Leopardprint skirts are the new Zara dress

I’m sorry to bring up that Zara dress again – the black and white polkadotted number that is so ubiquitous it has its own Instagram account (24,000 followers).

Out, damned spot.

I only mention it because no fewer than three colleagues – myself included – arrived in the office today wearing a leopardprint midi skirt. Here we go again...

Now I’ve opened your eyes to this garment (as worn by model Ann-kathrin Götze, right), you won’t be able to move for seeing it. It’s already

something of a phenomenon, with everyone from Prada to Primark selling a version. On Instagram, @leopardmidiskirt has nearly 10,000 followers. Hit the high street and you could be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled into the zoo, so stuffed are the shops with animal prints.

But while I predict the Zara dress obsession will wither as the leaves turn brown, our leopardprint lust just won’t go away. It’s tougher than polka dots; less girlie and more likely to find a permanent place in our wardrobes – a good thing in an age of fast fashion.

And thanks to that dress, wearing the same thing as another woman seems like the non-issue it always was, but which hungry retailers desperately wanted us to fear. Well, they can get their claws out, because the leopard print skirt is here to stay, with not a cat fight in sight.