Nicky's Rag Tales

I have to admit to being a little , dare I say it bored with the endless reports of the Catwalk shows and even though I was sucked into watching lots of them it just added to my permanent state of fashion season confusion. I have just finished selling spring summer for next year. I am also presently selling for now and I’m also planning the next Autumn selling season. If that sounds confusing it’s because it is. Donna Karan is a believer in the slowing down of all this non stop getting ahead business and I like her ideas but lots of the designers for example are taking pre orders for the Catwalk collections for next Spring Summer and we haven’t even begun this Winter properly. One of the main problems with all this is that people are permanently dissatisfied and Independent retailers find themselves being forced into far too early sales.

If you want reports and images from the Catwalks over the past two weeks I would head to WWD . I will share something with you about next Summer. Trends start with colour and Pantone , the colour company, decide well in advance what the predominant colours of the season will be.

Interesting choice for next Summer with both cool and warm tones and lots of blending from Autumn into Spring to make it somewhat easy.

Time to check all Summer clothes are put away in tip top condition and the Winter ones are all looking good. I have sent several shift dresses to have hems let down and they will now look on trend and sitting at the knee. I found these useful dry cleaning instructions so print them if you like or just save the page for future reference.

I love my black skinny jeans but they have been fading over the past year. They still fit like a dream and I’ve been toying with replacing them even going so far as to get myself into a changing room and struggling with a zip. Jeans shopping is one of my pet hates mainly because you have to buy them small in the hopes that a] You will lose weight and/or b]that they stretch out.

I was tidying under my sink last night and found a box of Dylon black machine dye. Voila! Two hours later my fading jeans are back to black. It’s as simple as throwing the dye pus a bucket of salt into the machine and the jeans. You have to do a further wash and then again to make sure the drum is thoroughly cleaned of dye. It was a terrific success. Twice today I was asked where I had bought my ‘new’ jeans! Dylon have been making fabric dye for yonks but boy have they hit the mark with not only all the colours you could imagine but a terrific Jeans blue, and a lingerie white. No need to throw any greying whites out just use the dye and in a couple of hours you have completely whiter than white undies. You can buy all the colours on-line from The Dye Shop. The machine washable ones are 8.69 euro each.