'What's Hot and What's Not' is NOT HOT!

Do you sometimes find yourself flipping happily through your favourite fashion glossy, only to turn the page and have the What's Hot and What's Not or In or Out? or Up or Down (okay you get it) list ambush you with its fickle dictation of what is fabulous and what is downright pitiful? Have you been left in a state of confusion and insecurity, thinking 'I was the sh*t a month ago and apparently today I can't be trusted to walk down the street thanks to my absence of telepathy with the style gods who would have told me that BIG floral patterns are passe and it's now the TINY buds that are in?

You know what I'm talking about, right? And then, let me guess - you exclaim with just a little venom, 'OH, GIVE. ME. A. BREAK!!' I have, many many times. In a small way I feel that I'm asserting my option to stand alone and stand strong and firmly resist the push to immediately set fire to my closet full of clothes that I love, that are me, and cost a bit of hard-earned coin for a reason, thank you very much!

Granted, if you bought those pants with the crotch that hangs down to your knees you may feel a bit sheepish when you see them in the Oh no you didn't! list, but the real frustration is this: I guarantee on any Hot or Not list you will find at least one of the 'Nots' featured somewhere in the magazine's editorial. For instance, big clutches are in. They have been since autumn 2006 (or spring if you count the previews which tell us what we must like in 6 months. And how nice of the fashion powers-that-be to give us a heads-up, ample time to say goodbye to our tried and true yet living-on-a-prayer fashion faves). And in these pages you will witness much praise of the oversize clutch (which I've grown rather fond of over time, they are easier to carry than you'd think), likely accompanied by an outright condemnation of those good-for-nothing cute little ones (OMG! How sub-moronic were we all to they were so adorable and pretty? We must be hopeless!). Then you turn the page and there is a model on the catwalk for a show from a major fashion house, carrying an adorable and pretty LITTLE clutch. WHAT. THE. LAGERFELD.

You can't win. It's fashion. It's in its nature to mess with you. Understand that there is no phrase more grating than 'on trend'. Because all that means is that to maintain that status you must abandon that very outfit and all its trimmings before the quick-dry varnish on your nails sets, for the next big thing.

On the UK version of Project Runway, our Project Catwalk, the farewell catchphrase to see off the failed contestant is 'Fashion has no mercy'. True in some ways but really, when you think about it, would Kelly Osbourne have been chosen to host if it didn't?