This is to be my last Dress code column. Coincidentally, this month marks 24 years since I first entered the world of fashion, through the double columns of the black and brass front doors of the Norman Hartnell couture house in Mayfair, London. I wasn't meant to go in that way and, on my first day as a trainee seamstress, I got severely told off: not for the first, or [...]

It is news that will please Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy: big eyebrows are back. Of course, eyebrow fashion doesn't have an impact on most men, but it wouldn't harm either pol itician to be a teensy bit fashionable for, some might say, a change.

I am blessed with superb eyebrows. They are neither bushy nor like running stitch, but well formed, arched and worthy of a star of the [...]

There are some things that become fashionable which you can view at a safe distance, knowing you will never have, or want, to participate in them, but enjoying looking at them nonetheless. Two of those trends this autumn will be leather, and Gothic.

I've never wanted to be a Goth, largely because the look involves two key things I was too scared (and am now too old) to indulge in: [...]

One of the good things about the summer being so short-lived is that there is less likelihood of me being forced to look at men stripped down to their bare chest walking the street. Now, if it were Adam Levine, the lead singer of Maroon 5, that we were talking about, I would be perfectly happy for it to be a very long, hot summer. Sadly, most men who think [...]

Much talking has been done of late about Keira Knightley's film The Duchess, in which she plays the Duchess of Devonshire of the late 18th century. Most of the words have been about the costumes and the big wigs, so heavy that poor Keira had to have a special board to rest her shoulders against. I'm sure Katharine Hepburn would have sympathised, having had to put up with mere leeches [...]

Despite being 42, still breastfeeding my young daughter and drinking coffee, I am, very intentionally and happily, pregnant (I admit I was 41 when I actually scored the goal, though). One must try to keep this fact from the Daily Mail, because it will totally upset its entire belief system. Women like me are meant to be having facelifts, or affairs with 19-year-olds, in a desperate attempt to cling to [...]

I was in Poole, a lovely part of the world, despite the local library car park being a dogging hot spot. After a few days on the beach I looked in the mirror and there on top of my head was dried old thatch. All my life, I'd never had to bother with hair maintenance. As a teenager I'd put neat, and highly caustic, lemon juice on my hair to [...]

A convertible car is regarded as super-luxe and highly covetable. And, indeed, it is. Not to mention very lovely when it's boiling hot (but only when you're going at speed, otherwise you fry). This weekend in London, driving not more than six miles, I spotted three separate Bentley convertibles. Evidently, at £130K a pop, someone's not feeling the pinch.

We have a convertible. It's a Triumph Herald 1600 in Wedgwood [...]

Going optimistically forward, I do believe this month will bring sun. And with sun always comes a trip to either park or beach. The former isn't so complicated: something to lie on, maybe a picnic. But with the latter, I've seen people pulling carts laden with stuff behind them. I laugh when I see a "beach bag" advertised and wonder just how many they expect you to buy. The only [...]

I used to have a downstairs neighbour called Wendy. This was a woman who, when she found out that my daughter's playschool was looking for shoeboxes (to make "aquariums" out of), said: "I'll put some outside your door tonight." In the morning, I woke up to find about 20 empty boxes on my doorstep, all from either Prada or Christian Louboutin. Every day when I went in to the playschool, [...]