» Blight of fashion
Katie decides that Kate Moss’s latest designs are perhaps not a worthwhile investment
Aren’t celebrities a creative lot these days? No longer just pretty faces, this year has seen the Heat brigade writing how-to books (cheers Victoria), farming cheese (way to go Alex) and even feeding their extended family on cheap frozen food without developing scurvy (we’re so proud of you Kerry!).
But in amongst all this extracurricular activity, it’s been the celebrity take on the world of high street fashion that’s made the biggest public splash. Whether it’s Lily Allen at New Look, Scarlett Johansson taking on Selfridges or Kate Moss designing for Top Shop, 2007 has seen the great and good busting out the Crayola sets to produce their own clothes ranges.
“True style icons inspire individual thinking, not slavish copyists”
On paper it’s a no-brainer. If the hoi-polloi are all too eager to snap up an over-priced perfume because it’s got a celebrity endorsement, they should be selling their grannies for the opportunity to wear a dress that’s been touched briefly by the hand of La Moss.
Unfortunately, in reality, bingeing on sleb-branded high street fashion is as unwise as buying up huge amounts of your mates’ homebrew at a discount price. After an initial buyers’ rush, there’s only a nagging headache to look forward to, plus an irritating feeling that you’ll be back for more.
The women who queued up earlier in the year to bag one of the carefully-rationed items in Kate Moss’s Spring/Summer collection should be familiar with the symptoms. Kate, of course, looked gorgeous at the launch, but as the wet British summer wore on it became woefully obvious that denim hot pants and weirdly cropped jeans look far hotter worn by a Croydon supermodel than when protecting the dubious modesty of my ass as I wobble down West Street.
And there’s the rub. However beautiful you are there’s no point believing that buying a glittery top that Kate Moss’s marketing people gave the nod to is going to shower you in supermodel sparkle by proxy. Before she even leaves the house Kate has an army of stylists to pick her look – whereas the rest of us have five bleary eyed minutes angrily wrestling with straightening irons and make up before bolting for the door.
As well as unrealistic expectations there’s also the feeling that celeb involvement is dumbing down fashion in general. True style icons from Audrey Hepburn and Debbie Harry right through to MIA inspire individual thinking, not slavish copyists. Surely a new generation of girls should be using Lily Allen’s mix of vintage dresses and street chic as a springboard into their own trademark style – not queuing up at New Look for a ‘Lily Loves’ branded bracelet.
Happily, a look down the North Laine at lunchtime reveals that Brighton’s home-grown fashionistas are just as thrillingly stylish and spectacularly daft as ever. Swing a Chloe handbag around Gardner Street and there are enough eccentrically attired arty types whose devotion to charity shop (rather than celebrity) style should keep the city’s Sue Ryder shop topped up with student loan cash for a few years at least.
Maybe by the time the new Kate Moss collection hits the bargain bins (and no, that piece of tinselly schmatte won’t look any better just because it’s half price) we should draw a line right under this celeb fashion thing.
After all, whether we plump for a glittery boob tube or a satin something-or-other, come Saturday night it’s far better to look like a first rate version of ourselves rather than striving for a third rate copy of Kate.
Photo from bigpicturephotos.com
