MARKS & SPENCER

You’ll need a Sparks card with 17,000 points on it before even thinking about trying out ‘Tuesday’, Marks & Spencer’s invite- only online personal shopping service.

By my calculation, buying two £45 dresses would get you 900 points, so to earn an invitation, you really would have to be a regular M&S shopper.

With the usual questionnaire, which included questions on my pattern and colour likes and dislikes, I was also asked to send across a headshot. I decided to send a full-body picture because I thought it would help my stylist better visualise my look.

Although I was furnished with a picture and the name of my stylist, and received friendly emails from her, I was not allowed to talk to her on the phone. The second limitation was that I could choose only day or workwear, so my request for evening wear wasn’t fulfilled.

I was sent one ‘edit’ a month, which consisted of three or four outfits with fashion tips. I had specified ‘ no stripes’ in my questionnaire because, while they’re very of the moment, I’m not a stripes person — yet they featured heavily in my edit.

I decided to order a striped jacket, a pair of jeans and a white T- shirt to see what they looked like in the flesh.

What a disappointment. The jeans resembled something my mother might have gardened in during the Fifties, while the white T-shirt was shapeless.

There were a few items I really liked the look of, but when I clicked to buy them, they were all out of stock, rendering the whole exercise pointless. 2/5 Jacket, £21, T-shirt, £7.50, and jeans, £22.50; Blue dress, £45