Byline: Liz Jones
fake rolexSO, YET another woman is beaten over the head for her sartorial choices. Never mind the shortcomings of Labour's 12 years in Government, what really gets most people's goat (not a cashmere goat, mind, just a common or garden wiry-haired one) is that Sarah Brown had the gall to spend [pounds sterling]350 on a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes and [pounds sterling]600 on a rather nice fitted dress by Erdem.
The sentiment is along the lines of 'It's socialism, not Sex And The City, Sarah!' The moral high ground is being seized by everyone, from top to bottom (ooh, perhaps I shouldn't say people are on the bottom, they are in the lower middle, absolutely no one deserves to be on the bottom). They are all making the same point: that her outfit at the Labour conference last week cost what most people in this country earn in a month during the current recession.
I always find this kind of argument rather bogus and terribly PC. It reminds me of that Monty Python sketch, where Northern men with hankies on their heads compete over who had the hardest upbringing.
Those who want to appear terribly concerned always take pride in the fact that they wouldn't dream of spending good money on a Burberry trench. They still eat veal, mind, drink expensive wine, own lovely houses, drive nice new cars, and have children - not just children in public school, but children of any kind; none of the people who criticise those of us who like nice things seems to be handing back their nonmeans-tested child allowance. Perish the very suggestion.
I met Sarah Brown two weeks ago at a party she held at No10 to celebrate 25 years of London Fashion Week. She did indeed pose for photos with models and designers, but that is not to say she is frivolous, or condones cocaine use or anorexia or any of the other contagious diseases that infect Old Bond Street.
She replica rolex was supporting an industry that happens to be this country's second largest employer. Almost 80 per cent of those who work in the fashion industry are women. I enquired whether she minds always being asked what she's wearing, which results in her choices being deemed too cheap and mouse-like or, as happened last week, far too profligate.
For my part, I've always written that she should, as a very visible representative of this country, dress British and dress expensive; why allow the Carla Brunis of this world to act as a billboard for all things French? The Michelle Obama effect has already provided a welcome shot in the arm for the American retail industry. Her reply was sanguine. 'I don't mind because fashion is vital, it's hugely important.' HERE comes a pronouncement that is going to get me hung, drawn and quartered by the people at Private Eye and the Observer who love to document what I spend on clothes and accessories but always fail to mention the [pounds sterling]20,000 I've given to charity in the past two years. That is how much I'm giving now, before what will soon be a 50 per cent tax rate; ye gods, I hate to think what is happening to most charities in this country at the moment. Equine Market Watch, of which I am patron, has seen a 50 per cent drop in donations so far this year, despite a huge increase in the number of horses and ponies being discarded.
Here we go with that pronouncement anyway: fashionistas are the new black people, the new Irish people, the new Muslims and the new fatties. (Do not, on any account, criticise a 22-stone single mother on benefits for refusing to buy organic chicken, as I did a year or so ago when commending Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's campaign for more ethical poultry farming; I
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