I'm torturing my husband. With my head.

Not actual physical torture, of course. More psychological. Because my lovely husband really adores my hair. His nickname for me is all about my hair. I'm pretty sure he married me just for unlimited access to my coppery curly mane of hair. My hair, you understand, is red.

But I keep, you know, messing with it and it's freaking him out. Although he's doing his level best to be brave, I can't help noticing the flash of fear that crosses his face when I tell him I'm off to get a haircut.

Phase One of the torture happened in 2006. I cut it all off. It was becoming dull and thin and bedraggled for a whole bunch of reasons. We were living in France at the time so I ran away to Australia and cut off all my hair, thinking distance would soften the blow. Yeah. Not so much.

My husband, being the most loving and diplomatic soul that ever walked the face of the Earth, told me he still loved my hair, provided it was really short or really long. At this point, to get it really long again would involve running away to Australia and hiding there for five to ten years. So, really short is how it stayed.

And then it happened. The grey. The odd gnarled grey twig of a strand became a forest of petrified wood sprouting out of my head in all directions. One minute I was all "Yes, grey pride!" followed by "Does L'Oreal do a semi-permanent in copper-gold?". Does that grey flash make me look old? Arty? Mysterious? Worldly? Indifferent to personal grooming?  Enter Phase Two of the torture. I headed to the salon and had a proper semi-permanent a couple of times. The most recent one was two days ago. They do an amazing job, getting very close to my original colour, if a shade darker.

My man loves the cut. Very short. But he took one look at the colour and plaintively asked where his flame-haired girl had gone. And I'm a total sucker for plaintive.

The next morning I'm kickin' around the web and I come across this
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/it-pays-to-be-grey-20101201-18ftj.html

Helen Mirren is a sex goddess, so I go and look at this
http://goinggraylookinggreat.com/
and this
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/beauty/article6948640.ece

and I've pretty much decided to see how I can rock the ashes-of-flame look.

Is it all about the cheekbones? Style Hug # 2

Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I'm past that age.

You either love her or hate her, but there's something about her that makes her compelling. Some say it's those knife-sharp cheekbones, others point to the feisty personality both on and off-screen, and for others it's the no-nonsense New England clipped accent. OK, maybe not the accent - I don't know anyone who liked her voice.

But for me, it's always been her style. Boyish, practical, unapologetic in its androgyny and yet strangely desirable, never detracting from her rather odd beauty.

When she glammed up, it was less about girly frills and more about clean lines and understated elegance with a good dash of dramatic strength in the details.

In fact, she looked awkward in softer, more feminine get-ups. Probably wondering how anyone could play a round of golf in this little number.

And there's something pretty cool about not giving a damn about what people think of your clothing choices and just doing what makes you happy. In a time when society was rather particular about who should wear what, she marched around in her trousers, men's shirts and saddle shoes because it suited her and her active lifestyle. I can't help but admire her self confidence and chutzpah. She didn't dress for the pleasure of other people - she flipped them the sartorial bird and dressed for her own pleasure and comfort and personality. It's a brave position in a competitive and image-conscious world, but not an impossible one to live by.

Next time I'm standing in front of the wardrobe, wondering what's appropriate to wear for the occasion,  I'll rephrase that question into "What's appropriate to wear for me?"

If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.

Thanks, Kate Hepburn, for being proudly yourself.

style chat #1 - Curvaceous. Cuddly. Rubenesque.

Call it what you will, but it's a fact. As a species, we humans are getting bigger. And there's been a lot of press about it over the past few years, mostly pretty negative.

Whilst there’s plenty of emotional and social debate about this issue, the technical job of clothing increasingly large bodies has been a bit underestimated.

As a stylist, my job is to help people feel great about themselves through the way they dress. And I have to admit that styling plus-size women and men does present problems. But perhaps we're focusing on the wrong side of this issue. It’s not as much about size as it is about proportions and the distribution of weight on the body. It can be equally tricky to dress a woman with a UK size 8 petite frame and a 36DD bust. Like the gorgeous but unusually-proportioned Christina Hendricks, above, anyone outside the range of  "standard" proportions can find themselves seriously at odds with the mass-produced fashion industry.

The New York Times had a fascinating article on this very point.

Weight gain at the leaner end of the body spectrum does very little to change body proportions and shape – the waist generally stays smaller proportionally to the hips and bust on a woman, for example. But as weight gain increases, it varies greatly from person to person where the weight is laid down. On some people it’s thighs, on others it’s the tummy, on others it’s the chest and shoulders. And this is why so many plus size clothes are shapeless and stretchy, because catering to this diverse range of proportions creates surprisingly expensive technical problems for the folks who make clothes. And that expense has to be met by profits. But it is fair to force plus size consumers to pay more for their clothes? Which takes us straight back to the emotionally and socially heated plus-size debates.

I’d love to hear some opinions on this, particularly from those who are not a size 8 and find it difficult to look and feel good in clothes originally designed for a size 8. It’s about positive solutions. Have you found brands that work for you? Do you make your own clothes? What styles do you aspire to wear?

Or have you completely given up?

style hug #1

Fossicking through the BBC website this morning when who should I stumble upon but the wondrous Helena Bonham Carter, promoting the latest instalment of the Harry Potter juggernaut, in which she plays the deliciously monikered Bellatrix Lestrange.

I realise, stylewise, she isn't everyone's cup of tea. The Edwardian ingenue-meets-steampunk-meets-Goth-meets-Tim Burton interpretation simply doesn't suit everyone, me included, to my deep regret (maybe if I hadn't cut off all my hair... sigh). But I can't but help love and applaud the way HBC wholeheartedly embraces her look.

And it's not confined to the red carpet. She's the one at the school gate looking the antithesis of your average Mum.

I don't love everything she wears, but that's not at all important. What I do love is her self-confidence, her innate understanding and acceptance of who she wants to be and how she wants to look, without reference to anyone but herself. I never get the impression she's trying to be defiant, or push people's buttons by shocking them. I see a woman at peace with her identity. And this is tremendously inspiring.

And of course, it doesn't hurt that she is a luminously beautiful woman and becomes more so with every passing year. Aspirational and inspirational stuff.

Here comes the bride...

It seems I've started this blog at an auspicious moment in history - a once-in-a-generation event that causes ripples across politics, betting agencies and society in general. But it's in the fashion and style world where the tsunamis of clashing opinion are really gaining momentum.

Of course, it's a royal wedding.

There really is nothing like a royal wedding to get everyone in a proper flap about all sorts of things, not the least of which is the Ultimate Question  -  what will she wear? Because, let's face it, no-one gives a toss about the church or the flowers or what the groom wore.

The current opinion amongst those who've offered one is that Our Kate will go for a column style, to truly maximise her long, slender, leggy, statuesque frame. Seems reasonable. It's a beautiful classic look that she probably won't cringe over when she thumbs through the wedding album in the thirty years time. It's both contemporary and timeless. But I'd be surprised if there isn't a tiny bit of demand for something more opulent for the potential future Queen, even in these days of economies on the brink of collapse. That said, I'd advise against going the full marshmallow, if for no other reason than Our Kate's late mother-in-law-to-be really took that look to the limit.

And then there's the kerfuffle about who will design it. The likelihood of it being a British designer is beyond high. It's a moment like this that I really wish Alexander McQueen was still of this earth, because that had the potential to be truly spectacular. Erdem, though not technically British, has been mentioned.  I hope Westwood gets a look in - though perhaps a saucy, witty, corseted and bustled gown may be asking a bit much of the Windsor household. I love the idea that she might embroider God Save The Queen on the derriere of a pair of matching pantaloons, just to be cheeky. Low key yet reliably classy options are Bruce Oldfield and Phillipa Lepley.

But frankly, I'd be calling Galliano. Because every wedding is also a bit of theatre, and no-one does theatre like Galliano. Though they may have to restrict his fabric yardage to, maybe, three metres instead of his usual thirty, bless 'im.

We all do it. Every day.

Chances are good that you put on a piece of clothing today before you went out the front door. Unless you live in an as-yet undiscovered primitive tribe in the deepest darkest jungle of who-knows-where and, even then, you'd probably reach for a large leaf, or the crudely tanned skin of some unfortunate furry animal, or a gourd (for my discerning male readers). Or you're a naturalist living in Florida with a private garden and a home office.

So, let's just assume you're wearing clothes of some kind or another. It's something we pretty much all have in common, regardless of socio-economic status, culture, religious inclination, sex, age, shape, size.

And in this crazy world, that's a kinda nice idea. We all decorate ourselves. For ourselves. For others. For a whole bunch of reasons.

Hmmm.

Welcome to The Glamour Department.