Pauline's Way: Trigere in 1972

Pauline Trigere watching from the sidelines during a show of her Fall 1972 collection.

Photo By WWD Staff

Pauline Trigere and Rex Reed, circa 1973.

Photo By: WWD Staff

LAUNCH SLIDESHOW 24 images

With her signature dark glasses and perfect blonde bob, Pauline Trigère was a grand dame of high style behind which was plenty of substance. The American-by-way-of-Paris designer was as outspoken and independent as she was chic. After fleeing France in 1937 for reasons she deemed obvious (“Hitler — need I say more?”), Trigère and her soon-to-be-ex-husband took up in New York, where she embarked on a 50-year career.

Along the way, Trigère’s name became synonymous with sophisticated fashion — capes, double-faced coats and her favorite color, red — a fondness for turtles (at one point her collection totaled 500), and feuds, including one with John Fairchild, WWD’s former publisher. Trigère once commissioned a series of “Dear John” ads in response to a perceived slight by Fairchild. Defiance and a hot temper were two of her trademarks. “I want it my way and I want it immediately,” she told WWD in September 1972. “I scream a lot.”

Not surprisingly, her way meant making her own rules, whether it was wearing pants to Restaurant, where it was strictly forbidden in 1970; being among the first to hire a black model, as she did in 1961 (and when a customer refused to buy the look worn by that model, Trigère promptly threw her out), or defying the conventions of formal prefixes: Trigère bristled when, in 1970, the Eye identified her as “Madame Trigère,” the custom for women who have been married. “Correction, please,” she wrote. “I am not, never was Mme. Trigère…but Miss T.”

Read more...

Pauline's Way: Trigere in 1972

Pauline Trigere watching from the sidelines during a show of her Fall 1972 collection.

Photo By WWD Staff

Pauline Trigere and Rex Reed, circa 1973.

Photo By: WWD Staff

LAUNCH SLIDESHOW 24 images

With her signature dark glasses and perfect blonde bob, Pauline Trigère was a grand dame of high style behind which was plenty of substance. The American-by-way-of-Paris designer was as outspoken and independent as she was chic. After fleeing France in 1937 for reasons she deemed obvious (“Hitler — need I say more?”), Trigère and her soon-to-be-ex-husband took up in New York, where she embarked on a 50-year career.

Along the way, Trigère’s name became synonymous with sophisticated fashion — capes, double-faced coats and her favorite color, red — a fondness for turtles (at one point her collection totaled 500), and feuds, including one with John Fairchild, WWD’s former publisher. Trigère once commissioned a series of “Dear John” ads in response to a perceived slight by Fairchild. Defiance and a hot temper were two of her trademarks. “I want it my way and I want it immediately,” she told WWD in September 1972. “I scream a lot.”

Not surprisingly, her way meant making her own rules, whether it was wearing pants to Restaurant, where it was strictly forbidden in 1970; being among the first to hire a black model, as she did in 1961 (and when a customer refused to buy the look worn by that model, Trigère promptly threw her out), or defying the conventions of formal prefixes: Trigère bristled when, in 1970, the Eye identified her as “Madame Trigère,” the custom for women who have been married. “Correction, please,” she wrote. “I am not, never was Mme. Trigère…but Miss T.”

Read more...

Sex and Abu Dhabi? It’s wrong for the iPad era

Sarah Jessica Parker and her famous tutu are way out of date — today’s fashion has to be functional as well

Is an insult still an insult when the object of the insult hasn’t registered it? I was explaining to my husband why I couldn’t face going to any of the screenings for Sex and the City 2 when my 14-year-old daughter walked through the door and announced that she and four friends had just been to see it (certificate 15, BTW). “It’s great, you’ll love it,” she told me.

Isn’t it sexist, ageist and racist? I asked. Doesn’t it reduce four formerly smart women to irritating, squealing, Louboutin-craving, solipsistic, man-obsessed idiots? Don’t you feel patronised? “ She looked blank. I cut to the chase. “Aren’t the clothes horrible?” “Yup, gross,” she agreed. “But there are some really funny jokes, especially the one about Jude Law. The whole cinema was in fits.”

I give up. The Jude Law Joke has been singled out for special opprobrium in the universally damning reviews. Not that the critics are foolproof. They all panned Mamma Mia!, mainly for being silly, which it was, but in a benign, guilt-free, uplifting way. It was also a misty-eyed view of anti-materialism and free love.

By contrast, the general consensus seems to be that SATC2’s release is about as timely as six-month-old carrion. Yet there isn’t an overwhelming body of evidence to suggest we’ve all become capitalist-defying ascetics. The only barricades being manned at the opening party of Louis Vuitton’s megastore in London last week were the ones being gently leant on by fans waiting to catch a glimpse of Kirsten Dunst, Catherine Deneuve and Cherie Blair (shouldn’t she really have been storming a barricade?) as they swept past on the red carpet.

So if my daughter and her friends, all of them bright and pretty worldly, don’t feel abased by SATC2 (forgive them, they know not what they Choo), perhaps the only problem lies with those who are looking for ways to be affronted by it.

But that still leaves SATC guilty of a heinous betrayal. Four TV characters who once brilliantly and wittily showed that a deep and abiding love of fashion could exist inside intelligent, self-supporting life-forms have morphed into embarrassing freeloaders. So fashion is back to square one.

Really, though, I’m much more interested in seeing the other fashionable, slender trendsetter that debuted last week. The iPad could end up wresting the fashion baton from the gnarled hands ofSATC. With its gorgeous lines, sleek graphics and swish page-browsing, it could have been designed specifically for the Net-a-Porter crowd and catwalk-news junkies. If Apple can come up with an app that casts a crow’s foot-blitzing glow on the face every time it’s switched on, they’ll clean up. Think how pretty the front row will look when they all get out their Eye Pads at the next round of shows.

At any rate, if the industry has been fretting about what would replace the cash cow It bag, the answers here: “It” iPad cases. Already an enterprising Aussie designer has come up with some (admittedly hideous) pouch dresses for carrying them around.

Perhaps values have changed. Last week three more fashion houses installed low-key names where big marquee presences formerly resided — Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen, Christophe Lemaire for Jean Paul Gaultier at Hermès and Giles Deacon (who though familiar to Brits is unknown abroad), instead of Lindsay Lohan at Ungaro. Not that they’re low-key talents — Burton, for example, was McQueen’s right-hand woman for more than a decade — but they’re not the flashy, starry types that wereSATC’s bread and butter.

Perhaps the geeks are inheriting the earth: the developments in clothes that have most resonance these days are technological ones. Or they’re about innovative fabrications, whether it’s Uniqlo’s sell-out Heat-tech (aka thermal) range , this summer’s cooling underwear, the ultra-light, windproof down coats and jackets that are climate-perfect most of the year round, or Acne and Alber Elbaz’s influential denim collection (top) last year.

That collaboration is proving highly influential. Taking denim out of jeanswear isn’t new, but until Elbaz got hold of it, no one used it in such a decorative way.

Those Acne/Lanvin denim dresses with their ruches and bows are turning out to be the perfect solution for sophisticated, not too formal, day-through-to-night dressing.

A tailored dress that can be tossed in the washing machine may not sound like a glamorous story, but in the end it’s one that will have more impact on the way we dress than SATC’s tutus and corsages.

Read more...

Sex and Abu Dhabi? It’s wrong for the iPad era

Sarah Jessica Parker and her famous tutu are way out of date — today’s fashion has to be functional as well

Is an insult still an insult when the object of the insult hasn’t registered it? I was explaining to my husband why I couldn’t face going to any of the screenings for Sex and the City 2 when my 14-year-old daughter walked through the door and announced that she and four friends had just been to see it (certificate 15, BTW). “It’s great, you’ll love it,” she told me.

Isn’t it sexist, ageist and racist? I asked. Doesn’t it reduce four formerly smart women to irritating, squealing, Louboutin-craving, solipsistic, man-obsessed idiots? Don’t you feel patronised? “ She looked blank. I cut to the chase. “Aren’t the clothes horrible?” “Yup, gross,” she agreed. “But there are some really funny jokes, especially the one about Jude Law. The whole cinema was in fits.”

I give up. The Jude Law Joke has been singled out for special opprobrium in the universally damning reviews. Not that the critics are foolproof. They all panned Mamma Mia!, mainly for being silly, which it was, but in a benign, guilt-free, uplifting way. It was also a misty-eyed view of anti-materialism and free love.

By contrast, the general consensus seems to be that SATC2’s release is about as timely as six-month-old carrion. Yet there isn’t an overwhelming body of evidence to suggest we’ve all become capitalist-defying ascetics. The only barricades being manned at the opening party of Louis Vuitton’s megastore in London last week were the ones being gently leant on by fans waiting to catch a glimpse of Kirsten Dunst, Catherine Deneuve and Cherie Blair (shouldn’t she really have been storming a barricade?) as they swept past on the red carpet.

So if my daughter and her friends, all of them bright and pretty worldly, don’t feel abased by SATC2 (forgive them, they know not what they Choo), perhaps the only problem lies with those who are looking for ways to be affronted by it.

But that still leaves SATC guilty of a heinous betrayal. Four TV characters who once brilliantly and wittily showed that a deep and abiding love of fashion could exist inside intelligent, self-supporting life-forms have morphed into embarrassing freeloaders. So fashion is back to square one.

Really, though, I’m much more interested in seeing the other fashionable, slender trendsetter that debuted last week. The iPad could end up wresting the fashion baton from the gnarled hands ofSATC. With its gorgeous lines, sleek graphics and swish page-browsing, it could have been designed specifically for the Net-a-Porter crowd and catwalk-news junkies. If Apple can come up with an app that casts a crow’s foot-blitzing glow on the face every time it’s switched on, they’ll clean up. Think how pretty the front row will look when they all get out their Eye Pads at the next round of shows.

At any rate, if the industry has been fretting about what would replace the cash cow It bag, the answers here: “It” iPad cases. Already an enterprising Aussie designer has come up with some (admittedly hideous) pouch dresses for carrying them around.

Perhaps values have changed. Last week three more fashion houses installed low-key names where big marquee presences formerly resided — Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen, Christophe Lemaire for Jean Paul Gaultier at Hermès and Giles Deacon (who though familiar to Brits is unknown abroad), instead of Lindsay Lohan at Ungaro. Not that they’re low-key talents — Burton, for example, was McQueen’s right-hand woman for more than a decade — but they’re not the flashy, starry types that wereSATC’s bread and butter.

Perhaps the geeks are inheriting the earth: the developments in clothes that have most resonance these days are technological ones. Or they’re about innovative fabrications, whether it’s Uniqlo’s sell-out Heat-tech (aka thermal) range , this summer’s cooling underwear, the ultra-light, windproof down coats and jackets that are climate-perfect most of the year round, or Acne and Alber Elbaz’s influential denim collection (top) last year.

That collaboration is proving highly influential. Taking denim out of jeanswear isn’t new, but until Elbaz got hold of it, no one used it in such a decorative way.

Those Acne/Lanvin denim dresses with their ruches and bows are turning out to be the perfect solution for sophisticated, not too formal, day-through-to-night dressing.

A tailored dress that can be tossed in the washing machine may not sound like a glamorous story, but in the end it’s one that will have more impact on the way we dress than SATC’s tutus and corsages.

Read more...

This week I’m wearing: the maxiskirt

Maxis can be seen as liberating – from fake tans, high heels, the “Do my legs look like sausages in this?” dilemma...

(ZAC FRACKELTON)

Lisa Armstrong in a Osman Yousefzada maxiskirt

I hate long skirts. I mean really loathe them. They make my flesh creep. Not physically – that would be weird – but psychologically I could get quite worked up. Wearing one in 1911, or 1711, or any of the past 2,990 years when the big news in fashion was that skirts were floor-sweeping, again, I understand. To shroud three-fifths of your body in one when you have the choice not to – that’s got to be contrary.

The maxi, as the long skirt was rebranded in the late Sixties (when life was so aesthetically challenged that someone actually came up with a design called the Ford Mustang and managed to sell it), undermines everything women have achieved in the past 100 years. Not the right to pole-dance, or have your labia remodelled, but all the other stuff.

Admittedly the maxi doesn’t impede movement in the way that the hobble does, but it’s not exactly a liberating force. All that suffocating fabric. And nine times out of ten, it’s the kind of fabric that looks like a crumpled old rag the moment you do anything challenging in it. I know one fashion director who used to suspend herself by the door straps when travelling by car so she wouldn’t crease her maxis. It’s not cool, is it?

But it has not escaped this column’s notice that for the past few years there has been a creeping maxi-misation in the dress department, especially during the warmer months. So even though Nicole Richie appears to turn into a sub-species of Mama Cass in maxidresses, it was time to try out at least a skirt.

But which one? The new maxi is meant to hang slouchily off the hips – the non-lung-threatening equivalent of a ciggie dangling from your lips, perhaps. It mustn’t be tiered, floaty or reminiscent in any way of old Flake adverts. It mustn’t make you feel like a surrendered wife. Cheap, clingy fabrics are also bad.

This narrowed the field by about 98 per cent. In the nick of time, I remembered I already owned an Osman Yousefzada maxiskirt, although I’d never worn it as a maxi because to my mind, it worked so much better as a strapless or one-shoulder dress.

Next challenge: what to do with it? American Vogue puts them with jackets, shirts – whatever you’d wear with a shorter skirt. In reality, anything too formal above the waist looks peculiar. Keeping it simple – a good T-shirt, a slouchy boyfriend cardigan, a nice belt and some slightly odd sandals to remind everyone that you’re not Nanny McPhee – seems to do the trick.

Maybe maxis can even be seen as liberating – from fake tans, high heels (long skirts look wrong with most of them), the “Do my legs look like sausages in this?” dilemma…

I can’t see them catching on when you’ve got a serious appointment in the boardroom or a hot date, but on those mornings when it’s not quite cold enough to wear thick black tights, but not sufficiently tropical to go bare-legged, the maxi may have something. Trousers, to be fair, have the same something, but sometimes you can’t face yet another day in jeans.

American Vogue, by the way, has tried to give the maxiskirt a swishy modern feel by announcing that the new way with skirts is to wear long during the day, short at night. Nice try, but I give the “new long” one more issue – two at most. Models’ legs are too gorgeous to be hidden away under long skirts for months.

Read more...

This week I’m wearing: the maxiskirt

Maxis can be seen as liberating – from fake tans, high heels, the “Do my legs look like sausages in this?” dilemma...

(ZAC FRACKELTON)

Lisa Armstrong in a Osman Yousefzada maxiskirt

I hate long skirts. I mean really loathe them. They make my flesh creep. Not physically – that would be weird – but psychologically I could get quite worked up. Wearing one in 1911, or 1711, or any of the past 2,990 years when the big news in fashion was that skirts were floor-sweeping, again, I understand. To shroud three-fifths of your body in one when you have the choice not to – that’s got to be contrary.

The maxi, as the long skirt was rebranded in the late Sixties (when life was so aesthetically challenged that someone actually came up with a design called the Ford Mustang and managed to sell it), undermines everything women have achieved in the past 100 years. Not the right to pole-dance, or have your labia remodelled, but all the other stuff.

Admittedly the maxi doesn’t impede movement in the way that the hobble does, but it’s not exactly a liberating force. All that suffocating fabric. And nine times out of ten, it’s the kind of fabric that looks like a crumpled old rag the moment you do anything challenging in it. I know one fashion director who used to suspend herself by the door straps when travelling by car so she wouldn’t crease her maxis. It’s not cool, is it?

But it has not escaped this column’s notice that for the past few years there has been a creeping maxi-misation in the dress department, especially during the warmer months. So even though Nicole Richie appears to turn into a sub-species of Mama Cass in maxidresses, it was time to try out at least a skirt.

But which one? The new maxi is meant to hang slouchily off the hips – the non-lung-threatening equivalent of a ciggie dangling from your lips, perhaps. It mustn’t be tiered, floaty or reminiscent in any way of old Flake adverts. It mustn’t make you feel like a surrendered wife. Cheap, clingy fabrics are also bad.

This narrowed the field by about 98 per cent. In the nick of time, I remembered I already owned an Osman Yousefzada maxiskirt, although I’d never worn it as a maxi because to my mind, it worked so much better as a strapless or one-shoulder dress.

Next challenge: what to do with it? American Vogue puts them with jackets, shirts – whatever you’d wear with a shorter skirt. In reality, anything too formal above the waist looks peculiar. Keeping it simple – a good T-shirt, a slouchy boyfriend cardigan, a nice belt and some slightly odd sandals to remind everyone that you’re not Nanny McPhee – seems to do the trick.

Maybe maxis can even be seen as liberating – from fake tans, high heels (long skirts look wrong with most of them), the “Do my legs look like sausages in this?” dilemma…

I can’t see them catching on when you’ve got a serious appointment in the boardroom or a hot date, but on those mornings when it’s not quite cold enough to wear thick black tights, but not sufficiently tropical to go bare-legged, the maxi may have something. Trousers, to be fair, have the same something, but sometimes you can’t face yet another day in jeans.

American Vogue, by the way, has tried to give the maxiskirt a swishy modern feel by announcing that the new way with skirts is to wear long during the day, short at night. Nice try, but I give the “new long” one more issue – two at most. Models’ legs are too gorgeous to be hidden away under long skirts for months.

Read more...

The Stylist: shopping for a beautiful bicycle

There, on a head-high rack, was a magnificent machine in an unusual coffee colour. It bore, in curly script, the name “Surly”

A couple of weeks ago my friend William, one of the most fashionable men I know, turned up at a party carrying an unusual accessory. Hanging by his side as insouciantly as the latest bag from Dolce & Gabbana or Louis Vuitton was a foldaway bike by Brompton. Clearly he had joined the ranks of the two-wheel brigade that has invaded our cities over the past few years.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you will have seen them — the smart commuters on their hybrids (part mountain bike, part road bike), the scruffy messengers on their battered fixed-wheel urban steeds (no freewheel, just keep those pedals turning) and the legions of Sunday racers who, come Monday, have swapped the picturesque climbs and sweeping curves of the countryside for dodging traffic on their lightweight, state-of-the-art machines, still wearing their brightly coloured Lycra.

And what of William with his folding Brompton? If you are what you ride, what does this piece of kit say about him? Well, to my mind these portable cycles are the preserve of the unhurried, sharp man about town. Like the big, majestic Pashleys that look like something on which Sebastian Flyte might have wobbled around Oxford with Aloysius sitting on the handlebars, Bromptons are not about speed but about empowering you to glide from A to B in a stylish, unflustered way.

Of course, there have long been fashions in bicycles — ask any BMX-mad teenager — but there is a greater romance at play here than a mere passing trend. Sir Paul Smith, our most celebrated menswear designer, once told me that his boyhood idols were the riders in the Tour de France, men such as Fausto Coppi and Jacques Anquetil, who brought European flair into his very English childhood in Nottinghamshire. It was as much the idea of these swashbuckling, super-fit speed merchants as William’s genteel accessory that prompted me to visit my local bike shop at the weekend to see if I could find something that would suit me.

It didn’t take long. There, on a head-high rack, was a beautiful machine in an unusual coffee colour. Unusual, too, was the name on the frame, rendered in a hand-painted style: Surly. It had drop handlebars with black tape round them, wide-ish tyres with tread, and no frills.

I asked one of the assistants who or what Surly was and instantly he took on the appearance of a zealot. I was told that Surly is a US company that makes bikes out of steel that are tough. They are versatile, he said. He rode one: “I used to have 12 bikes, now I have one.” And they make models that like to be loaded up: “Every week we sell one to someone who is about to go around the world,” he said. Essentially they are bikes with no spin. “This is the kind of bike your grandfather would recognise.”

I understood. The brown one on display looked and felt a lot like the racer I had as a child, but lighter. This was called a Cross Check and was something of an all-rounder. Also in the range are models such as the Long Haul Trucker, designed to carry lots of stuff over long distances; the Steam Roller, a single-speed fixed-gear street bike; the Karate Monkey, a single-speed mountain bike; and the Pacer, a sleek road racer. All these come as complete bikes but there is a lot of room for customising.

I went for some test rides. Surly frames are made from a high-strength, low-alloy steel with a great strength-to-weight ratio. They are not as featherlight as those made from carbon and aluminium but the steel makes them more comfortable and forgiving to ride, especially on city streets.

So I got one: a brown Cross Check from the guys in Bloomington, Minnesota, and headed for the park feeling like a 14-year-old again. Few things in life can turn back the clock so effectively.

Read more...

The Times dresses the readers: the language expert

Iwona Beak 36, co-founder of Language Connect

I don’t take fashion risks, so I’ve never had a faux pas. I like classic outfits that are timeless and safe. That said, I love the transformation that clothes allow. At the moment, I’m 20 weeks pregnant and struggling to find clothes for parties this summer.

What do you dislike about fashion?

Any style over the top, extreme, shocking — I perceive fashion as a practical solution to make you look and feel good, so anything creating a negative impression of disharmony is the antithesis of fashion to me.

Whose style do you admire and why?

Gwyneth Paltrow and Victoria Beckham represent the classic style that I like. I appreciate an emphasis on gorgeous, healthy hair, skin and a positive attitude to life (Victoria should smile a lot more, though). I admire Audrey Hepburn’s style.

What is more important, looking good or feeling good?

In my opinion, looking and feeling good go hand-in-hand which confirms my practical take on fashion.

Printed silk chiffon dress, £248, Winter Kate at my-wardrobe.com; sequined flat shoes, £49.99, Zara (020-7534 9500); gold metal drop earrings, £50, and gold metal necklace worn as bracelet, £85, Jaeger (0845 5210495).

Read more...

The Stylist: shopping for a beautiful bicycle

There, on a head-high rack, was a magnificent machine in an unusual coffee colour. It bore, in curly script, the name “Surly”

A couple of weeks ago my friend William, one of the most fashionable men I know, turned up at a party carrying an unusual accessory. Hanging by his side as insouciantly as the latest bag from Dolce & Gabbana or Louis Vuitton was a foldaway bike by Brompton. Clearly he had joined the ranks of the two-wheel brigade that has invaded our cities over the past few years.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you will have seen them — the smart commuters on their hybrids (part mountain bike, part road bike), the scruffy messengers on their battered fixed-wheel urban steeds (no freewheel, just keep those pedals turning) and the legions of Sunday racers who, come Monday, have swapped the picturesque climbs and sweeping curves of the countryside for dodging traffic on their lightweight, state-of-the-art machines, still wearing their brightly coloured Lycra.

And what of William with his folding Brompton? If you are what you ride, what does this piece of kit say about him? Well, to my mind these portable cycles are the preserve of the unhurried, sharp man about town. Like the big, majestic Pashleys that look like something on which Sebastian Flyte might have wobbled around Oxford with Aloysius sitting on the handlebars, Bromptons are not about speed but about empowering you to glide from A to B in a stylish, unflustered way.

Of course, there have long been fashions in bicycles — ask any BMX-mad teenager — but there is a greater romance at play here than a mere passing trend. Sir Paul Smith, our most celebrated menswear designer, once told me that his boyhood idols were the riders in the Tour de France, men such as Fausto Coppi and Jacques Anquetil, who brought European flair into his very English childhood in Nottinghamshire. It was as much the idea of these swashbuckling, super-fit speed merchants as William’s genteel accessory that prompted me to visit my local bike shop at the weekend to see if I could find something that would suit me.

It didn’t take long. There, on a head-high rack, was a beautiful machine in an unusual coffee colour. Unusual, too, was the name on the frame, rendered in a hand-painted style: Surly. It had drop handlebars with black tape round them, wide-ish tyres with tread, and no frills.

I asked one of the assistants who or what Surly was and instantly he took on the appearance of a zealot. I was told that Surly is a US company that makes bikes out of steel that are tough. They are versatile, he said. He rode one: “I used to have 12 bikes, now I have one.” And they make models that like to be loaded up: “Every week we sell one to someone who is about to go around the world,” he said. Essentially they are bikes with no spin. “This is the kind of bike your grandfather would recognise.”

I understood. The brown one on display looked and felt a lot like the racer I had as a child, but lighter. This was called a Cross Check and was something of an all-rounder. Also in the range are models such as the Long Haul Trucker, designed to carry lots of stuff over long distances; the Steam Roller, a single-speed fixed-gear street bike; the Karate Monkey, a single-speed mountain bike; and the Pacer, a sleek road racer. All these come as complete bikes but there is a lot of room for customising.

I went for some test rides. Surly frames are made from a high-strength, low-alloy steel with a great strength-to-weight ratio. They are not as featherlight as those made from carbon and aluminium but the steel makes them more comfortable and forgiving to ride, especially on city streets.

So I got one: a brown Cross Check from the guys in Bloomington, Minnesota, and headed for the park feeling like a 14-year-old again. Few things in life can turn back the clock so effectively.

Read more...

The Times dresses the readers: the language expert

Iwona Beak 36, co-founder of Language Connect

I don’t take fashion risks, so I’ve never had a faux pas. I like classic outfits that are timeless and safe. That said, I love the transformation that clothes allow. At the moment, I’m 20 weeks pregnant and struggling to find clothes for parties this summer.

What do you dislike about fashion?

Any style over the top, extreme, shocking — I perceive fashion as a practical solution to make you look and feel good, so anything creating a negative impression of disharmony is the antithesis of fashion to me.

Whose style do you admire and why?

Gwyneth Paltrow and Victoria Beckham represent the classic style that I like. I appreciate an emphasis on gorgeous, healthy hair, skin and a positive attitude to life (Victoria should smile a lot more, though). I admire Audrey Hepburn’s style.

What is more important, looking good or feeling good?

In my opinion, looking and feeling good go hand-in-hand which confirms my practical take on fashion.

Printed silk chiffon dress, £248, Winter Kate at my-wardrobe.com; sequined flat shoes, £49.99, Zara (020-7534 9500); gold metal drop earrings, £50, and gold metal necklace worn as bracelet, £85, Jaeger (0845 5210495).

Read more...