Clare Finney argues for health warnings on the more risque catwalk exports…

Red and blue lycra
‘With great power, comes great responsibility’. Little did I think the man who spent most of his time dressed in a red and blue lycra would ever produce something of resonance in the fashion world; but the growing presence of designer items on the high street has led me to feel somebody in the fashion industry could do with taking heed of Spiderman’s advice.

Gone are the days when a girl’s entire wardrobe was designed by M&S and enthusiastic grandmothers. The expansion and improvement of stores like H&M, Topshop and Primark have made it possible for anyone and everyone to replicate the latest look, hot off the designer catwalks of London, Paris and Milan. Not since the sixties has fashionable expression been so liberal and diverse.

Yet there is a problem with this ‘try this at home’ look , so attractive in theory. The bitter truth is that an outfit which looks amazing on girl who would make a binliner look fit is by no means guaranteed to produce the same results on your average Joe – by ‘average Joe’, I mean everyone who is not six foot, willowy and blessed with cheek-bones you could cut yourself on. The path from catwalk to broadwalk never did run smooth; and whilst some items have assimilated themselves so seamlessly into the fashionable consciousness you cease to imagine life without them (skinny jeans!), very few manage to pass from top model to Topshop unscathed. Releasing a leather dress on the general public is the fashionable equivalent to releasing one’s pet rabbit into the wild; what works so well in a controlled environment struggles to survive in an unregulated, unruly world where straight hair, perfect skin and a tiny waist rarely exist in harmony.

Faux pas potential
Such is the faux pas potential in today’s ‘anything goes’ culture, it seems the only thing designers can do to limit fashion fatalities is to establish some kind of labelling system, similar to that used by the food industry to help the consumer make wise diet choices. Surely if the makers of cream-filled doughnuts are obliged to warn customers of the harmful effect they could have on their health, then clothes designers should be made to warn consumers of the equally devastating effect certain items could have on their appearance? The difference between giving someone a saturated fat content of 25%, and making them appear as if they have a saturated fat content of 25% is merely technical; the overall effect is the same.

This autumn’s catwalks presented a minefield of potential disasters. Patterns – bold, bright, and in every available shade of Joseph’s technicoloured dreamcoat, threatening to make even the most subtle curve appear worthy of Fat Camp treatment. Meanwhile, the mental scars left by the leggings legacy have only weeks to heal before the world’s second most unforgiving fabric hits the high street: silk. To minimise the impact of this toxic fabric on the streets of Durham, please let me urge you to avoid silk shirts unless you have the body of a prepubescent stick insect; the only thing that can stop silk from clinging tightly in all the wrong places is by placing it on a body which has nothing for it to cling to.

And introducing… mustard
Yet in spite of everything, I would rather witness Dawn French wearing a tight silk shirt tucked into leggings, with crocs, than see this season’s colour fall into the wrong hands; for there is one colour sure to obliterate the fashionable reputation of a person, it is wearing mustard when it doesn’t suit them, and the people that it does suit are generally only found in the modelling business. The rule that if something can look good on a hot dog, it must look good on me, does not apply. On the contrary, the effect is usually quite the reverse, with the result that it becomes increasingly hard to distinguish some catwalks from a cheap deli bar.

Yet before shops start resorting to extremes (neon warning lights above the railings of dangerous items? ‘Slim Brunettes Only’ sections in TopShop?), one sensible step to a safer high street would be to address the issue of sycophantic sales assitants, whose strict economy with the truth has been the downfall of many a unsuspecting fashion victim. A little bit of gentle honesty and guidance, and we’d all be much happier.