(c)Rap Couture

Why do major recording artists’ egos feel the need to fashion their own clothing ranges, their names writ large in Swarovski crystals on the labels? Everyone from Sean Combs, Gwen Stefani, Jay Z and J-Lo to Justin Timberlake has been playing ‘designer.’  Well, nothing quite spells rock’n’roll like Miley Cyrus for Walmart, I suppose. Singers that could buy out Harrods’ entire designer stock on a whim want to sell to them too, it seems. Will stores be snapping up the latest emperor’s new clothes line from Kanye West? Kanye design? Kanye heck! Rosemary West might have received kinder reviews than he got for his parade of uncommonly ugly threads - think zombie bag lady/ hooker - laughed off the runway by sardonic seasoned observers; The Telegraph’s Lisa Armstrong rated it ‘rap with a capital-C.' while, solicited for her view, Nuclear Wintour reportedly hissed 'ask someone else!' Fail! Cue potty-mouth pearls from the emperor’s new clothes designer who really really wants to be taken seriously in fashion. Hire Roland Mouret to ghost your range? Time for resting designers to turn the tables and release rap CDs: Galliano... rhymes with Chicano. Might just work.

Fashioniseateries

Fashionistas rejoice! Buoyed by the success of a Vogue Café, GQ Bar and Tatler Club in Moscow - a dump formerly so starved of fashion outlets, its grateful bling-crazy citizens' sartorial choices make Katie Price look like Grace Kelly by comparison -  publishers, Condé Nast, are reportedly looking at a global roll out for their licensed concept. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there once a Vogue Cafe where now stands Itsu, in the same Hanover Square building as the publisher’s London HQ?  No matter, fashion exists on a diet of regurgitated trends, so bring it on again, boys!. To the marketing wallahs at Condé N, it seems restaurants are ‘a natural way to extend our brand’: this, despite my supposition that the spaghetti-thin noodles featured in their titles' pages exist on a diet of Evian, Marlboro Lights and gossip and that US Vogue’s pencil-like bobbed boss, Anna Wintour, would surely never resort to anything as common as eating out in public. Over a decade after New York and London’s Fashion Cafés sank like soufflés, despite the best efforts of Naomi, Claudia and Elle, the world has become one vast style-obsessed global village. The label-loving diners of Luton, Lanark and Llanelli are surely clamouring to shell out on fashionable suppers of three steamed edamame beans and half an egg-white omelette. As for those GQ bars, ‘honey, crème de menthe? With your complexion?’ Divine! Let’s hope the profits amount to more than a big fat size zero.