First the worst, second the best, third the one who can't fit in their xmas dress

The first of December! You can finally crack into the advent calendar that's been sat on your desk for the past two weeks! Yet, is it just me or does it seem slightly unfair that the lead up to Christmas, which is usually celebrated with just a taster of chocolate each day, is also when magazines start yelling at us to shift those pesky pounds.

As my ever tactful father likes to remind his womenfolk 'a moment on the lips is a lifetime on the hips', as he scoffs yet another cream laden mince pie! huh! I would like to see Men's Health or Nuts informing their male readers that, no they can't indulge in the entire bag of Cadbury's fun size chocolate bars or verbally rapping their knuckles when they think a whole pack of bacon accounts for one meal!

The only light at the end of the Christmas diet tunnel is that; A) it ends on Christmas day itself when coincidentally the turkey feast arrives and you can eat your weight (also include weight lost while on faddy diet) in turkey, and B) Us girls are transformed by the time the Christmas parties swing round! Well, this is what I'll be reconciling myself with while on my first painful run of the month. ouch!

The British Fashion Awards

Fashion took centre stage at Westminster's Lewerence Hall on Novemeber the 26th. The crowning winner was undoubtedly Luella Bartley with her award of Designer of the Year, and quite rightly so.

Luella has been a hit in New York, Milan and has been a fashion favourite with the London Fashion Week crowds. Her S/S 08 collection was a psychadellic twist of refined English formal dress wear with tweed and lace mixed with oversized pearls, candy colours and childish make up. Her A/w 09 collection didn't lose her signature sense of fun with witches hats, orange tights and insanely crimped hair.

Other winners included miliner Stephen jones for the Outstanding Achievemnet award, Ruperst Sanderson for the Accessory Designer award, Christopher Bailey won Menswear Designer for his work with Burberry, Jouran Dunn (the face of Topshop) beat Agness Deyn to the Model of the Year award, Matthew Williamson picked up the Red Carpet Designer award over Giles Deacon and Stella McCartney.

When Giles met Colin

On Tuesday 11th November Colin McDowell, Senior Fashion writer for Sunday Times Style and renowned fashion commentator, staged a televised chat with fashion designer, Giles Deacon, at The London College of Fashion. There was an atmosphere of excitement as Giles, who was awarded British Fashion Designer of the year in 2007, strolled on stage and settled into his chair next to Colin.

Colin started by praising Gile's achievements and outlining his star studded career which has involved working for Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Ralph Lauren before setting up his own London based luxury womenswear label in 2004.

Gile's came across as very magnanimous, as in answer to a question on how hard it is to become an established fashion designer, he explained how there is so much petty politics within the industry and how he has tried to combat this in his own team by ensuring a healthy fun relationship. Among other qualities he listed, was 'direct honesty, to say that's a shit idea', to which he sat back laughing.

Gile's then answered questions from the audience, such as the inevitable, 'is there anything that inspires you?' to which he replied that it was actually those around him that influence him, adding after a pause, that daily work has to be stimulating, and you need people to be direct and even silly, like his long term friend and ex, Fashion Stylist Katie Grand. Though he hastily assured the audience that she was not his muse, 'the concept of a muse is just a bit creepy, like designers who say they were inspired by their grandmothers skirts when they were little. that's just weird!'

There was many questions from people in the audience who felt an affiliation with his northern roots, having been brought up in Cumbria, and he demonstrated how his background informed his career from his 'northern pragmatism' which made him think, 'Christ, gotta get a job, pay the rent!', to his new collection for high street retailer New Look, 'it's an income for the next three years, and people were sniffy about it but then not everyone can or wants to spend £250,000 on a dress. And why should they?'

And his proudest moment? without hesitation he replied, 'being Designer of the Year, just looking at the list of other people who were on it and thinking Christ I'm on it!' Since last year he has been a permanent fixture in the fashion world and has a number of lucrative deals with New Look, Daks and his own label Giles Deacon.

Interview with Fashion Designer Ashish.

Don’t fancy being left to fester under the mistletoe this Xmas? Take your mother’s advice and put on a sequined party frock to stand out from all the boring little black dresses. Ashish is the king of sequins and his A/W collection exudes high octane party glamour.

The story behind his collection this season runs along the theme of, ‘Disney meets Marilyn Monroe, and an ex Las Vegas showgirl.’ The thirty-two dazzling outfits leave you with the feeling that the Disney characters, Marilyn and the showgirl did more than just meet, they donned some sequins and partied!

When creating a collection, Ashish explains that he keeps his clients in mind; whereas the English appear to buy across the scale, his clients in Russia and New York are more difficult to predict, though his designs tend to appeal to young party girls.

It is easy to see why; his collection this season sports heavily sequined mini dresses, skirts and tops, which combine instant impact glamour within a feminine silhouette. There are voyeuristic dresses with large holes cut out, sporty sweater with burlesque style nipple tassels and woolen jumpers adorned with cherries.

Since he first sold his A/W collection in 2001 to Browns Focus, a London designer fashion boutique, his star has been rising. His statement outfits have been worn by Lilly Allen, Madonna on her ‘confessions’ album tour, Victoria Beckham, and R&B singer Estelle, ‘£700 is a lot of money and I really feel flattered when people say they feel sexy in my designs’.

From all the celebs parading around in his outfits, the new and upcoming ‘doowop’ soul singer, V.V Brown caught his attention when she wore one of his dresses for a Jools Holland performance, ‘she also wore that dress for her video, she embodies my ideal girl that I keep in mind when designing, so much energy.’ From wearing one of his dresses V.V Brown earned herself another little number as he kindly sent her one to keep. In comparison, his thoughts on celebrity drag queen Jodie Harsh wearing his designs, went along the lines of- ‘lovely bloke, great fun, don’t really want to see my clothes on a tranny though!’

Ashish’s first show in 2004 exploded onto the fashion scene like a kaleidoscopic glitter ball, he said he had, ‘nothing to loose, though sequins at that time were not cool. Americans didn’t like it, they were like ‘oh my god, we haven’t seen sequins on the catwalk for like 40 years’. People were frightened by it. But then Lizzie Jagger started wearing it’. However, the British press lapped it up and he was rewarded with a ‘New Generation’ sponsorship from The British Fashion Council. This is what is exciting about Ashish, he isn’t afraid to go against convention and design outfits that force people to rethink their preconceptions concerning fashion. His radical attitude to design has proved him to be definitely more than just a party girl’s favourite designer.

His zest for colour and eye for the alternative can be said to come from his fashion forward mother, who now manages his factory of 70 workers in Delhi, ‘She was fabulous! Before the weight of course, but this was the woman who could pull off a lime green jumpsuit.’ His other major influence is 80’s fashion designer Bob Mackie, who is best known for designing outfits for Cher and Gerry Hall. Ashish describes him as ‘vulgar but fun’ and as a designer he could bring humour to his outlandish, jewel encrusted garments.

And when he looses his creative spark and draws a blank? Ashish firmly believes in the power of films as soothing to a designers dry patch, ‘I watch like 60 films a day, no seriously, god that sounds sad! The film ‘the eyes of Laura Mars’ works for me, its corny but it’s shot beautifully.’

I can see clearly now...I've invested in some geek chic specs.

After spending a good week and a half squinting at the TV, people talking to me, and the number of a bus which i repeatedly failed to catch, I thought it best to get the old peepers seen to. Also the horrible idea kept coming back to me that you can read people's lives from the lines and wrinkles on their faces, and my face would just say-nothing! we'll blatantly all be botoxed to Bognor and back by the time i have wrinkles! silly sausages!

'You have what is known as 'rugby ball' shaped eyes Miss Nightingale. Nothing to be alarmed about, it's called an 'astigmatism', the bloke with the breath that had a whiff of garlic-ness to it reassured me while blinding me with a mini torch.

rugby ball eyes? the only ball shaped body parts I actually want are the ones located on my chest. great. Also there didn't seem anything positive in the word aSTIGMAtism. My opinions were of the old school way, glasses were for geeks, school being an operative word. It was always the owly looking kids in my school who were picked on for their specs and now i was going to have to join the milk bottle mongtards (alright, that word is playground retro and you won't be laughing when it comes back!)

Yet when did the opinions of those kappa popper wearing, happy hard core listening, teenage baby producing bunch known as 'the popular kids' ever retain longevity? well, actually the first two trends in fashion and music are making a come back and all of Europe knows we hold the record for most teen pregancies...but hey ho on glasses they were wrong!

So the next day I bravely visited the specs shop and psyched myself up with thoughts like 'Lilly Cole for Paul Smith in harry potter glasses, sexy secretary, minxy teacher etc' and shoved a pair on and blinked and my newly framed face...hmm bit dame Edna.

unsurprisingly the classic Chanel and Dior frames were the best but waaay out of my price range. so I opted for a simple tortishell pair in a square style and hoped my critics, at college, would be kind. My own personal opinion was I was working the Daria (that American cartoon with a deadpan character) meets high powered lesbian look.

It wasn't until today when some sleazy Frenchman stopped me and waxed lyrical rubbish about me being sexy in specs, followed by asking if i was a teacher with a twinkle in his eye, that I realised I had accomplished at least one of my desired looks! Even though it resulted in me extricating myself from his oily charms and promptly hiding in a nearby shop.

Lesbians are so hot right now

Katy Perry’s singing about it, Lindsey Lohan’s snogging one, and Agnes Deyn, lets face it just looks like one.

Yet she’s not the only one. I realised the other day, as I picked up my new Chris Evans/high powered lesbian style specs, and dressed in my ‘boyfriend trousers’, unisex converses and new specs, I was very much doing the lesbian look. Perhaps this was why the old bloke opposite me on the tube was giving me a good eyeballing. Probably didn’t help that my reading of choice was ‘diva’, a well known lesbian magazine. What? I read it for it’s amusing articles!

Perhaps I’m missing the boat and every other woman is merrily beating around the lesbian bush. So I put the question; would you? to my polish housemate, who is as traditional as Mr Kipling is about his exceedingly good cakes. Her answer was an adamant ’a thousand time no!’, which was accompanied by a suspicious darting look in my direction. Her reasoning followed that ’surely you would miss something?’

But other than that something extra men have which comes in a long package (if your lucky), what would we miss? Certainly not the way my boyfriend picks his bogeys then proudly reveals it to me on his finger like we are in ‘show and tell’ in class one again, or the way he never realises his bum crack is on show. Don’t get me wrong I like his bum, but not when I’m eating my dinner or he meets my housemates, or more importantly my mum, you’d think it’d get draughty down there.

With a lezzy chum you could combine wardrobes, watch endless Sex in the City without any complaints and come bedtime at least she would know where ‘it’ is, ‘cos she’d have one herself!
The lesbians have changed peoples stereotypes from the dungaree wearing, cat loving and body hair growing clan they used to be thought of. With their chart topping tunes, intelligent magazines, glamorous celebs and serious fashion style they could make a straight girl as queer as nine bob note as my Oma would say.

However, if after a fair amount of philosophising and self probing (oo-er!) you come to the conclusion that being a lesbian just isn’t your cup of tea, remember not to spill your initial thoughts to your conservative housemate, or you will find you’re treated more suspiciously then Amy Winehouse claiming she’s clean.