Singular life
Top marks
PetroneIla Wyatt
The other day I went into Chanel in Sloane Street to buy the window displays. Oops. Did I say buy? I meant arrange them, of course. Anyhow, while I was re- arranging them, one of the shop assistants began to admire my jumper — a beige ribbed turtleneck — which, as they say in the trade, dose-fitted.
'Is it one of ours?' she asked. 'No,' I replied. 'Funny, we did ones like that this year. Whose is it, then?' My response gal- vanised her. Her suspension of belief was so great she almost got vertigo. 'Marks & Spencer's.'
'Marks & Spencer's? But everyone knows they're crap. Haven't you read all that stuff about their dowdy clothes and underwear?'
Of course I had. This is precisely why I feel obliged to rush to their defence. Hands off Marks & Spencer, I say. Keep your dirty underwear to yourself. I'll tell you my secret in life: I have long bought most of my clothes at Marks & Spencer. Contrary to my reputation, as it is, I do not sit in the front row of the collections in Paris saying I'll have this, that and the other. How could I on a journalist's salary?
But occasionally I buy a pair of shoes or a jacket at Chanel and teant it with my M&S clothes. Bingo. I can't get past an article without dreading that I am a fashion groupie. My father wrote in his journals that I had a Christian Dior nightdress when I was five. Let me tell you, I have not had once since.
The most alluring nightdress I have ever possessed was bought recently in M&S. It was cut like an evening dress that might have been worn by Madame Recamier at her most dashing. Last summer I floated about the house in it — fitting, as the house belonged to a descendent of Napoleon's sister Pauline, a friend of Madame Recamier.
I cannot understand why people think that M&S make dowdy clothes. Recently a friend of mine wrote a letter to a newspa- per saying she had always bought her underwear there. It was signed Miriam May. May is the maiden name of Miriam Gross, now Lady Owen, the literary editor of the Sunday Telegraph. As everyone knows, Miriam has the sort of glamour that would set a monk doing high kicks through a stained-glass window.
But just in case we had been conned by a
few flukes I went to the M&S at Marble Arch to see what I could buy. I started on the ground floor. Hosiery? What's in a hose? A hose by any other name would smell as sweet. At the moment I am into hold-ups, that very useful hybrid of stock- ings which, as David Bailey said, did more to kill sex than flared trousers. Wolford, the escoffier of stocking-manufacturers, sell them at £16.99 a pair. M&S sell some- thing almost identical in glamour for £2.99 a pair. Next, I wandered over to shoes. This season's material is animal skin — pony skin or cow. I saw an incredibly well-made pair of pony-skin mules for under £50; in designer boutiques one would pay nearly £200. Then they do the calf-hugging, high- heeled boots so beloved of slick chicks this autumn. Again these were under £60.
Leather, I thought. Ah, but they won't do leather. At least if they do it will be that awful baggy-jacket-type that feels like crinkly cardboard. Was I mistaken? I have looked all season for a pair of well-fitting leather trousers. Gucci, over a £1,000. Joseph, £400. Both too drainpipe, in any case. To my astonishment, as soon as I walked over to the leather rail I saw a pair of beautiful black leather trousers, with a boot-leg cut. These were a mere £175 and made any girl look like Emma Peel. Next to them was a selection of exquisite cash- mere turtlenecks, fitted to the figure, at £110 — half as expensive as the ones they sell in Burlington Arcade. I passed the underwear because so much had been writ- ten about it and, in any case, I am more interested in what my peers see rather than what they do not. The sad truth is, as far as these things go, brevity is the soul of lin- gerie and that's that.
But finally, I have been to all those mod- ish chainstores — Warehouse, River Island, Oasis, Kookai — and none of them sells clothes half as well cut and reasonably priced as M&S. Marks & Spencer make clothes that really do look as if they have been purchased from St Laurent or Chanel which is the highest praise possible. In St Laurent they thought my leather trousers were from Gucci. Posh Spice had better head down to Marble Arch,
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