IT'S ME I'M CATHY...

Why I'm With The Band. FASHION & MUSIC...

...Used to be such a hit combination. Some of my major style idols are musos and their muses. So why am I left so cold by the get-ups seen at the Virgin Music Awards? I don't want to dress like Katy Perry with bad pink hair and a scary pastel cheogsam. I want to dress like ... well, these, my Top Ten Rockin' Style Icons of All Time.
To my left, queen of the Velvet Underground scene, #1 Nico...

#3 St Joan? Why not. Baez rocks

#2 Anita Pallenberg, in the Keith years

#4 Stevie! Stevie gotta love Stevie

Material Girl, #5 Mads of course

#6 Marianne...As tears go by...

#7 the only Kate that counts, Ms Bush

#8 Sweet Jane Birkin

# 9 Cher, once was wonderful

#10 Legend lady, Patti Smith

ASK MRS PRESS

Question: I heard Jack White and Karen Elson threw a divorce party. Is this now acceptable?

Answer: This rock star-supermodel couple has always done things differently – the venue for their 2005 wedding was the Amazon jungle; the ceremony was conducted by a shaman priest in a canoe. News broke in June that they were celebrating their sixth anniversary by…getting a divorce. But they weren't going to let a little thing like that stand in the way of a good party. Friends were invited to a bash "to celebrate their upcoming divorce with a positive swing bang hum dinger" in Nashville. Drinking and dancing! Fun!

Although this was the first I'd heard of it, the divorce party is not a new concept. Laura Dave's novel, The Divorce Party (Penguin) came out in 2009 and the film version is currently in production with Jennifer Aniston's Echo Films. According to Wikipedia, Las Vegas is the divorce party capital of America. Who knew?!

Whether you think it's cool or cruel, it is certainly happening. The million-dollar question is how to navigate this potential minefield, either as a guest or as the hostess? The first thing you will need is tact. Even if the splitting couple remains the best of friends, and feels positive about a party to celebrate what has passed, tempers may fray. Social life plus heartbreak plus a few drinks is the fastest way I know to tears. So tread carefully. If you're a guest, watch what you say. Avoid making statements such as "I never did like the two of you together". If you're the host, summons all your grace, charm and restraint – you've got your whole life ahead of you to flirt with new love interests.

Should guests bring gifts? Ask first. If in doubt, opt for a simple treat designed to lift the spirits – a facial at your favourite spa for the bride-not-to-be; a bottle of wine for him. One of the best gifts you can give your friend is a shoulder to cry on, and the genuine offer to be there when they need you. I think you can leave the toasters for the next wedding.

QUICK TIPS
Dress code: Black!
Plus ones: Providing you check first, why not? I doubt it's a sit-down dinner.
Gifts: Please tell me there's no present table
Photography: Best avoided

Send your questions to instyle@pacificmags.com.au.

THE 'D' WORD

There is a scene in Grey Gardens, the HBO movie about Jackie Kennedy’s eccentric Beale cousins, in which Drew Barrymore, who is utterly fabulous as Little Edie, faces off the sanitation police, who’ve been sent to inspect the squalor of the Beale’s once-grand Hamptons pad.

“We have our warrant, Miss Beale. We’re coming in!” calls the law, intent on evicting if not the bonkers mother and daughter at least their resident menagerie of cats and racoons.

“Just you wait a minute!” calls Little Edie. “I’ll be down as soon as I put my lipstick on.”

Because in the face of a challenge you want to look your best. Like Edie Beale, Ginette Spanier knew that looking one’s best is directly related to feeling confident and strong.

Spanier, who was Directrice of the Paris couture house of Balmain in the 1950s, was on the run in Nazi occupied France during WWII. Jewish with false papers, her memoirs tell of a daily fear of being arrested, but keeping up appearances was never far from her mind.

To cycle from Limoges to liberated Paris in 1944, she packed two special outfits donated by a friend “so that I wouldn’t look a mess when I greeted my first Englishman, my first American. At the time [the outfits] seemed the summit of luxury – a black silk town suit, in case they came in daytime. A flowery nightdress, in case they came at night. For months I dreamt of myself in one or other of these garments welcoming the Allies.”

In her book The Thoughtful Dresser, Linda Grant also writes of the importance in wartime of dressing up: “The famous poster of the ATS warden reapplying her lipstick in the blitz was one of the iconic images of the Second World War: it said that fashion and beauty transcended death and horror…Trying to put together a fashionable outfit and make up your face was part of the war effort.”

So I wonder why in easier times we so often let things slide on the fashion front, schlepping about in baggy track pants and old T-shirts. The obvious answer, the one I give when I show up to work in old black trousers that make me look like a Womble, is that there is not enough time to fritter it away on the pursuit of gorgeousness. And hello, I work in fashion!

The frenetic pace of life is such that by the time we’ve packed the kids’ lunches and taken the rubbish out there really aren’t enough minutes left to manicure our nails or hold up our stockings to the light to see if they are the exact right shade black to match our tulle skirt. I’m lucky if I can get out the door without cat hair all over my coat.

So what’s the obvious answer to that? It is of course the dreaded “D” word: discipline. We must make the time for style. There is no such thing as a free fashion lunch. As my ultra chic friend Sue Pritchard puts it: “I might not always feel like it, but I make the effort to look groomed – I always enjoy the results.”

As for me, I wear the Womble trousers because they are comfy and they are there on the shelf (or more often, the floor). And because they don’t look nice with anything I don’t have to think too much about the rest of my outfit, or at least only enough to accept that it will not be chic. How’s that for logic? Thus, the Womble trousers are easy. But since when was anything worth having easy to acquire? Looking stylish takes effort. But it comes with rewards. I think if I had to meet my first American, I’d pack my black silk suit, wouldn’t you?

IN THE PINK

Pink dogs and cats! Surely not. But I do like the idea of matching accessories. I have this smashing pink rabbit fur; it'd be cute with matching pooch. Before you judge me, I'm only talking drab days, when the rain is threatening and my spirits are in the doldrums (great word, "doldrums"). So anyway, do not dye your pets pink! Unless you're Joan Collins. It's too cruel.

IT'S D.V ALL THE WAY FOR ME

"Elegance is refusal," said Diana Vreeland.

She also said: "What do I think about the way most people dress? Most people are not something one thinks about," which as you may know as it was my Quote of the Week for about 10 weeks (lazy blogger, eek). Oh and "Pink is the navy blue of India."

DV was "too much".

Here, some inspiring pics of her to get you through this drizzly day.

THE SHOPS + FROCKS + THE LIBRARY + A DRINK = STUFF I LIKE...

Therefore 'tis fabulous indeed to be talking on this pannel on Tuesday with SMH fashion ed Georgina Safe and Romance Was Born designer Anna Plunkett. Hope to see you there.

Unfashionable Times Indeed

God, and I always thought London was a fashion capital. Reading about the half-witted thuggery gripping the UK I feel so disappointed. London's burning as "ordinary" people grab whatever they can get while a bunch of ridiculous disaffected halfwits in hoodies loot stores and chuck stuff. I would go so far as to say I am ashamed to be English. What has happened to this once great centre of culture and civilisation? I just watched some video footage and it made me cry. It strikes to the very heart of what it used to mean, to me anyway, to be English - a privileged, culture-rich upbringing, roots in a place defined by neighbourliness and the village bloody green, by fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, by Miss Marple and The Beatles, by mini skirts and Dickens and Vivienne Westwood and the Queen and getting excited come Christmas about the Boots catalogue. By London Fashion Week and To Sir With Love, by The Two Ronnies, and terriers and wellington boots and hacking jackets, by fondant fancies and soft rain and watching Coronation Street. Well now they're looting Boots!
It's so very sad, isn't it? That people with so much - because at the end of the day these numbskulls aren't begging on the streets of Calcutta are they? They're all wearing designer trainers - value it so little.

This from the Guardian website, about Clapham, where I once lived:

"Dozens of youths started the night's violence on Northcote Road at just after nine o'clock when they ransacked a Curry's electronic store in Northcote Road. They were joined by dozens of others, many with black hoods and scarves after a small number of riot police left the scene half an hour earlier when they came under light bombardment from projectiles.

Onlookers and locals identified many of those present as "blues, yellows and reds", members of local gangs who they said had called a truce for the evening. Along Northcote Road the windows of other stores in including Starbucks were smashed.

The gangs ran along the road and at one point a middle-aged man and his wife pointed in the direction of a jewellers further up the road and other potential targets.
Less than 30 metres away dozens of revellers stood outside a local pub drinking beer and looking on.
As it became apparent after 20 minutes of looting that the police were not coming back the looters were joined by many more."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/08/london-riots-third-night-live

ASK MRS PRESS

From my latest Instyle column, answering your style dilemmas!

Question: I seem to be always buying new clothes, but I never have a thing to wear! Any advice?

Answer: This is a common problem. We've all stared hopelessly into the depths of our wardrobes and wondered what on earth there is to wear in there. The best solution is a ruthless edit. If your closet is crammed, you can't see the Hollywood gowns for the tees.

Don't let a decent dress get lost behind lesser garments. De-clutter! Remove the rubbish they use as camouflage – those ancient work pants shiny from over-ironing; that coat with the hole in the back; the daggy dress with the print that's so 2006. Once they are gone, your good pieces will be easier to spot and work with.

V&A Publishing has just reprinted American designer Anne Fogarty's 1959 style guide, the quaintly titled A Well Dressed Wife. While her advice for getting a husband to buy you a mink seems pretty dated now, her words on culling an unwieldy wardrobe stand the test of time. Writes Fogarty: "Be relentless! Don't hang onto things that may someday come back into style, you think might look okay if you change your hairstyle…[or are] good enough for the rain or wearing round the house."

A small but carefully considered wardrobe gives you way more options than an overcrowded one. If you're stumbling over parting with an old fabric friend, remind yourself this: if you haven't worn it in a year, chances are you're not going to. So sell it, give it away or cut it up and use if for dusters.

Send your questions to instyle@pacificmags.com.au