DO You Need a New Item?

Only the very daftest Pollyannas of fashion consumption are talking up the trends this autumn as if nothing has happened. Put quite starkly, clothes sales are juddering to a halt. Hardly a surprise, since such expenditure is perhaps the least justifiable - especially since the credit binge of the last halfdecade has left us with wardrobes, lofts and bin-bags under the stairs bursting with instant purchases with which we can punish ourselves at leisure.

The crash is confronting us with assessing what's valuable, and what's irrelevant. If anything can be rationally allowable as a "good" purchase, what would it be? Only two types of expenditure pass the test: replacement items based on need, and things that will last for years.

1 Do I need it? Brutally speaking, only four things qualify as replacement purchases: underwear, hosiery, children's clothes and shoes. Footwear squeezes into this category only on the basis that the old ones are broken and unwearable. Fact: last year's shoe-boots and platforms will do. Exceptions can also be made if the moths got your favourite sweater, scarf and gloves. (Luckily, scarves are one of the best and most economical forms of fashion self-expression this season.)

2 Will it last? There's only one litmus test when standing in front of a garment that's screaming "buy me". Unless you can imagine wearing it in three or five years' time, step away.

3 Is it good value? Obviously, there's value in quality: a beautiful, classic coat in a shape and neutral colour that suits you at a top-of-the-range price will stand up for years, but a cheap version that "gets the look" will be dead in a season. A plain dress that can be accessorised in six different ways (this year) and six other ways next is also good old-fashioned value.

4 Do I absolutely love it? Love-atfirst- sight needs on-the-spot diagnosis. If it's impulse reaction to the trendiest thing of the season (2008 alert: lace, tartan), stifle it. If you recognise it as something exceptional that speaks to the core of your identity, this could be the start of a lifelong relationship. Take carte blanche: even if this perfect item is the boldest, flashiest, most counterintuitively mad purchase to be making in a depressed economy, you'll still be wearing it from time to time. And you'll have forgotten what you paid.

5 How will I pay for it? Surely you don't want more on your credit card?


Which way will fashion jump in the coming recession? No one I've spoken to claims to have the answer, but one lesson from the past is that the escape into fantasy is one way out. That's what struck me at the opening of a retrospective of the late and too-long neglected Scottish designer Bill Gibb at Bath Museum of Fashion, whose richly patterned, swirlingly romantic dresses captured the imagination of British women in the early Seventies.
Some of Gibb's most beautiful work dates from 1974, designed against the sombre backdrop of the three-day week. If those clothes offered light in the darkness, dancing across the pages of Vogue (even if few could afford them) they are equally now. I wouldn't be surprised if Gibb-isms started turning up on catwalks next year. Bath museum is a mecca for designers, students and enthralled schoolchildren alike. I worshipped there as a local schoolgirl, and saw my first Bill Gibb when it was chosen as Dress of the Year in 1970. So, in a way I owe my career to this museum and its power to make girls dream.