Alexandra Shulman’s Notebook
The It Dress that can soon turn into a Past-It Dress
The dangers of the It Dress are illustrated by the sad collapse of The Vampire’s Wife clothing brand. Only a year ago the label, designed by ex-model Susie Cave, was one of the most high profile in the world.
Her signature dress, with its basic structure of tight bodice, tiered hem and narrow shoulders, was worn by women including the Princess of Wales (who glittered in her the Vampire’s green and cyclamen sequins), singers Kylie Minogue and Ellie Goulding, actress Rachel Weisz and the seemingly countless women who
snapped up versions of the Falconetti dress as their go-to for parties, weddings and special events.
The dress appeared to have pulled off the trick of keeping up appeal for celebrities while still being worn by the public.
Of course, many of those wellknown wearers would have been gifted or loaned the dresses rather than paying for them, and Covid ran a scythe through the dressing up that these dresses were best suited to. But the larger problem was that the design was cannibalised by its own success and became a template for a range of middlemarket dresses that copied Cave’s structured top, flowing hem and flounced sleeves.
You could find a similar look on every High Street, while Vampire’s Wife was finding it hard to move on.
Even with major investors – music producer Jimmy Iovine and his wife Liberty Ross, a friend of Cave – the brand has closed, having suffered problems that many small fashion labels share in this difficult economic climate.
Hardest hit are brands that most of us consider wildly expensive, such as dresses costing upwards of £800 but which don’t tick the exclusive luxury label box that’s still doing well. Also, many independent labels don’t have the kind of backroom set-up of big names that allow them to expand globally and more easily weather the ups and downs.
But it’s a fact, too, that creating one hugely popular item is no marker of long-term viability. Brands need to have a stand-out buy that they are associated with – think Hermes ties, Chanel bags, Gap pocket T-shirt, Diane von Furstenberg’s wrap dress. They constantly need to add new products but simultaneously stick to the core that has made them successful. A single look can’t do it all.
The Vampire’s Wife dresses were and glamorous but, unfortunately, nowadays, an It Dress can become a Past-It Dress all too easily.
Workhorse Sophie deserves some credit
FEW people are likely to have a strong opinion one way or another on Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh. But they should. Because, in the past months she’s become the workhorse of our somewhat diminished Royal Family.
In April, she was the first member of the family to visit President Zelensky in Ukraine. Then she scooted back for the Windsor Horse Show and to be guest of honour at the opening of the Wallace Collection’s Ranjit Singh exhibition. This month she’s been in Cassina, Italy, for a service of remembrance, and then back to Rutland for a community garden visit before a Scottish tour.
These aren’t exactly long shifthours on the NHS but it’s no picnic turning up daily, immaculate, friendly, calm and interested as you hurtle around Europe.
Credit, I say, where it’s due.
A fruitless search for M&S staff
IT’S great news that M&S has released a stonkingly good set of financial results. We all want the nation’s mothership to flourish. But now that business seems to be on the right path, please could they do something about the in-store shopping experience.
I visited the flagship in London’s Oxford Street to look for a pair of shoes recently and was staggered by how it was impossible to find a member of staff on the shopfloor to help. A later trip for a white cotton dress was similar.
While none of us want somebody hovering around with a hard sell, we’re more likely to make a purchase if there’s someone who can help find another size or answer a question. To be fair, M&S isn’t the only one that seems to have lowered the quality of the physical shopping experience but surely it’s possible to manage to be A-plus in both. Sadly, the shoes didn’t look right but if I’d had a more supported time, I would have been more likely to buy something else rather than leaving disgruntled.
I’ve ditched the app for a foolproof map
YES, just another irritating experience trying to work out from Google Maps which way I am facing and which direction to take.
Apart from the general unwillingness of the mobile phone’s little blue blob to move at all at first, meaning I inevitably charge off in the opposite direction, the lack of useful street names on the app makes using this form of navigation unbelievably tiresome.
So taking matters into my own hands, I have discovered an alternative that gets me around with none of the problems of a GPS. Welcome back the pocket-sized paperback A-Z.
A triumph of skill and determination
PENELOPE Tree’s first loosely autobiographical novel, Piece Of My Heart, took ten years to write. She’s a good writer and unlike many personalities has not used a ‘ghost’ to help with this roman a clef about a young model in the Sixties. When fellow model Naomi Campbell’s only novel, Swan, was published, she said she didn’t know the plotlines because she didn’t have the time to write it.
How knife crime has become the norm
STANDING behind a man in the queue at a Gail’s bakery, I was intrigued to see he was immersed on his phone in an online guide on how to use different knives as weapons – scrolling through in the same way some look at baby pictures. The perfect illustration of how knife crime has become such a terrifying norm in London.