And in crowded lifts, other people’s jackets sometimes smell like bedsits. Which makes you wonder whether, under all that tailoring, they perform even the most perfunctory acts of daily self-grooming.

  But while I do think shoe polish has a place in every life, I
have also come to believe it is possible to be too well groomed. This thought seized me when I watched Martha Stewart address the Magazine Publishers of Australia conference in Sydney.

  For those of you who are not already slaves to Martha the Magnificent (I got her autograph…), she is a US phenomenon – the publisher of lifestyle bible Martha Stewart Living, a home, gardening and food magazine of such exquisite taste that it has defined a new style of comfy elegance and changed the way Americans live. (And if you come around to my house for dinner and there is a place card made from an autumn leaf and a centrepiece fashioned from acorn-shaped cinnamon cookies and red-sprayed twigs, you will see how much impact she has had on my life.)

  Martha Stewart Living has also – along with associated web sites, books, mail order, TV shows and licensing deals – made Martha a billionaire. And there she was, taking the stage in a simple grey trouser suit and very sensible flat shoes. Her hair was a bit mussed up. The only indication that she is one of the most powerful women in the USA was a pair of diamond earstuds the size of Minties.

  What a contrast between her and many of the ambitious young women in the audience, so assiduously groomed and done up in their dress-for-success outfits, 2000-style.

  In the 1980s, when ‘power dressing’ for women was invented, it meant desexualising skirt suits that were the female equivalent of the male business suit, with pussycat-bow blouses that were the equivalent of the shirt and tie. Margaret Thatcher made it her uniform. Well, it worked for her, didn’t it? The idea was that to succeed in a man’s world you had to neutralise the sexual messages inherent in women’s clothing, without getting into full Marlene Dietrich drag. You wanted your clothes to make your body disappear so that your brain could dominate proceedings.

  But the young women worshipping at the shrine of Saint Martha clearly had a different agenda. I watched two of them clip-clopping to the auditorium in high-heeled mules, and sleek jersey skirts and cardigans which showed off gym-toned bodies. Their hair was perfectly blow-dried and their nails recently manicured. They were tastefully made up, their jewellery was discreet and they smelled nice. In short: they were shiny, sexy babes and it really struck me how different a message they were sending out compared to their corporate ancestors of twenty years ago. Not so much takin’ care of business as taking care of me first.

  Their post-feminist agenda seems to be: just look at me – I find time to do aerobics, go to the beauty salon, mix and match expensive separates, have my hair done, accessorise, stretch, floss, do positive affirmations and get to this conference on time. If I can do all this for myself, just imagine what I can do for you…

  I’m not sure about this message. They looked a bit Marketing Executive Barbie to me. But then, Margaret Thatcher always wore high heels.

  Sales pitch

  On my current voyage around world retail, it has become clear that some people have no idea how to shop. Not what to buy – that’s the easy bit – but how to behave. There is a certain etiquette to shopping, and people who don’t observe it are in the same category as those who wear white to weddings, talk with their mouths full or pour wine into their own glasses before those of fellow diners. Like all good manners, shopping rules derive from basic consideration for others, so that everyone can enjoy a fair go at the purple ostrich ankle-strap high heels and fine cashmere polonecks. (Get off, that’s mine!)

  The Gucci and Prada stores in Milan are mobbed during fashion week by rabid fashion editors foaming at the mouth, furious locals, pushy Germans, loud Americans and hordes of young Japanese tourists who are obliged by custom to buy a designer present for everyone they know. So instead of a divine shopping experience that makes you feel like a brand-name heiress, these fashion temples resemble David Jones’s sock department on the first day of the sales.

  Bad behaviour I have witnessed includes covering glass display cases with coats so no-one else can see what’s inside; snatching up one of the bags another shopper is in the process of auditioning and posing with it in front of the mirror; hanging around the middle of a shop in gormless groups and getting in everyone’s way; helping yourself to items off the shelves behind the counter; interrupting high-level consultations between shopper and salesperson to bark ‘Have you got these in 38?’; reaching past a fellow browser to snatch a tasty item; and elbowing someone out of the way to get at something on a rack.

  But the most interesting shopping ineptitude I have seen took place in an expensive children’s-wear shop in Belgravia, London’s most elegant quarter. As I entered the establishment with my friend Josephine, two baby strollers completely blocked our way, while Dad and the kids lounged on the ottoman and Mum walked around pointing at things she wanted. The little ones, both under four, were dressed like Spanish royal children circa 1960, the boy in a pintucked romper suit, the girl in a white princess coat and pink patent party shoes. She wore diamond studs in her pierced ears. She may have been three.

  The parents, on the other hand, were downright ordinary – not trashy or scruffy, but just not chic or distinguished in any way, except for the huge gold and diamond watch on the man’s wrist. And while the mother picked out goodies, he took a Harrods bag from under the buggy and chucked a Steiff collector’s edition teddy bear at each toddler, who threw them onto the floor, where they stayed.

  I was gripped. All my horrible British class system zoning instincts kicked in. Who were they and where did the dough come from?

  He didn’t look flashy enough for a bank robber and his wife wasn’t wearing enough make-up. Neither of them seemed nerdy or bright enough to be Internet entrepreneurs. She definitely wasn’t one of the Spice Girls, so perhaps he was a foreign-currency dealer in the City? But when he opened his wallet to pay for the huge pile of kiddy couture, he didn’t have any gold credit cards, so that was out.

  As we left the shop, I raised a questioning eyebrow at Josephine to see if she had a handle on it.‘Lottery winners,’ she said decisively. And I’m sure she was right. They clearly had tons of money but, while they had sussed out where to find really nice things, they still didn’t quite know how to buy them. We resolved at once to start a consultancy firm for the newly rich: Maggie and Jo’s How To Spend It.

  Get wiggy with it

  Never underestimate the power of a wig. I don’t mean the power of a ginger wig, like the one worn by the caretaker at my school, to render thirteen-year-old girls senseless with giggles. But the dizzying power of glamour wigs. Drag queens – and Dolly Parton – really know what they’re doing when they pop a flaxen mane of silken curls, or flaming locks of auburn hair on top of their ordinary little mousey heads. Bingo! Instant charisma. Anyone can be Jolene in the right wig.

  This was brought home to me with force at a wig party I recently attended. First there was the thrill of walking in and not recognising people I work with every day. Then there was the added bonus of suddenly finding many of them keenly sexually attractive, simply because of the addition of a mop of fake hair. And I must confess it is not the first time I have felt strongly attracted to close gay friends once they have popped a rock star wig atop their normally shorn scalps. Every man is Jon Bon Jovi in a shaggy wig. Shaggy’s the name and shaggy’s the game.

  On another wig-inspired occasion I followed a total stranger around a party all night because I was so love-struck by his blond shag wig – although the powder blue polyester suit, platform shoes and 100 per cent nylon frill-front dress shirt had something to do with it, too. He looked like the blond one from Sweet at Noddy Holder’s wedding. Any man who would go out in public like that for a laugh was the one for me, I thought. Especially if he kept it all on in bed. Sadly our relationship never got beyond one ecstatic boogie to ‘Ballroom Blitz’, when he took his wig off for a breather and my ardour died in an instant. He suddenly looked so – ordinary.

  Wigs make you extraordinary. They make you bigger. Literally. With a Marge Simpson, an Ab Fab Patsy, the full Priscilla Presley, or an early Michael Jackson, you obviously take up more phys
ical space, but somehow you take up more psychic space as well. On my most recent wig outing I went your Jacqueline Susanne route, rendered brilliantly by my hairdressser (thanks, Andrea), with the help of a very long blonde switch, half a can of hairspray and a photograph from a recent Versace show.

  Thanks to the sheer height of my fiercely back-combed do, plus the major stacks it demanded I wear, I was a good half-metre taller. All that combined with a pair of op-shop TV screen sunnies and my vintage fake leopard coat, a devastating combo I would normally feel far too shy to wear together, I felt like a fearless ultra-femme. I strutted into that party. And I wasn’t the only one living it large in fake hair.

  Entering that room full of people in show wigs was like suddenly being jacked into an episode of ‘The Simpsons’. Everyone’s personality was written boldly upon their heads and, far from making them feel shy and exposed, it seemed to free the spirit. The few people at that party not wearing hired hair looked colourless and sad, like little brown sparrows in a cage full of parrots. Parrots doing the funky chicken, at that.

  So if you’ve got a problem with self-esteem, feel like a walking charisma vacuum and reckon porridge has more personality than you at a party, forget Prozac, gurus, group therapy and even tequila slammers. What you need is a big wig. The world’s a whole lot sweeter viewed from beneath an acrylic thatch. Just ask Dolly.

  Crashing symbols

  Hear ye, hear ye: we abandon the time-honoured symbols of clothing at our peril. Be afeared of a world where a man’s robe speaks no more to his fellow man than the wind speaks to the boughs of the trees, for he shall be as the beast in the wilderness, and chaos and anarchy will surely reign among us. Shelter your children from this world of fashion falsehood where raiment holds no truth and there is no honour in finery.