Be seen in July: Sale and hearty

Published on Monday 29 June 2009 19:28

JULY is the cruellest month. Well, here in Scotland we accept April will be wet, cold, and compromised by the disappointment of spring's perpetually late start. But July? Hell, we fool ourselves that temperatures will soar to scorching barbecue-appropriate levels; we anticipate dining al fresco (and sans- thermals); we assume a golden tan will be acquired without re sort to foreign travel, a session on a sunbed, or the skilled application of St Tropez.

Yet, these vaulted expectations are so readily dashed by the grim realities of a climate more likely to serve up five dramatically different weather effects in one single July afternoon than four weeks of sky-splitting sunshine.

This means the sartorial cue for the month isn't ever going to be Chloe's dainty scallop-hem shorts or Melissa Odobash's glamorous itsy-bitsy-ditsy bikinis.

For, rather than a month when the collective Scottish fashion conscience dares to focus on looking cool as temperatures soar, the Scottish July is all about coming to terms with the meteological differences between Girvan and Goa.

Just one thing lifts our collective national misery: the opportunity to bag a bargain. All hail the summer sales! Even before the present downturn, Scotland's mid-year clearances routinely offered great reductions – a measure of the gaping chasm between retailers' earnest hopes and the perpetual reticence of Scottish consumers to believe they'd ever have an opportunity to wear sleeveless scraps of Stella McCartney or Alberta Ferretti's barely-there wisps of silk chiffon.

Recession has merely elevated such reticence to an art-form, requiring retailers to apply the red pen with unprecedented vigour. In terms of sale shopping, we've never had it so good.

Yet, although the initial mark-down in any upscale store is now rarely less than 50 per cent, prices head further south very quickly thereafter. And this has spawned Scotland's combative new sport.

Never mind the tennis; the most exciting play-off is happening right now on the second floor of Harvey Nichols, where dedicated followers of fashion have to "put up" for the half-price Alexander McQueen or Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche (and pay rather more than they might need to next week) or risk losing that object of their insatiable desire to a less patient bargain hunter.

It's a lottery, of course. And shoppers are caught in the horns of a truly awful dilemma which neither prayer nor therapy can hope to resolve.

See what I mean about July being the cruellest month?