ShoesDay: Must...Hold In...Catty...Comments...

It's fashion week in London. Today I walked past a real, actual fashion show going on in a disused church, with strobe lights and screaming and everything. Sadly, the logo was too cool and speshul for me to make out the designer's name.

So let's talk clothes. English clothes.

First, I gotta establish my fashionista creds. Today, just as an example of my sartorial elegance, I'm wearing a sweater that is old enough to attend kindergarten and has more pills than the medicine cabinet at Judy Garland's house. In addition, I'm daringly sporting two-sizes-too-big jeans that are more 'fat pants' than 'phat pants'. And to tie it all together, my rubberized riding boots. Hey, it's raining. Whaddaya want from me?

Needless to say, when I walk into a room Sarahca Jessica Parkaca isn't exactly shaking in her Manolos at the prospect of losing her style-icon crown.

But despite not being without my own fashion sin, when I see some English trends, I just can't resist casting the first snark.

Would you yourself like to play along at home and dress up as a 'with-it' London Laydee?

It's easy if you follow the four F's: Flowers, Feathers, Fur, and Fetishwear.

The overall effect to shoot for is that of an elderly dowager with incipient dementia, who is lightly sozzled and all dressed up to bag the village curate at Lady DeWithers' next tea-and-ecstacy party.

If observers are asking themselves, 'Is she homeless or just really, REALLY rich?', then you are doing it right.

So, let's pretend you're getting ready for a big night out.

First, grab the tweed hotpants that you wear to the office in your job as a high-powered securities trader. At work, you pair them with black opaque tights, but this is party night, so go get your electric puce opaque tights.

Do NOT get sheer tights of any colour. In fact, do not OWN sheer tights. They are not okay. You wouldn't want to sleaze up your winter-wear Daisy Dukes with something that revealing, would you? No, of course not. You're way too classy.

So that covers the Fetishwear nicely, but I'm not seeing flowers here! Quick, grab a fake flower brooch. If it's smaller than your head, it's not big enough. Return it to the store and get something bigger.

Now, pin it to your black 'body-conscious' camisole top. Hell no, you don't need a sweater; it's the balmy month of February, fer cryin' out loud.

But is that enough Floral? Naw, not really. Hey, how about some flowers in your hair? Put a couple behind your ear. Hey, it worked in the 1930's. Ooh, the '30's. Wasn't that War fantastic? Didn't we look awesome in our uniforms? Mmm, how about all the delicious spam. Good times!

Snap out of it -- let's get back to the present, 'cause you're showing a severe deficiency in dead bird parts! How about a super-skinny lavender Feather boa? Yes -- perf! -- it'll match your skin tone as you head out into the winter night wearing hotpants and a silk tanktop.

Don't forget a handbag. Here's a trick: if it won't hold the corpse of a yearling fawn, then your bag is probably too small. And if it's tattered and ragged and looks like it might smell of cat pee, you are golden. Remember, you want to keep up your pseudo-homeless mystique. It's so bohemian, just like Sienna Miller or that one bearded guy who sleeps outside the Chinese grocery store just off The Strand.

Lookin' goo-- OMG! Don't forget SHOES!!!!

This year, there are only two types of shoe that you are allowed to wear: Uggs or bright red Dorothy Gale flats. But the rule is quite firm: if you want red, you have to wear those black opaque tights, and you've already picked puce.

Uggs it is, then.

Yeah, it's true that they offer zero arch support, and some grouchy people say that wearing white, Furry boots in a country where it rains daily and mud-season lasts from September to July is a titch impractical, BUT they are the one and only warm thing in your entire wardrobe. So you go, Ugg girl!

Okay, check the mirror: do we look pretty? No? Fantastic!

Do we look whimsical? Yes? Nice one!

But is it mere Bjork-level whimsical or is it full-fledged great-aunt-on-a-bender-getting-dressed-in-the-dark whimsical?

All right! Great work. Let's go.

Man, that curate will never know what hit him.