ASK MRS TREFUSIS: WHAT TO WEAR IN FEBRUARY

Stacked heels - back in?




If by 'stacked' you mean the low, chunky, square-ish, sixties inspired heels like those seen at Vuitton and YSL (their Ingenue is attracting a lot of press), then yes, they're in. Should you wear them? Unless you have the coltish legs of Alexa Chung, you're under thirty or have an obviously 'fashion' edge to your look, absolutely not: they are to the WI what peep-toe platforms and spray tans are to footballer's wives, something of a trademark.



Tights with open-toed shoes, nude, opaque, both, neither?

Black opaque tights may be worn with black open-toed shoes as long as the opaque is of sufficient denier not to reveal your toenail varnish. Nude sandals must only ever be worn with bare legs - holiday in the Bahamas, get a spray tan or buy new shoes.



Bootleg jeans - back in?

Are you mad?



Skinny jeans - still in?

Of course. They are the Ford Model T of jeans -any shape you like as long as it's skinny. If your bottom is enormous please wear something long on top.



It's freezing, can I wear fur?

During the snow, I saw more vintage fur in Town than in an auction of Steiff bears. It's controversial, of course, but the theory seems to be that if your coat is very clearly an ancient something inherited from your mother-in-law's mother - by which I mean the styling is well out of date and there's a hint of moth - you can get away with it.

New fur is unacceptable, of course, unless you're Italian or Russian. So, the fur rules are, wear something twenty-third hand or learn to speak with an impenetrable foreign accent. Failing that, buy a thermal vest.

  PS: I like a lot of what's around this season, even if it's too cold to wear it yet, but I can't quite get into the mega-sixties vibe that seems to be so prevalent. I really struggle when fashion revives a period so emphatically because whenever I put anything on, it makes me feel as if I'm off to a fancy-dress party.   That being said, I don't very often embrace a trend full-on these days - mainly because I'm too broke to do it properly, and too old to do it courtesy of H&M or Top Shop. I'll adopt accents, so it doesn't look as if I'm absolutely immune to the lures of fashion - whatever this season's smokey eye is, for instance, or a shoe shape (stacked heel aside) or a colour accent that's particularly strong - but mostly I think the image of Edina from Absolutely Fabulous looking wonderfully ridiculous in head to toe 'this season' is still too strong in my head.   What about you? Which fashion-trends are you struggling with and why? Or which have taken your fancy?