Fashion
Lounge pants
At the Austrian embassy in Naples, a German diplomatist asked the great beauty Madame de Ventadour if she had been…
Letters
Still distant Sir: In James Forsyth’s analysis (‘Boris’s booster shot’, 14 November) he infers that a vaccine, if provided to…
The power of networks
In 1989 I answered my first mobile phone call on Oxford Street using a brick-sized Motorola borrowed from work. Several…
A world apart
Plexiglass bubbles hover over diners’ heads in restaurants. Plastic pods, spaced six feet apart, separate weightlifters in gyms. Partitions of…
What cinema is for
Cuties is the subject of a moral panic and a hashtag #CancelNetflix. It tells the story of Amy (Fathia Youssouf),…
Steve Bannon’s army of lookalikes
Stephen K. Bannon positioned himself as the godfather of a new American political movement. Now he’s cultivated the aesthetic of…
Stitches and bad-ass bitches
If it’s a test of a good documentary series that it takes us deep into an unknown, even unimaginable world,…
Gnarly men and pretty boys
If you study History of Art, people generally assume you’re a nice, conscientious, plummy-voiced girl. Sometimes, people are right. It…
The devil eats Prada: Patisserie Marchesi 1824 reviewed
The Prada Café is both a cake shop and a historical inevitability. It sits on Mount Street, almost opposite the…
My ringside seat on the Mary Quant revolution
I think I probably qualify as the oldest fashion editor in the world, because in spite of my advanced age…
How an anarchist music student become of the fashion greats: the life of Christian Dior
Strange to think when you visit the Christian Dior show at the V&A that his time as designer was so…
![Twiggy photographed by Justin de Villeneuve in the Rainbow Room at Big Biba, early 1970s. [JUSTIN DE VILLENEUVE]](https://new-dev.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/USE_JDV_TW046.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
A short history of art deco – from high art to two-tone shoes, garden gates to Twiggy
On 10 September 1973 the 1930s Kensington High Street department store formerly known as Derry & Toms reopened as Big…
Women’s toplessness caused less offence to Victorians than their trousers
‘They did not look like women, or at least a stranger new to the district might easily have been misled…
How good a painter was Frida Kahlo?
In 2004 Mexican art historians made a sensational discovery in Frida Kahlo’s bathroom. Inside this space, sealed since the 1950s,…
You didn’t have to be mad to work for Tommy Nutter — but it helped
The tailor’s art is a triumph of mind over schmatte. Not just in the physical cutting and stitching, but in…
This V&A show, about fashion’s fascination with the natural world, will seduce and appal
One of the prettiest pieces in the V&A exhibition Fashioned from Nature is a man’s cream waistcoat, silk and linen,…
The captivating art, science and politics of hair: Beehives, Bobs and Blow-dries reviewed
One of the best things about Beehives, Bobs and Blow-dries — yep, an exhibition about hairdressing — is the reaction…
The time is right for an Erté revival – a new hero for our gender-anxious times
Erté was destined for the imperial navy. Failing that, the army. His father and uncle had been navy men. There…
Is May Morris a feminist cause – a woman of genius unfairly overlooked?
You may think you don’t know May Morris, daughter of William, but you’ll probably have come across her wallpaper. Her…
A model life
This season, as London fashion week was starting, Vogue posted a video following the new model of the moment Kaia…
Football focus
Part canvas, part sandwich board, club kits don’t always work – but their designs can be addictive
iAddicts
For many years The Spectator employed a television reviewer who did not own a colour television. Now they have decided…
Permanent ink
Brooklyn Shall I have my sister’s skin peeled off for display after she dies? Specifically, the tattooed bits — the…
Diary
Not only are today’s young girls having to work hard on their abs, butts and glutes, now the likes of…
Beware the Lycra louts
Cycling in funny clothes is bad for the soul
