THE NEWSROOM

“There is no justice in the fashion business,” Karl Lagerfeld once remarked.

Have you, dear reader, heard about Instagram Face? Not an app, but the phenomenon of increasing numbers of people visiting doctors, cosmetic clinics and outright quacks to obtain in real life the sort of face they see on Instagram.

The desert boot still looks fresh today; a footwear chameleon, fit for whatever fashions and styles you fancy, worn with favour by Hollywood film-stars and adventurers alike.

Our solitude is double-edged. It’s both an unprecedented restriction on basic freedom, and a privilege to be in the group who can safely be confined. But the experience of separation is not totally new.

Jimmy Webb, denizen of St. Mark’s Place, punk guru, and rockstar couturier died last month. He was 62.

What is the comfort of today? Cufflinks, jackets, ties become a mocking audience, hooting almost audibly to remind us of a register of dress this era has rendered ridiculous. Not a possession to dazzle me, but one to make me wryly laugh: an old, beautifully patterned silk scarf from Sulka Paris had to become my ersatz mask for a couple of outings. I supposed that’s the closest a possession has come to helping screen me from reality.

Soul wasn’t just a music genre for Bill Withers, who sadly passed away recently, but an impulse – an expression, and a way to speak plainly about the tribulations (and successes) that defined his life and career. He may not have been a preacher, but he certainly preached – whether it was heartbreak, the war in Vietnam, or the suicidal thoughts of a failing husband (as in ‘Better off Dead’) Withers’ music endures because he was strong enough to reveal himself to us, peppering his smooth crooning with the occasional cry for help. That’s why we’re so endeared to him; why he’ll be missed.

I’ve been inspired to turn to The Sartorial Travel Guide by the inimitable Simon Crompton for a glimpse of what already seems like a very different time, one where we were free to move around without fear of killing or being killed, one where brick-and-mortar retail existed and was worth the journey.