Last updated 19:23, Thursday, 30 October 2008

THIS week I have been mostly thinking about fashion.

I’m getting tense; I need some retail therapy to keep me up-to-the-minute with glamour and fashion.

The more glossy magazines I come across, the more pressured I feel to go shopping.

A trip to Manchester this week to see in-laws is going to be a real temptation; I’m going to be longing to maraude the city for the latest in the autumn/winter collections instead of sipping cups of tea and being polite.

So, what delectable haute-couture look should I adopt this season?

My instincts tell me it somehow won’t be the Royal Family-esque headscarf, silk blouse, handbag and gloves (the latter apparently indispensable this season, whatever your choice), along with some vibrant tartan.

Maybe I could try the military look, perhaps teamed with metallic leggings...

Not very Cockermouth on a wet Wednesday, or shopping in Sainsbury’s.

Nor do I wish to adorn my body with the skins of a horde of dead animals.

It’ll have to be the goth biker style. Much more me.

Humans have tried some crazy fashions over the centuries. (I remember being laughed at for wearing a full-length lace-and-lawn Jane Austen-style gown and ankle boots. Well, it was 1983. In Maryport.)

Seriously, though, from the poisons with which women anointed their faces in Tudor and Elizabethan times, through the rat-infested powdered wigs of the 1700s, to the crippling corsets, stilettoes and platforms of later times, fashion has been more of a pain than a pleasure. Long hair, permed hair, cropped hair; winkle-pickers, blue suede shoes... what is fashion after all?

For a long time, it was the privilege of the rich. But from the time of Frederick Worth in the early 20th century, wearing a particular type of clothing became a thing we were told to do.

And now, teens in particular love brands. This seems to be what “fashion” has become: wearing a brand, copying a celeb, following a trend.

And just when we think it’s safe to emerge in those thick, bright tights and chunky knits for winter, we are bombarded with the skimpy things we’re supposed to be buying for spring/summer 09. What summer?

Do we really want to see all the things we’re going to shiver in being paraded down the catwalks while we’re still braving winter storms?