DIARY
CAROLINE CHARLES Lthis season of mists and mellow fruitful- ness, when regular customers are gently returning to consider the newly arrived autumn collection, we are already in the panic stages of the countdown to the show- ing of our spring-summer 1997 collection at British Fashion Week later this month. No matter that we have done big press shows before and that it is always fine on the night, the anxiety level is high and there is no escape. Knowing full well that fear needs confronting, we are starting to make the end- less lists that give us relatively peaceful nights. The producer arrives and we discuss the sets and lighting, the design studio choos- es the accessories, the make-up people charmingly leave us samples of lipstick for colour matching and the hairdresser team deliberate over slicked-back tresses, knots, wigs and coloured sprays. Auditioning mod- els is excruciating, mostly because they play the game of arriving late and doing every- thing possible to hide the fact that of course they are beautiful and walk well and will be in London on the day you need them. Thus your star performers are almost an unknown quantity until the last moment, which makes the idea of doing rehearsals something of a myth. This season we are planning to ask the girls to wear coloured contact lenses, which is definitely beginning to make me feel very queasy. It must be time to reach for the self- help book and try the lie back and enjoy it' lecture.
Of course there isn't just the London spring press show to worry about, there are autumn shows to do around the country, plus a show in Tokyo and another in Bang- kok. It is quite a trial keeping together a show wardrobe of clothes and accessories for two seasons and expecting different models wherever you are in the world to fit into everything perfectly. Our Japanese partners will organise a minutely detailed schedule when we arrive in Tokyo and are in constant communication with us by fax. There seems to be a running joke about bringing Diana, Princess of Wales with us — at least, I suppose it is a joke. The show is to be held in the British embassy garden in Tokyo and is apparently subtitled 'Scot- land'. I know Scotland is famous for its beauty and that we make wonderful cash- mere knitwear there, but why, just because it's autumn, does a serious London-lover like myself allow fashionspeak to do this?
We are taking the train to Paris this week, to work with French companies who make accessories for us. Of course they have been firmly closed for August, as have
the bed-linen printworks in Italy. While I have spent July and August trying to get the colours right on our paisley-print sheets, the mainland Europeans have had four weeks off. Not for them the worry of opening a new showroom in New York for market week in early October, apparently. It seems a long time since our spring holi- day in the Caribbean, where we inadver- tently shared our patch of paradise with heavy metal star Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath — who once enlivened a perfor- mance by biting off a bat's head on stage plus his roadie and his cook. Returning from holiday for a new season is a good feeling, without a doubt, but I realise my life is run on two interlocking seasons all the time. For instance, the autumn collec- tion now being delivered in colours of grey and brown, purple and red etc. needs lots of attention: it's like hanging one's work on the walls of a gallery or arranging produce on a market stall. Meanwhile, all the blue and coral clothes for next season need bathing-suits and shoes and extra bits worked out for a January delivery. There is always so much complaining about spring clothes starting to arrive after Christmas, when 1 March would be a more suitable start to the new season. I agree.
It must be fashionable to read about DNA, as I find myself enjoying Steve Jones's book The Language of the Genes and desperately trying to retain some of the fascinating information. Then there is Richard Dawkins posing for the colour sup- plements like a Harrison Ford look-alike, and not a white lab coat anywhere to be seen. The slow drip of scientific research gently releasing us from childhood beliefs seems very mind-expanding, whilst placing the story of the Garden of Eden etc. in a historical context. Another thrill this week was looking through a friend's telescope in Wales and seeing Saturn and its four moons. She then took us to her computer, tapped in our longitude and latitude and the time, and up onto the screen came all the other planets and stars that were pre- sent in our part of the sky at that moment. For a woman like me, with no mobile tele- phone, who has to concentrate hard to put on a video, it is all very exciting. With the availability of all this information it strikes me as odd how fashion continues to regur- gitate or rework its very recent past. When the 1970s came to a close there was much sighing in relief by fashion pundits and much waving goodbye to the mixed styles of that decade. Of course the same styles are being revisited by art students and young designers for whom it is a good joke to re- invent the clothes being shown on televi- sion reruns of Star Trek and The Avengers. Now is the season of newly graduated fash- ion students being whipped away to work in New York, Paris and Milan, where they will bring their brand of humour to bear on unsuspecting markets. The British fashion courses in our art schools are the envy of the world — and rightly so.
The forthcoming press show is still gnaw- ing away at my subconscious, and when I examine this sense of unease I realise the thorny question of music has not been seri- ously addressed. Many seasons come and go with a very mixed ragbag of sounds on the telltale videos that record this 25-minute event. Should the music be current dance music to please the models, could we find interesting jazz that could be walked through, or should we stick to romantic oper- atic arias? The latter can always be sum- moned up to play on the audience's emo- tions, but at ten o'clock in the morning it is .a bit much. The very thought of the big aria reminds me that there has been no decision on the bride's dress. Could we go without one, or will the audience not know when to go home? Should it be white or trousers or shorts or a bathing-suit? Could she be a beach bride? The thing to do as these six- monthly panic attacks develop is to go to an Alexander technique lesson. The pure logic and good bodily sense of reason that these lessons give is second to none, and should be part of the pre-exam National Curriculum' This season the President of the Board of Trade, Ian Lang, is hosting a party at Lan- caster House to encourage the designer clothing companies in their efforts to do well here and abroad. He has a hard act to follow. After the last spring shows Mr Major charmed us all at No. 10 with an amusing speech about Pitt the Younger's eating and, drinking habits, and made no mention of politics. I fear the party conference season is nearly upon us and the television news 41 bombard us with men in grey suits. Please could we request that all contestants and speakers take a good look in the mirror and vow not to look exactly like their neighbour?
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