THE INTERNATIONAL BEST DRESSED LIST: THE OFFICIAL STORY

by Amy Fine Collins (Rizzoli £55)

DID you know that the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame List has been going since 1940?

Nor did I. This history of the event steers clear of unnecessary analysis and concentrates, as is only appropriate, on photographs of famous people dressed well.

Looking through the book, though, you begin to realise clothes are barely the half of it.

An innate, instinctive elegance will take you a long way.

Look at this photo of Audrey Hepburn (left). If she had been wearing a bin-liner, she would still have looked impossibly stylish.

I am now trying — and failing — to imagine Audrey Hepburn wearing a bin-liner . . .