It may not have escaped the beadier eyed that, in the main, this season’s trends are pretty much the same as last season’s, with the adjective “new” attached: the new gladiator sandal, the new biker jacket, etc. The only genuinely new(ish) catwalk developments are the return of fuchsia and coral (a good thing, because the latter, particularly, is universally flattering) and the shoulder pad (also potentially good, especially when it comes attached to a YSL-inspired hip-length, double-breasted waistcoat-cum-jacket). That’s it. Everything else can be dusted off from last summer, or, if you have the cash and the inclination, traded in for superior versions.

There’s nothing wrong with fashion slowing down. It’s not an indication of its creative bankruptcy, but rather the reverse. What’s the point in spewing out microtrends when no one’s in the mood for that kind of throwaway momentum? Fashion came to a near standstill for the six years of the Second World War, and would have looked ludicrous had it done otherwise. Since we’re already pretty familiar with most of the ideas on the high street at the moment, and whether or not they work for us, now is the time to take stock and really concentrate on what we do buy. We should approach clothes shopping in a more discerning manner and refuse to tolerate any nonsense – in the product or the service. Who knows, we might actually bring about some real changes.

Which brings me to Aimé, a Notting Hill boutique that sells groovy labels such as Isabel Marant and APC, and employs staff who really go that extra mile in their efforts to be disdainful. Obviously, this takes years of practice and, equally obviously, no one in their right mind enters a shop whose name means loved in French expecting anything as mundane as helpfulness. But what makes Aimé the extreme retail experience for the sadomasochist is that, when I visited recently, half the stock didn’t have tags on and yet, in a genius twist, the assistants regarded questions about prices with the same bemused expression they’d adopt if you left a deposit of human faeces by their precious scented candles. Mind you, when they did deign to remember the price, I regretted asking, so randomly out of kilter did it seem with what was being traded. Like the fighter pilots who didn’t realise the war had finished until 1950, this lot could be of anthropological interest: the last people in the developed world who haven’t twigged that the old order is over and that being snotty to the customer no longer quite hits the spot.

“Let’s get out of here and go to Liberty, where it’s cheaper,” my teenage daughter urged. Foolishly, I snuck back to Aimé a day later, because Liberty didn’t have the items – two vases – I wanted. I know. I deserved all I got. Gratifyingly, the saleswoman still didn’t speak to me. Then she overcharged me. Bring on the revolution, Mesdames.

(via Times Fashion)