With Valentine’s Day coming up soon, perhaps your man could be in for a Bridget Jones style surprise - with control top panties.

It seems that the high waisted tummy flattening underwear could be trying to make a comeback as a fashion item. Rachel Bilson wore a pair with a pretty pink bra for a photoshoot with American GQ magazine, and Kim Cattrall wore a pair as bikini bottoms for a scene as Samantha Jones in the upcoming Sex and the City movie. Meanwhile former Victoria’s Secret Angel and French model/actress, Laetitia Casta, is on the cover of the February 2008 edition of French Elle wearing a cone shaped vintage style bra with high waisted panties.

Is this a coincidence, or could the body conscious trend be migrating into our lingerie draws soon? While it may look sexy (with a slight vintage/granny twist) on these three beautiful women, it should be interesting to see if it takes off on less toned bodies on beaches and in lingerie departments.

Would you wear them?

Perhaps Cosabella might make some control top Sex and the City branded lingerie now…

Amy Winehouse certainly has the most distinctive… hair do, but could the rumors be true that she is the new muse to Karl Lagerfeld.

Say it isn’t true.

This a woman who was photographed wondering the streets in the middle of the night dressed in jeans and a bra.

Lagerfeld has been rumored to have said she is a style icon, as well as using her trademark beehive hairstyle on his models at his recent Chanel pre-fall collection shown in London last week. Apparently he even compared her to sixties fashion icon Brigitte Bardot.

“She is a beautiful, gifted artist. And I very much like her hairdo. I took it as an inspiration. Because, in fact, it was also Brigitte Bardot’s hairdo in the late Fifties and Sixties. And now Amy has made it her own style. So, when I saw her, I knew it was the right moment. Amy… she is the new Brigitte.”

I read an interesting article on the News.com.au website. It talked about how we’re always on the look out for the next fashion bargain, but in the search for the next bargain find, do we even consider where it came from and how (and by whom) it was made?

The article looks at Green is the New Black, a new book by British style guru Tamsin Blanchard, with a foreword written by flame hair British model, Lily Cole.

The book is aimed at those who are more partial to Havaianas than hemp and who don’t want to spend their spare time knitting purses out of recycled onion bags.

As model Lily Cole puts it in the introduction, we may make an effort to ride bikes and buy organic apples, but rarely consider something as simple as inexpensive socks.

Sure, she goes on to explain, we may love the idea of the $4.99 cotton sock, but the bargain price makes it easy to overlook the fact that the cotton may have been picked by underpaid children in Uzbekistan and sewn together in Bangladesh by workers getting paid 11 cents an hour for an 80-hour week.

Read the article here, or buy the book on Amazon now.

P.S. I loath people who use the phrase, “[insert trend/colour] is the new black”, but the book could be interesting.

“I’ve been seeing wide legged jeans in all the magazines, are they seriously cool again?” - Sarah

Of course wide legged jeans are cool. If all the celebrities are wearing it them it must be true right? Well not always. It’s like high school all over again, if a whole group of people are wearing the same trend it could be a new trend. But it doesn’t always work for everyone.

So to answer your question… they’re not entirely cool (I much prefer straight legged denim myself). But if you do want to wear them don’t do it sixties-super-wide-legged-style so that all the material starts flapping in the wind. Keep to dark colours and sleek lines. It will also help if you’re tall like Katie Holmes (pictured right) as it can be a rather boy-ish look, which will shorten your silhouette.

Do you have a fashion question you want Helen to rant about? Email it in!

According to Wikipedia, a burkini (or burqini) is a type of swimsuit designed by Lebanese Australian Aheda Zanetti. The suit covers enough to preserve Muslim modesty, whilst being light enough to enable swimming.

After watching the latest ‘The Masthead with Marie Claire’ I was confused. Marie Claire Editor-in-Chief, Joanna Coles and style director, Cleo Glyde, made it seem like a really popular invention in Australia. Being based in Sydney and living close enough to the beach to know better, it was a little misleading. Sure Australia is a sunkissed country (which happens to be right under a hole in the ozone layer), but it doesn’t mean a lot of us wear Burkini’s.

You may be an Australian Cleo, and have sun sensitive skin from your British heritage, but most Aussie beach girls do prefer the bikini.

What the latest episode of ‘The Masthead with Marie Claire ‘ below and let me know what you think of the Burkini.

We all know about the rock chic bag that is the Balenciaga Motorcycle Le Dix bag. Born in 2001, and really became the life of the fashion It bag part in 2004/2005. And to add to that it is a bag that still is in high demand.

Now in the last year or so the spotlight has come off the Balenciaga Motorcycle bag - after all the Sienna Millers and Kate Moss’ of the world haven’t toted it around as frequently - but Nicole Richie has been snapped toting a few of hers around.

Which begs the question, can Nicole Richie bring the Balenciaga Motorcycle bag if she carries it around enough?

I suspect not, but she could get her group of young fashionites like Paris, Nicky Hilton, Lindsay Lohan & co, to get back on the bandwagon. Nicole is pictured above, with a small metallic silver Motorcycle bag, and a giant white one. Now I wonder if she did yoga, if she could fit into that huge Motorcycle bag…

We’ve all read about the skinny debate, we know it’s unhealthy for us and that the fashion industry is supposedly to blame for it all. Mind you the fashion industry didn’t force Nicole Richie , Kate Bosworth and co to look like walking skeletons.

Anyway, The Truth About Size Zero follows former Eternal singer and UK TV host, Louise Redknapp, as she shows us a first hand experience of what it is like physically and mentally to go from a healthy size 8, to a size 4. Size 4 is the Australian and US equivalent of a US size zero, and as we learn at the start of Louise’s journey, in which she will drop 2 dress sizes in 30 days.

The fact that they screened this 1 hour show after Australia’s Biggest Loser was questionable to me. First there was a show full of fat people who were so unhealthy because they were too large wanting to lose weight to be healthy. Then seconds after that show ended, there was a show where a healthy woman was also losing weight to become the showbiz “ideal”.

Aside from that, The Truth About Size Zero really showed how a woman can go from a healthy glowing woman, to one that is skeletal complete with horribly sunken eyes and cheeks. Even though Louise was starting to really struggle in the last week or so, she plugged on to show young girls who feel the need to be skinny, that it’s not worth it.

Throughout this process Louise is closely monitored by celebrity nutritionist Dr Adam Carey who warns her of the dangers of crash dieting. Dr Carey says: “I think the current vogue is macabre. I think it is obscene and it is very unhealthy.”

After her first consultation with Dr Carey, Louise says: “Everything he said shocked me. It’s a shame. If every woman in the country, or every woman in the world, that wants to lose weight and become really skinny, if they could all just have half an hour sat down with a doctor telling them exactly what’s going to happen to them, I think you’d get very few of them that would carry on with it.”

Read the rest of this entry »

This Burberry Prorsum dress has certainly done the rounds.

It first appeared on the Burberry Prorsum Spring/Summer 2007 catwalk worn by Jessica Stam, then in their advertising campaign on Kate Moss. A few months later it appeared on newsstands in UK, on the March 07 cover of UK Harpers Bazaar worn by Naomi Watts, and Tatler magazine worn by Anne Hathaway. And just last week it was worn by Dita von Teese at a photocall in Seoul.

So what’s the appeal? Well it helps that metallics are a huge trend that translates really well into most wardrobes. Then there is the plunging neckline of the Burberry dress with its mirror beading from shoulders to the waist. The show-stopping sparkle and gathered skirt plays with a girls curves while definitely stealing the show.

Of course a dress like this doesn’t come cheap; MatchesFashion.com has it in stock for US $5,198.79.

Who do you think wore the dress best?

Yup, there are more lighter, smaller, just as fabulously stylish, it bags available (online – otherwise I’d include a few Chanel bags, like the 2.55)

Left to right:

1. Chloe black kidskin ‘Betty’ satchel, marked down to $1,328. Sure I featured its sister in part 1, but this is black and has two front pockets!

2. Marc Jacobs Debbie Sweet Punk Studded leather bag, £1,285.11. Yup, this one is much nicer than the Debbie Hobo. And it slots under your arm nicely.

3. Fendi black striped velvet fur flower baguette, $1,808. Ahhhh, it’s been decorated all pretty and girlie with flowers. And according to BlueFly only weight about 1lbs! Should pop that into my shopping cart for later viewing.

4. Mulberry Knightsbridge leather bag, £527.66. This is nice, classic, with beautiful leather. Plus it’s not screaming ‘look at me because every celebrity is toting me’.

P.S If you use BlueFly for bag weighs, convert them over to kilos or whatever weight measurement you’re comfortable with at Convert-me.com.