Tonight:
4°c
A BBC2 series that started last night celebrates the creative movers and shakers who have brought us high-end style at high street prices. So what does it take to make a great British style genius?
1. Mad hair - True style never bothers with a brush. Agyness Deyn keeps us on our toes with her every chop, while Erin O'Connor is busy channelling Edith Sitwell. Fashion doyenne Suzy Menkes has a fetching quiff, and don't forget Mary Portas's dominatrix St Trinian's bob. Men can get in on the act, too — the bird's nest look of The Cure's Robert Smith of is referenced on nearly every catwalk.
2. Hemlines to the max - Ever since Sixties birds Mary Quant, Barbara Hulinicki and Celia Birtwell (with husband Ossie Clark) gave us clothes we could run and play in, true pioneers have ignored all the rules about skirt length. One day it's an eye-watering mini, the next long and floaty. Even the men wear dresses.
3. Make-up put on with a trowel - Preferably applied in the dark. From the Pirate King himself, John Galliano, to Siouxsie Sioux, true British eccentrics don't spare the slap. The late, lamented Isabella Blow boasted that she never used a mirror.
4. Code of silence - Kate Moss is scarily, brilliantly tight-lipped. Whether she's a genius or an airhead, we'll never know.
5. Mix-and-match daring - Agy teams irreverent tartan with an eyepatch. Young Henry Conway knows how to work a look. And you can never wear too much statement jewellery. Mary Portas always looks half-eaten to death by bangles.
6. A bonkers boho family - Daphne Guinness, Stella Tennant, Sophie Dahl ... irritatingly long, lean and elegant but they have mother issues, too.
7. A musician boyfriend - Uber-stylist Katie Grand has bagged Pulp's Steve Mackey; Katy England is with Primal Scream singer Bobby Gillespie. Vivienne Westwood started it all with Malcolm McLaren. And Kate Moss ... well, Kate collects musicians like tank tops.
8. F***-me shoes - Everyone is teetering around in fetishistic heels this season but top marks go to Lady Amanda Harlech (black high-heeled Manolos) and Gareth Pugh's “invisible heels” — an incredible feat in modern engineering.
9. A unique body shape - Too thin is always good (Twiggy). Tall, angular and white-faced is even better (Karen Elson, Erin O'Connor). You can even be short. La Moss is 5ft 6in with knees like a builder but every woman would kill to look like her.
10. Sheer bloody attitude - When asked for her special beauty treatments, Tilda Swinton was fantastically non-nonsense: “Face slapped, fingers through the hair. Never look in the mirror and never ask anybody how you look.”
* British Style Genius is on BBC2 on Tuesdays at 9pm.
