Katy Turner: 'Magazines are awash with capes, coats and boots, and like a whiny toddler - I want!

Published on 24/06/2010 14:00

THE past few weeks have been terribly exciting. Not that I've actually gone anywhere or done anything, you understand. Truth be told, right now George Michael is leading a better social life than me.

But even though I have barely left the house, I am still very, very excited. And before you rush to judge, you should know that this excitement is not merely down to breathless anticipation of seeing Ann and Anton's rhumba. Frankly, just the thought of that twosome going at it has already caused me to drink a bottle or two of Gaviscon.

No, no - the reason for my giddy girlishness is the onslaught of the new fashion season. I know that it can sometimes be hard to believe that there are fashion seasons - there just seem to be clothes, clothes, clothes. Just as it can be equally hard to fathom that there are actual seasons - rather than just light rain, heavy rain, and cold rain. But newspapers and magazines are newspapers and magazines are awash with pictures of capes, coats and chunky boots. Shops are packed to bursting with cigarette pants and patterned brogues. And like a whiny toddler - I want!

Buying a new season's wardrobe seems a very grown-up thing to do. It's the kind of enterprise that women who keep all their shoes in see-thru plastic boxes would undertake on a bi-annual basis. This would also be the kind of woman who has a capsule wardrobe consisting primarily of 'investment' pieces. The kind of woman who has already culled her spring summer wardrobe in readiness. Items that are just too, too last season darlings, have already been dispatched to the charity shop while the remaining out-of-season pieces have been vacuum sealed before being stored for the winter. The kind of woman who goes out armed with a list of on-trend must-have pieces, knowing exactly where they will slot into her wardrobe. The kind of woman - in short - that I am not.

I don't collate a list of must-have pieces before I leave the house. I merely wait until I get into the stores and then act like a greedy child in a sweet shop, grabbing all the bright new shiny things. As to where they will slot into my wardrobe, I think it's more a case of if they'll fit in at all. There's not a lot of room in there, y'know. I most certainly have not packed my summer items away. In part, this is because I'm indolent and ill-organised. But, in the main, it's because my 'summer' items are all long- sleeved and so will continue to be worn during the winter months as well. It's just that I would only wear one layer in the summer and I'll wear two or three (or four or five) in the winter.

But it hasn't stopped me from sighing wistfully over magazine features on capes and wide-legged camel trousers. I've torn out pictures of mannish brogues and leopard print skirts. Mr Turner caught me drooling over pictures of a gorgeous Stella McCartney cape the other day. He laughed so hard I momentarily thought that he would need some kind of medical intervention.'Seriously?', he asked, 'A cape?' I haughtily pointed out that nearly every designer had sent some sort of cape down the catwalk. It proved that he clearly knew nothing about fashion. 'Well,' he said, 'I obviously didn't know that Miss Marple had her own fashion line'.