Spotted: Tavi at Couture week sporting a graphite rinse through her fair ‘do. There’s only one deduction to make from this and it’s that the teeny blogger’s been reading DANSK. In case you missed it (thanks to covergirl Gisele the issue sold out in record time, so you are excused), we predicted the rise of grey hair as the choice de jour for rebellious fashion blondes in our last issue.

We know she’s been burdened with the label of ‘fashion prodigy’, but surely we’re the trend oracle on this one? Sorry for blowing our own trumpet for a moment, it’s not fair to get all competitive with a child, but when the industry lets them command front row… Deep breath… Anyhow, with her natural inclination towards granny chic and tender age (sorry, but grey hair looks best against youth-fresh skin), dearest Tavs has taken the look a step beyond. Bravo!

www.style.com / image by Tommy Ton the Great for the fabulous style.com

Under house arrest due to the heavy snow (Wandsworth is pretty rural, you know), I thought I’d spend some quality time with my favouritest Christmas pressies.

1. CHANEL NO 5

Now that I’m looking north of the big 3-0, I thought it best to switch from my signature scent of the decade past (Chanel Allure) to something more sophisticated (Chanel No. 5, like you need ask). The BF is clearly getting quite good at picking up my hints (which were as clunky as corporate word optimization) and this st-st-stunning vial arrived under the tree. I was tempted to make like Marilyn at bedtime for the PR shot above (naked save for 5 drops of the stuff), but it being minus 2 out and not much warmer inside, thought a modest LBD would work just as well. Whaddya think? Audrey Tautou need to watch her back?

Click here to continue reading…

www.chanel.com / images courtesy of DANSK

2. LAURA ASHLEY BY MARTIN WOOD

Laura and I, we go way back. To my first boarding school at age 8 in fact, where the new headmistress instantly won over anxious new parents by waving a Laura Ashley chintz wand over every cold, loveless dormitory. ‘Like home from home’ I remember my mother saying. Needless to say, corduroy Laura Ashley skirts and frilly blouses were on the unofficial mufti list.

Later, at Central St. Martin’s, my beloved fashion history tutor, Judith Watt, shocked us with the revelation that in their day (early seventies) Laura Ashley’s ankle-length Victoriana dresses were considered quite avant-garde. Certainly, the spread of Viv Albertine of seventies punk band The Slits and Paul Simonon of The Clash is testament to the brand’s subversive potential and has got me scouring eBay for my own version

3. CANON S90.

The chic little sister to the G9 & 10 (to the late noughties what the Contax was to fashion photographers in the nineties). Perfectly clutch sized and with myriad corrective functions from counteracting yellowy Tungsten lighting to lightening and darkening skin tones, this stealthy baby will be out in force during fashion month. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

www.lauraashley.com / www.canon.com

The final ever series of Celebrity Big Brother has just kicked off on UK shores. And while I’m usually the first to pan the show and the people who watch it – morally + reprehensible spring to mind – I found myself going somewhat misty eyed at the announcement of a particular housemate. I think we need a drum roll here please Madame Editrice… da-da-da-dah: Stephanie Beacham, aka Sable Colby of famed Dynasty spin-off The Colbys, is starring.

Stephanie, or Sable as I like to remember her (roles in Bad Girls and Coronation Street might have won her acting acclaim, but we’re much more about the ability to carry off a turban and snow fox fur coat at DANSK) was an early style icon. Watched eagerly from my mother’s bed age 6, she was by far the most intriguing and glamorous woman I’d ever seen, gliding with chameleon ease from eighties style classic to eighties style classic and changing persona to match.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING AND FOR MORE SABLE PICTURES…

www.simplystephaniebeacham.com / screencaps courtesy of ABC

There were embellished jersey batwing tops for off-duty, caring mother moments with son Hottie McHotster son Miles, power shoulders that’d take your eye out for the divorce court, pussy-bow blouses and prim skirts for shedding a crocodile tear in as the ‘wronged’ woman, revealing negligees to remind the men in her life of her considerable charms (it seems appropriate to mention here that Beacham was once a Page 3 girl), and diamonds with, er, everything. Style-wise, Sable wasn’t far off her Dynasty rival, Alexis Colby, but for me her character far and away trumped Alexis’s (who you knew was bad through and through) as there were hints of warmth to Sable that made any denouement all the more thrilling.

Right, CBB is calling, but here are a few faboosh Sable fashion moments to leave you with…

We favour an irreverent take on beauty at DANSK, largely to do with this: your sometime beauty writer’s fervent pole-vaulting from water-guzzling yoga bunny to wine-swilling fag ash lil.  It’s currently the wine ‘n’ fags phase, making the obsession with model perfect skin quite unbearable (it’s directly proportionate to how unlikely an acquisition it actually is).

So when I filed copy for my first beauty blog – how to achieve “genetically perfect” skin a la Erdem S/S 10 – Madame Editrice fired it back for being too trad, too Vogue. Huh! Sometimes you just really need to know these things, no bullshit. Here’s her edit (in bold) with a few comments of my own (in italics), followed by another ed’s edit (in bold again).

READ THE EDIT INSIDE…

www.erdem.co.uk / www.clmus.com / images courtesy of DANSK

ERDEM’S FRESH-FACED FILLIES

Resisting the bleach brow bandwagon, the Erdem look aimed to create the genetically perfect, incandescent beauty of Christy Turlington. As head makeup artist on the show, Andrew Gallimore, told us: “the idea was to do as little as possible to the girls, just priming what they already have. As a result, skin looks like skin, but AMAZING skin.”

Get the Erdem look – Yah, like Avon calling!

1. Moisturise skin. (Duh.) Duh? sometimes you’re in a rush or your ligging flatmate’s finished your face cream, but yes, I’ll concede that this one is kind of obvious.

2. Use moisture cover concealer where needed. (Blending is the secret, Edward.) Who TF is Edward?  And this bit’s important as it’s NOT blanket foundation, which YOU hate, but sparing cover with moisture. Edward as in Edward Scissorhands! (I bet you thought I meant Edward Cullen.) You know, “Blend, blend, blend. Blending is the secret, Edward.”

3. Apply prep and prime lip balm to lips, to fill lines and give a matt finish.

4. Leave eyes bare save for some gloss on the lid and mascara.

5. Groom brows with one of those fancy little brow sets you’ve always wondered how to use.  Okay, so Mme E is naturally near-browless, ergo v. smug right now that her look is so en vogue, but the brows of yours truly are closer to a Gallagher’s in their raw state, so ‘fancy little brow set’ off!

6. And top it all off with some strobe cream on the bridge of the nose and Cupid’s bow to catch the light and give a snazzy 3-D effect. Who says snazzy, even sarcastically? And this is a REALLY good tip – I dare you to try it!

This HOT little invite turned up in our inboxes today from DANSK friend, contributor and talented young snapper, Rebecca Thomas. She’s showing tomorrow night along with a host of other must-see photographers and artists as part of the Marios Dik project at hip Dalston boutique-cum-gallery-cum-mecca-of-cool, Jeanette’s.

The exhibition’s curator, also a featured artist and designer, Marios Dik, apparently runs a magazine called Dik Fagazine, which is widely described as the Polish version of Butt – Anders? Toby? You got a copy? – and is rather fond of a little well-intentioned wordplay when it comes to his own surname. We’ll leave you to do the maths here, but he designed the clothes worn in Thomas’ pictures and let us assure you, those prints are not what they first seem.

Marios Dik at Jeanette’s / Ground Level Gallery, Redchurch Street E2. 7pm til late.

www.rebeccazephyrthomas.blogspot.com / image courtesy of Rebecca Thomas

If Scott Schuman had been at Thursday night’s extracurricular activity of choice, the launch of a FABULOUS new coffee table book, The Gentleman of Bakongo, he’d have surely peed his pants. An orgy of sartorial daring and riotous colour, the book features a collection of photographs by Daniele Tamagni of the sapeurs of Bakongo, a group of Congolese ‘sartorial aristocrats’ who pride European elegance and dress above all else. The ability to pull off a hot pink suit with a fire engine red bowler hat? These boys have it and you can bet that come January at the next round of menswear shows, there’ll be sapeur fever off-runway.

www.amazon.co.uk / images courtesy of Daniele Tamagni / snapshots courtesy of DANS