Try Van Dal - they're great for wide-fit shoes of all descriptions

English brand Van Dal (www.vandalshoes.com; 0800 801909), which has an extensive range of styles. It is stocked at most John Lewis and House of Fraser stores as well as branches of Jane Shilton and Kurt Geiger.
www.tallgirls.co.uk (mail order: 01420 587400) has a small selection in EE,
www.cinderellashoes.co.uk (00 35 357 932 6696), a Dublin company, specialises in wide fittings and stocks sizes 8-11 in an EE fitting, from £34-£82. It will do mail order, but there is no brochure; you can only view the shoes via the website.
www.lushshoes.co.uk
www.elephantfeet.com

Try www.figleaves.com

Rather than repeat the advice I have given many a time on Wonderstuff (use search to find out - in the coloured strip above - don't type it into the question box again), I thought you might like to read a piece on the topic which I wrote for The Observer:

AM I TOO OLD FOR CLOTHES?

"Why are you dressed as one of The Ramones?"

My husband and I are stacking the dishwasher one Am I too old for clothes? Sunday morning, listening to The Archers. It's a tricky one. How can I explain that drainpipe jeans are tout la rage? Or how a friend of mine wore Converse All Star baseball boots the other evening and looked so rock'n'roll, so Chrissie Hynde, that I was powerless to resist.

"Doesn't David Cameron wear Converse?" continues husband conversationally, as he scrapes Rice Krispies into the Brabantia. "And what's with that weird skinny tie?"

He's right, of course. There comes a time in life when wearing full-on fashion - the kind of entertaining kit you find in the pages of the glossies, worn by teenage Russian models with complicated names and no breasts - when it all starts to look ridiculous if you attempt the look at home. Pinafores, say. Or culottes. Berets. Braces. Bubble skirts. Am I too old for clothes? To make my point, almost as a eulogy for my lost youth, I wore my rock-god outfit on a family kite-flying trip on the Downs that afternoon. Passers-by probably thought I was wearing the skinny tie for a bet. Or a joke. Up there on that hill, it dawned on me that I am too old for clothes.

Not all clothes, of course. But the silly, slavish stuff which has been the lifeblood of my wardrobe for nearly three decades. At the age of 38, certain trends are beginning to look wrong. It's a realisation which creeps up slowly, like hair loss or weight gain, until one day the mirror shows you a stranger. "Mutton," mused one similarly afflicted friend, "dressed as goat."

Yasmin Yusuf, 46, formerly creative director for womenswear at Marks and Spencer, had a similar epiphany in the company of a pair of Costume National boots not long ago. "I was wearing my superfine narrow jeans tucked into the boots - and I got home and suddenly felt it was all too young. I had a defining moment. Something had to give."

While fashion pundits are terribly gung ho these days about the agelessness of clothes, about how the taboos of dress have been broken, and how mother and daughter can now wear the same jeans to the same party where they'll dance to the same tune around the same handbag... the bottom line is that there are still boundaries. Not, perhaps, enforced by a society of strictures and codes, but by the fact that a forty-year-old woman wearing a pork-pie hat in homage to Pete Doherty looks daft. There is, and I say this with a sigh, undoubtedly a time to put away childish things.

But what to wear instead? Turn 35 and you're supposed to instinctively know how to dress your age, just as you're expected to know how to file a tax return and how to produce a tasty coq au vin - and no one, least of all the media, the mags, the designers, the retailers, the icons - is giving much away on the matter.

The brutal fact is that everything gets more complicated as you edge towards forty, particularly if you've had children. You blithely expect to return from maternity leave and resume shopping, as though nothing has changed. But everything has. Throughout my twenties and early thirties, I shopped as a hobby, like some folk do crosswords or crochet. I loved it. I loved dressing up, posing, changing three times a day. But, it dawned on me not long after my kids arrived, there's not a whole lot of point in dressing up as a Ramone or Edie Sedgwick or Frida Bloody Kahlo to catch the News at Ten headlines or do the nursery run. If you work at home, as I do, only the postman will get to see your witty take on military chic. To add insult to injury, just as your lifestyle goes all domestic, your body goes to pot. Mine, like most, became pliable and comfortable, like something from the soft-furnishings department at John Lewis. Saddled with a mum's bum, dressing becomes a game of hide and seek, reveal and conceal.

While we're struggling with the mirror, the fashion world remains haughtily besotted with youth, enthralled by its milk skin and pretty feet. "Things are improving," says Alexandra Shulman, editor of Vogue, optimistically, "but it's nowhere near enough. Designers are still enormously youth orientated. As soon as you say you're creating for a specifically older market, you start to put people off... As you age, it's certainly harder to get away with flinging anything on and looking great, like you might have done in your twenties. Your body changes. Your arms aren't so great, you get shorter in the torso. These changes, generally speaking, are being ignored."

And so, fashion deserts us just when we need it most, like a red-neck cowboy skipping town. When everything is edging towards the floor, it ups and leaves, abandoning women to fend for themselves in an image-obsessed world. No wonder Trinny and Suzannah make £1.2million a piece for offering style direction to this lost generation.

Yasmin Yusuf agrees that there's a dearth of ideas for women who are too old for clubbing but too young to make their own chutney: "There isn't anything really slick and sexy for this market yet. It's such an opportunity. What is available is generally expensive - it's all about beautiful cut, something to give confidence, and that comes at a price. The middle-market retailers should be looking at this: the 35-plus group aren't going to stop loving fashion just because they've had another birthday."

This year for the first time, women over 40 will make up more than 50% of the UK female population. Many have money. Most have perfectly adequate bodies, thanks to a regime of regular exercise and sensible diet. If anything, we're the future of fashion. Interestingly, there are signs that some of the major fashion and beauty companies are beginning to recognise the spending power of this influential age group. Now that the Pink Pound and the Grey Pound have been truly tapped, attention is at last being turned to the Navy Pound.

Miuccia Prada, as if to seize the moment, has installed 52-year-old Kim Basinger to front the Miu Miu label this spring. Elsewhere, Sharon Stone (47) has just been hired as the new face of Dior's Capture skincare range. 51-year-old Christie Brinkley is the new girl at Cover Girl cosmetics. Suddenly, companies are interested in women who've lived a little, who have the depth and maturity of a good wine rather than the fizz of a bottle of pop. Model agencies are reporting a significant increase in demand for models in the 35-plus bracket. Witness Twiggy's rebirth for Marks and Spencer at the age of 56; even Paula Hamilton back in circulation, 20 years after that VW famous ad.

Just look, too, at "the muse of the moment", as designated by the influential industry magazine Women's Wear Daily: Carine Roitfeld - the 50-year-old editor of French Vogue. She has lush eyebrows, punch-black eyes, and a curtain of hair which constantly threatens to close off her face from public view. Her look is imitated everywhere - on the catwalk, in the ad pages of the glossies, in the windows of department stores. "Right now," said a recent paean, "Carine Roitfeld is the most stylish woman in the world."

The point is - and here's the rub - that she has always looked this way. She didn't arrive in her fifth decade and think, "Hmm, time to drop the ra-ra skirts and opt for something more swank". Roitfeld's look is timeless and personal, the living embodiment of Yves Saint Laurent's aphorism that "Fashions fade; style is eternal".

The question for mere mortals, tugged between the pull of jazzy earrings and the push of crow's feet, is quite how to win a slice of this ceaseless style for yourself.

Well, over to Roitfeld herself:

"Leather?" she says firmly. "No good as you get older... For normal woman, with not big money, if I would give advice: buy mainly classic pieces and a new pair of shoes each season. A Burberry trench-coat is always beautiful. Maybe you change the belt and this season you put an Indian scarf."

She doesn't counsel, you will notice, the purchase of a skinny tie and a pair of Converse baseball boots. Shulman, meanwhile, is less prescriptive: "I don't think there are specific things you can't wear after a certain age. It's entirely up to the individual to make the judgment. Some people are more successful at judging than others, of course. But if you've got great legs, I don't see why you shouldn't wear a short skirt. As you get older, though, you can no longer follow fashion in a craven way... but I rather think you shouldn't do that at any age."

For the lucky few, of course, the progression happens naturally. I remember seeing a picture of Plum Sykes not long ago. We worked on Vogue together in the early Nineties - and here she was, toast of Manhattan, a genuine It Girl, with her glossy gush of hair and her thoroughbred legs. But what caught my eye was her clothes. A striped sweater in coffee'n'cream cashmere. Tailored pants in a tantalising shade of cocoa. In short, Plum (five years my junior) looked like a grown-up.

My wardrobe, by woeful contrast, still looks like a dressing-up box. Just recently, I was seriously toying with the idea of wearing leggings under a strapless dress. I had the idea that I'd look a bit like Laura Bailey in this get-up, though there's a distinct possibility I'd look like a turnip. The fact is that it's simply not an appropriate look for a mother of two, a woman with a large mortgage, a substantial garden, a subscription to The Economist and a growing knowledge of oenology. The overall effect will, I know, be discordant and off-key.

Perhaps Quentin Crisp was right when he remarked, "Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are." Once you're old enough to know thyself, you simply have to stop hiding, to start letting go, just as you have already forsaken your intimate knowledge of chart tunes, dance moves, street vernacular and who's snogging who in Hollyoaks.

But - blissfully - just as some things look terribly wrong, others begin to look absolutely right. Take tailoring, for example. Won't give you the time of day until you're 33, and then it's all over you like an expensive suit. "It helps to know the designers that suit you, to find your shop, so you're not starting from scratch every time," says Shulman. "Having some idea of your own style, your strengths and weakness, helps - although, of course, they do change as you get older. Personally, I find it much harder to get away with boho dressing than I once did. You can so easily look like an aging Mystic Meg. There is a temptation to go for simpler, cleaner shapes as you age. A few great cashmere sweaters really will take you a long way. Jewellery becomes more important."

Some retailers are getting it right, says Shulman. "There's a lot of money in this age group. Zara has been very clever and has tapped it well. Chanel and Armani are always going to have things that work - there's a core offer there. I have found that, on the whole, women designers are kinder and more sympathetic - they seem to understand and acknowledge what is happening to a body."

There are individuals, of course, who will do the editing for you. Style consultants Campbell & Bathurst fillet and refresh the wardrobes of women in precisely my predicament. Their advice is to go easy. "Many women over 35 make the mistake of clinging on to a style they should have ditched long ago," they say. "So steer clear of frosted lipstick and plunge-V necklines. Avoid acid colours, bubble-gum pink, logo T-shirts, tight anything, hot pants and micro minis, stonewashed jeans, animal prints (keep to accessories only), midriff-bearing tops and low-slung trousers, girlie frills, black leather. We advise our clients to edit their wardrobe every six months and to keep an eye on things like hair colour. As you get older, you have to tone everything down."

This season, then, I'll be treading gingerly through the traps and trips of spring fashion... Chloe's wooden stack heels? I think not. Those darling little broderie Anglaise dresses at Miu Miu? Nah. They yell youth. Wear one over the age of 21, and you run the distinct risk of looking like Grayson Perry. As you slide down the razor blade of life towards forty, it's heartening to know that ethnic works well into old age; folkloric, however, doesn't.

Meanwhile, my skinny tie and drainpipes are finished. The animal prints will be escorted from the building and shot. The amusing slogan T-shirts ("Brunettes Have More Fun") are banished. "Give them to the au pair," said one friend in what she imagined was a helpful manner. I don't even have an au pair. But if I did, you can be sure she'd look a dish in my drainpipes.

Published in The Observer, 2006

Red, red, red - I love the combination of cocoa and scarlet - it has such a chic, Parisian feel to it (YSL was a dab hand at mixing the two). I wouldn't wear beige with chocolate - it seems ageing to me. I do like sugar-pink, though - and aquamarine, eau de Nil, teal, chartreuse...

It has to be a knockout dress, no question. Everyone will have aged, but you need to look super fabulous. Your best bet is a wicked black dress - playing up to your best bits, worn with crazy shoes, the more colourful and bonkers the better. Who cares if it's in a pub, you want to walk in and rule the room!

Rather than repeat the advice I have given many a time on Wonderstuff (use search to find out), I thought you might like to read a piece on the topic which I wrote for The Observer:

AM I TOO OLD FOR CLOTHES?

"Why are you dressed as one of The Ramones?"

My husband and I are stacking the dishwasher one Am I too old for clothes? Sunday morning, listening to The Archers. It's a tricky one. How can I explain that drainpipe jeans are tout la rage? Or how a friend of mine wore Converse All Star baseball boots the other evening and looked so rock'n'roll, so Chrissie Hynde, that I was powerless to resist.

"Doesn't David Cameron wear Converse?" continues husband conversationally, as he scrapes Rice Krispies into the Brabantia. "And what's with that weird skinny tie?"

He's right, of course. There comes a time in life when wearing full-on fashion - the kind of entertaining kit you find in the pages of the glossies, worn by teenage Russian models with complicated names and no breasts - when it all starts to look ridiculous if you attempt the look at home. Pinafores, say. Or culottes. Berets. Braces. Bubble skirts. Am I too old for clothes? To make my point, almost as a eulogy for my lost youth, I wore my rock-god outfit on a family kite-flying trip on the Downs that afternoon. Passers-by probably thought I was wearing the skinny tie for a bet. Or a joke. Up there on that hill, it dawned on me that I am too old for clothes.

Not all clothes, of course. But the silly, slavish stuff which has been the lifeblood of my wardrobe for nearly three decades. At the age of 38, certain trends are beginning to look wrong. It's a realisation which creeps up slowly, like hair loss or weight gain, until one day the mirror shows you a stranger. "Mutton," mused one similarly afflicted friend, "dressed as goat."

Yasmin Yusuf, 46, formerly creative director for womenswear at Marks and Spencer, had a similar epiphany in the company of a pair of Costume National boots not long ago. "I was wearing my superfine narrow jeans tucked into the boots - and I got home and suddenly felt it was all too young. I had a defining moment. Something had to give."

While fashion pundits are terribly gung ho these days about the agelessness of clothes, about how the taboos of dress have been broken, and how mother and daughter can now wear the same jeans to the same party where they'll dance to the same tune around the same handbag... the bottom line is that there are still boundaries. Not, perhaps, enforced by a society of strictures and codes, but by the fact that a forty-year-old woman wearing a pork-pie hat in homage to Pete Doherty looks daft. There is, and I say this with a sigh, undoubtedly a time to put away childish things.

But what to wear instead? Turn 35 and you're supposed to instinctively know how to dress your age, just as you're expected to know how to file a tax return and how to produce a tasty coq au vin - and no one, least of all the media, the mags, the designers, the retailers, the icons - is giving much away on the matter.

The brutal fact is that everything gets more complicated as you edge towards forty, particularly if you've had children. You blithely expect to return from maternity leave and resume shopping, as though nothing has changed. But everything has. Throughout my twenties and early thirties, I shopped as a hobby, like some folk do crosswords or crochet. I loved it. I loved dressing up, posing, changing three times a day. But, it dawned on me not long after my kids arrived, there's not a whole lot of point in dressing up as a Ramone or Edie Sedgwick or Frida Bloody Kahlo to catch the News at Ten headlines or do the nursery run. If you work at home, as I do, only the postman will get to see your witty take on military chic. To add insult to injury, just as your lifestyle goes all domestic, your body goes to pot. Mine, like most, became pliable and comfortable, like something from the soft-furnishings department at John Lewis. Saddled with a mum's bum, dressing becomes a game of hide and seek, reveal and conceal.

While we're struggling with the mirror, the fashion world remains haughtily besotted with youth, enthralled by its milk skin and pretty feet. "Things are improving," says Alexandra Shulman, editor of Vogue, optimistically, "but it's nowhere near enough. Designers are still enormously youth orientated. As soon as you say you're creating for a specifically older market, you start to put people off... As you age, it's certainly harder to get away with flinging anything on and looking great, like you might have done in your twenties. Your body changes. Your arms aren't so great, you get shorter in the torso. These changes, generally speaking, are being ignored."

And so, fashion deserts us just when we need it most, like a red-neck cowboy skipping town. When everything is edging towards the floor, it ups and leaves, abandoning women to fend for themselves in an image-obsessed world. No wonder Trinny and Suzannah make £1.2million a piece for offering style direction to this lost generation.

Yasmin Yusuf agrees that there's a dearth of ideas for women who are too old for clubbing but too young to make their own chutney: "There isn't anything really slick and sexy for this market yet. It's such an opportunity. What is available is generally expensive - it's all about beautiful cut, something to give confidence, and that comes at a price. The middle-market retailers should be looking at this: the 35-plus group aren't going to stop loving fashion just because they've had another birthday."

This year for the first time, women over 40 will make up more than 50% of the UK female population. Many have money. Most have perfectly adequate bodies, thanks to a regime of regular exercise and sensible diet. If anything, we're the future of fashion. Interestingly, there are signs that some of the major fashion and beauty companies are beginning to recognise the spending power of this influential age group. Now that the Pink Pound and the Grey Pound have been truly tapped, attention is at last being turned to the Navy Pound.

Miuccia Prada, as if to seize the moment, has installed 52-year-old Kim Basinger to front the Miu Miu label this spring. Elsewhere, Sharon Stone (47) has just been hired as the new face of Dior's Capture skincare range. 51-year-old Christie Brinkley is the new girl at Cover Girl cosmetics. Suddenly, companies are interested in women who've lived a little, who have the depth and maturity of a good wine rather than the fizz of a bottle of pop. Model agencies are reporting a significant increase in demand for models in the 35-plus bracket. Witness Twiggy's rebirth for Marks and Spencer at the age of 56; even Paula Hamilton back in circulation, 20 years after that VW famous ad.

Just look, too, at "the muse of the moment", as designated by the influential industry magazine Women's Wear Daily: Carine Roitfeld - the 50-year-old editor of French Vogue. She has lush eyebrows, punch-black eyes, and a curtain of hair which constantly threatens to close off her face from public view. Her look is imitated everywhere - on the catwalk, in the ad pages of the glossies, in the windows of department stores. "Right now," said a recent paean, "Carine Roitfeld is the most stylish woman in the world."

The point is - and here's the rub - that she has always looked this way. She didn't arrive in her fifth decade and think, "Hmm, time to drop the ra-ra skirts and opt for something more swank". Roitfeld's look is timeless and personal, the living embodiment of Yves Saint Laurent's aphorism that "Fashions fade; style is eternal".

The question for mere mortals, tugged between the pull of jazzy earrings and the push of crow's feet, is quite how to win a slice of this ceaseless style for yourself.

Well, over to Roitfeld herself:

"Leather?" she says firmly. "No good as you get older... For normal woman, with not big money, if I would give advice: buy mainly classic pieces and a new pair of shoes each season. A Burberry trench-coat is always beautiful. Maybe you change the belt and this season you put an Indian scarf."

She doesn't counsel, you will notice, the purchase of a skinny tie and a pair of Converse baseball boots. Shulman, meanwhile, is less prescriptive: "I don't think there are specific things you can't wear after a certain age. It's entirely up to the individual to make the judgment. Some people are more successful at judging than others, of course. But if you've got great legs, I don't see why you shouldn't wear a short skirt. As you get older, though, you can no longer follow fashion in a craven way... but I rather think you shouldn't do that at any age."

For the lucky few, of course, the progression happens naturally. I remember seeing a picture of Plum Sykes not long ago. We worked on Vogue together in the early Nineties - and here she was, toast of Manhattan, a genuine It Girl, with her glossy gush of hair and her thoroughbred legs. But what caught my eye was her clothes. A striped sweater in coffee'n'cream cashmere. Tailored pants in a tantalising shade of cocoa. In short, Plum (five years my junior) looked like a grown-up.

My wardrobe, by woeful contrast, still looks like a dressing-up box. Just recently, I was seriously toying with the idea of wearing leggings under a strapless dress. I had the idea that I'd look a bit like Laura Bailey in this get-up, though there's a distinct possibility I'd look like a turnip. The fact is that it's simply not an appropriate look for a mother of two, a woman with a large mortgage, a substantial garden, a subscription to The Economist and a growing knowledge of oenology. The overall effect will, I know, be discordant and off-key.

Perhaps Quentin Crisp was right when he remarked, "Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are." Once you're old enough to know thyself, you simply have to stop hiding, to start letting go, just as you have already forsaken your intimate knowledge of chart tunes, dance moves, street vernacular and who's snogging who in Hollyoaks.

But - blissfully - just as some things look terribly wrong, others begin to look absolutely right. Take tailoring, for example. Won't give you the time of day until you're 33, and then it's all over you like an expensive suit. "It helps to know the designers that suit you, to find your shop, so you're not starting from scratch every time," says Shulman. "Having some idea of your own style, your strengths and weakness, helps - although, of course, they do change as you get older. Personally, I find it much harder to get away with boho dressing than I once did. You can so easily look like an aging Mystic Meg. There is a temptation to go for simpler, cleaner shapes as you age. A few great cashmere sweaters really will take you a long way. Jewellery becomes more important."

Some retailers are getting it right, says Shulman. "There's a lot of money in this age group. Zara has been very clever and has tapped it well. Chanel and Armani are always going to have things that work - there's a core offer there. I have found that, on the whole, women designers are kinder and more sympathetic - they seem to understand and acknowledge what is happening to a body."

There are individuals, of course, who will do the editing for you. Style consultants Campbell & Bathurst fillet and refresh the wardrobes of women in precisely my predicament. Their advice is to go easy. "Many women over 35 make the mistake of clinging on to a style they should have ditched long ago," they say. "So steer clear of frosted lipstick and plunge-V necklines. Avoid acid colours, bubble-gum pink, logo T-shirts, tight anything, hot pants and micro minis, stonewashed jeans, animal prints (keep to accessories only), midriff-bearing tops and low-slung trousers, girlie frills, black leather. We advise our clients to edit their wardrobe every six months and to keep an eye on things like hair colour. As you get older, you have to tone everything down."

This season, then, I'll be treading gingerly through the traps and trips of spring fashion... Chloe's wooden stack heels? I think not. Those darling little broderie Anglaise dresses at Miu Miu? Nah. They yell youth. Wear one over the age of 21, and you run the distinct risk of looking like Grayson Perry. As you slide down the razor blade of life towards forty, it's heartening to know that ethnic works well into old age; folkloric, however, doesn't.

Meanwhile, my skinny tie and drainpipes are finished. The animal prints will be escorted from the building and shot. The amusing slogan T-shirts ("Brunettes Have More Fun") are banished. "Give them to the au pair," said one friend in what she imagined was a helpful manner. I don't even have an au pair. But if I did, you can be sure she'd look a dish in my drainpipes.

Published in The Observer, 2006

Not my specialist subject, but have a look at www.howtoclean.org/how-to-clean-suede.html

Tons1 The very best are by Made, a company that works out of the slums of Kibera in Kenya. Alexa Chung has recently designed a "skull" collection for Made (see www.made.uk.com). Have a look at www.adili.com for other options, including ethical bags - but for jewellery, I would HIGHLY recommend Pippa Small, who works on craft initiatives with indigenous communities (www.pippasmall.com). And have a look at the Tuareg artisans of Niger, who make brilliant stingray cuffs for Ikken (www.anedoti.com). Ooh, and you must check out www.fashion-conscience.com, where Gwen Davies ethical and eco cuffs are for sale. You can find conflict-free diamonds at www.thelookboutique.com, designed by Lora Leedham. Finally, a company called Leju is using "vegetable" ivory to stop elephants being killed for their tusks. Have a look at the brilliant, colourful necklaces, around £100 at www.lejudesigns.com.

Tons1 The very best are by Made, a company that works out of the slums of Kibera in Kenya. Alexa Chung has recently designed a "skull" collection for Made (see www.made.uk.com). Have a look at www.adili.com for other options - I would HIGHLY recommend Pippa Small, who works on craft initiatives with indigenous communities (www.pippasmall.com). And have a look at the Tuareg artisans of Niger, who make brilliant stingray cuffs for Ikken (www.anedoti.com). Ooh, and you must check out www.fashion-conscience.com, where Gwen Davies ethical and eco cuffs are for sale. You can find conflict-free diamonds at www.thelookboutique.com, designed by Lora Leedham. Finally, a company called Leju is using "vegetable" ivory to stop elephants being killed for their tusks. Have a look at the brilliant, colourful necklaces, around £100 at www.lejudesigns.com.

While the Great British High Street is a domain of pure delight for teenagers, wannabes and MILFs, once you hit a certain age (you’ll know it when you get there), the fashion shops seem to desert you, leaving you numb and naked on the great unfriendly plains of style. It has always perplexed me, this disregard for such an obviously huge and lucrative market. So, ladies, I’m here to help.

First, I would recommend a complete overhaul of your underpinnings. Get on friendly terms with your body. Know thyself. Only then can you dress thyself. If you’re having trouble with the knowing bit, get some tips from Caryn Franklin’s fantastic website www.howtolookgood.com. Thus galvanised, get thee to a lingerie department and stay put until your body has found a properly fitted bra (remember only one in four of us is wearing the correct size) and a great pair of “slimming knickers” (have a look at www.figleaves.com; you won’t look back). Hey! You’re already half-way there.

Now, wise up and dump the frump. This requires a deep intake of breath and an entire Saturday morning spent weeding out your wardrobe. Be ruthless, be relentless. Laugh in the face of those comfy trews and, please, chuck out that ancient old cardi that makes you look like a butternut squash. If you haven’t worn it in years (and it’s not vintage Chanel), chuck it. If the colour no longer works with your complexion (hold it up to your face, look in the mirror, it will not lie), then throw it away. If the fabric is polyester, nylon, pilled, rubbed, marked or in any other way compromised, get rid of it.

Now, to the good bit: time to shop. Sure, look at M& S and Jaeger. But don’t be afraid to shop on-line (try www.fennwright manson.com and www.wall-london.com). And do please go for quality. Now is the time to invest, not splurge – rather than buying three silly sweaters, get one lovely jacket. I am of the firm opinion that a glance at Yohji Yamamoto will do you the power of good (don’t be afraid to try it on; his clothes come alive on the body). If Yohji is too costly, try Oska (www.oskahome.de). Look for kind layers and face-friendly colours (no, this season’s canary yellow is probably not for you).

I would have said St John, which has long excelled at this nautical look. If not, have a look at www.brittanyboutique.com, which stocks the type of clothes you're after.

What a great question. I have been thinking hard about what would work - you are asking quite a bit from an outfit if you want it to have the sober gravitas required to preside over a wedding service, followed by a bit of fun and frivolity to step on to the dance floor when the band strikes up...

The fact that you like a floaty low-cut dress bodes well - as this is the backbone of summer dressing. there are some truly lovely tea dresses cropping up in the shops - and I would certainly pick one of those. The way to wear it is with a blazer jacket - which would serve to tone down the look for the day-time service. Have a little look at Stella McCartney, who manages to mix the formal and flighty with consummate skill.

This is Armani territory, no question. Have a look at his various lines - they're not all wildly expensive. Emporio would be a good place to start. Otherwise, the Tux is created with consummate and original skill at YSL. Again, the Rive Gauche diffusion line will offer you choice outside of the stratospheric realms for couture fashion.

Oska is my favourite place for linen tunics - have a look at www.oskahome.de.
Other labels to try include Clemente, Yulin, Oui Moments, Apanage and Save the Queen - and also
try www.edunonline.com for ethical labels. I absolutely love the soft tunics and tops at Wall Luxury Essentials (www.wall-london.com; mail order: 0870 350 7373). And then there's always www.fennwright manson.com - a current favourite of mine.
Wall

Have a look at www.petiteblogspot.com for tips on petite dressing. I think you need toi introduce a bit of colour into your life - remembering not to "block" your body into zones which will make you look smaller still. Separates tend to cut you up into chunks, so I would go for one colour, elongated with a scarf of pendant to cheat the eye into giving you more height. Black can be very harsh as you get a little older, so try a soft dove grey or graphite instead. Wear with fuchsia (the colour of the season) as an accent.

Spring time in Paris! Lucky you. I suggest taking thin layers - silk, cashmere - in neutral colours. A pair of great jeans, heels for fun, flats for sight-seeing, a brilliant big bag (Mulberry) and a trench coat. A big scarf for wrapping up against the wind. And then, when you get there, go shopping! Leave space in your case for the great fashion you'll find in the capital of style.

Have a look at a piece I wrote for the Observer not long ago by typing "am I too old for clothes" into the Search Bar (above, in the coloured strip).

Then, it's time to think about the new season. I know very well that your average fashion writer will implore you to trolley out there and buy, buy, buy. You’ll be encouraged to go for turquoise! You’ll be exhorted to “channel” Jerry Hall or Bruce Springsteen. “Go pick up a boa!” we’ll cry. “Get a hairclip just like Kelly Osbourne’s!”

I know this because I have spent the lion’s share of my career doing the cajoling and coaxing. Well, this week, just to give us all a break, I’m doing the opposite. Today’s missive is all about the items you need to keep, the cherishable, treasurable, bankable stayers that will not necessarily wow your babysitter or set fire to the tablecloth when you sit down in a restaurant, but things that are still utterly useful and wholly fashionable for spring 2008. Play a canny game, and you might just get away with a negligible till receipt this month. Go on then ladies, give the old credit crunch a two-finger salute, and waltz with me through the nuggets of gold that you already own…

(Ahem… needless to say, if you don’t already own them, I would exhort you to go out and buy them, right now, this instant, before you eat that Weetabix or check your horoscope. )

Right then. Do you have a trench coat? Good. Wear it. Belt it. Pin a corsage on the lapel. Fabulous. OK, so what about last summer’s platform heels? Yes? Stick ‘em on. Oh. You’ve got wedge heels? They’re still in too! We’re really cooking on gas now, aren’t we?

Now then. Trousers. Well, while the tapered, cropped pant is lurking on the sidelines of style and is set to be the shape of summer, you are still more than welcome to wear those high-waisted, wide-legged trousers that you’ve loved for the past six months or so. If they suit you, don’t take them off. If they don’t, go for the crop. And I bet you’ve got a white shirt in that wardrobe of yours. Well, pull it out and put it on. If it’s not white enough, boil it. If it’s still not white enough, tie-dye it and knot is at your waist. Voila! A spring trend for the £3.99 you’ll spend on Dylon.

Since tailoring is still a strong suit in fashion, keep a hold of that boyish blazer which fashion writers have been banging on about for months. Wear it over a new dress (OK, you can buy a new dress. Three words: floaty, chiffon and floral) – and strap on those platform heels. You are now very nearly the essence of spring 2008. The missing link is a grand gesture of jewellery. Grab the cuffs and bangles from your dressing table and slide them on. Yes, all of them. And another. Borrow some more from your next-door neighbour and imagine you are trotting down the catwalk at Marni. Rifle through your drawers until you find you aviator shades. Wear them.

Ta-da. The spring season, in a nutshell, on a shoestring. There are, of course, items lurking in your cupboards that need to be retired. Off the top of my head, these perishables will include trilbies, smocks, polka-dots, sequins, swing coats, leggings, slogan T-shirts and little leather jackets. Don’t chuck them out though. They’ll be back…

Absolutely wear heels - high and mighty, that's what you need. As far as a dress goes, you seem to be slim hipped and ample-chested - so steer clear of plunge necks, ruffles and too much going on upstairs. If you can't find a dress which fits, choose a skirt suit (full skirt, nipped-in jacket) so that you can arrive at a proportion that fits you properly. Have a look at Caryn Franklin's website - howtolookgood.com for more thoughts on how best to dress your shape.

Don't even bother with sandals if youare self-conscious about your feet. You need the perfect summer shoe for funny feet - and that is the ballet pump. They've been in fashion for donkey's years, but they are still happily trotting along at the forefront of fashion. If you want the designer version, just to pep things up, get yours at Marc Jacobs.

Have a look at Caroline Charles - who does gorgeous evening and occasion wear which won't frighten the horses! Caroline Charles (Beauchamp Place, SW1 and branches; 020 7225 3197, www.carolinecharles.co.uk)

Thanks for the thanks (if you see what I mean). For the jacket, you need to call the fashion desk at You Magazine, who very kindly put together that bit of the page. The number is 0207 938 6000.

For bigger sizes, try Elvi, the size 16-plus fashion specialist, which now has a flagship store in New Bond Street, London W1 (020 7629 6284),
Marina Rinaldi in Old Bond Street (020 7629 4454), where the spring/summer collection, in sizes 14-26, is beginning to arrive. Marina Rinaldi is a division of the major Italian label MaxMara, so you can be comfortable in the knowledge that it strikes the right chic note.
Poppeau & Hall (020 7704 9200) stocks designer wear in up to size 30
Anna Scholz (020 8964 3040) goes up to size 26. For a list of plus-size fashion labels and stockists, see: www.fashion-era.com/plus_sizes.htm.