Morning:
9°c
I have been following, with much interest, the progress of GMTV's Little Black Dress diet, in which a selection of "normal" women with "normal" body shapes (and their accompanying qualms) have been battling to become dancefloor-ready in time for the Christmas party season. And small wonder: the little black dress (or LBD) is, we are constantly being told, a wardrobe staple: find the right one and you will reach for it again and again as the party season unfolds.
And black is certainly the colour. Be it the fault of GMTV, the stock market or just a lack of imagination, when describing the outfits of the capital's partygoers austere is the key word.
Take the A-list-rammed Matthew Freud party last week. Even Jemima Khan, it seems, is feeling the crunch - when she arrived there was no sign of her usual all-singing all-dancing cocktail gown, just a simple black skirt and jacket combo. But bucking the trend were Stella McCartney and M&S executive Susan Aubrey-Cound who both shone in winter white.
This season, it has become glaringly apparent that for every plumpster skulking by the canapés in bum-minimising black, there is an exhibitionist desperate to scream her slenderness from the rooftops in eye-catching cream or white.
You can imagine the conversation in boudoirs across the globe, as the celebrity reaches for her stylist - sorry, well-chosen dress. "Oh, Svetlana," the celebrity will sigh. "I'm just dying to wear a white dress . Anything that makes me look 10lb heavier is such an advantage, what with all the weight I've lost naturally this year just running around after the kids."
"But madame, you only have one child, and it can't even walk yet," Svetlana will think to herself, removing the celeb's glass of Brouilly from the side table before it spills over her snowy white Chanel gown.
White dresses are for women who never have to decline the bread sauce on the grounds that it will give them a spare tyre. They are for women who never drop mince pie down their fronts because they do not eat, and certainly not in public. In short, they are a badge that proves their wearer is thinner and more fabulous than the rest.
White can lend an ethereal, otherworldly look to the wearer, particularly when combined with sequins or a metallic sheen: witness Nicole Kidman recently at the premiere of her latest film in London, who used this ploy to enhance her alabaster skin and pale red hair.
White is also rather excellent for lending the wearer a chaste innocence of the sort that she probably hasn't enjoyed for a good few decades, as seen on the London Christmas party scene where some of the more mature socialites dabbled in the trend.
Tips for wearing a white dress? Don't. Just kidding. Avoid black shoes in favour of pastel or metallic hues (never matching white ones); avoid black opaque tights (too stark a contrast) and avoid all dark-coloured beverages in favour of pale ones. Oh, and avoid Nicole Kidman. But then, I don't suppose that will be very hard.
