Huffy and Broke

Where would fashion be without that cliché of clichés, the female shopaholic, but, I wonder, how much more tired can a cliché become? Much more - it would seem - especially now that the search for the Hottest Upcoming Fabulous Fashion Item (HUFFI) is driving shopaholics to abandon their home turf and turn their attention to the entire globe. This - unless you are: a) excessively wealthy and in possession of a private jet or b) capable of time travel - is not an option for most...So thank heavens for the publication of The Global Shopper (Hardie Grant $24.95) authored by self-confessed "shoppo" Nicole Hopkinson - who has created a compendium of her favourite global shopping websites. This tome will be welcome news for today's fashion fans, under constant pressure to attain cred at all costs and thus on the hunt for those items generally worn by celebrities that Seem Perilously Expensive but let's Nuke the Debit card anyway (SPENDs) or for Beautiful but Really Overpriced Kleptomania-inducing Eveningwear (BROKEs) not to mention the never ending quest for the Dauntingly Expensive Beauty Treatment - D...you get the
: Advance Australian fashion
Gosh that last bit was a bit over the top, not to mention depressingly apocalyptic, wasn't it? Everyone knows that shopping makes us happy... and with that I'm going to execute a sharp about-turn to eulogize about Australian fashion and how great it is, global shopping notwithstanding. Even the poms think so, as a recent article in UK broadsheet The Guardian attests. It seems until not so long ago the old country got its notions of Australian fashion from watching Neighbours an alarming thought in itself; imagine trying to gain a realistic insight into the British hospitality industry by watching Fawlty Towers! Nevertheless, the combined forces of Sydney's fashion week - at which English model Lily Cole made a much publicised appearance - and London boutiques Antipodim and Austique, have catapulted Australian fashion out of the daggy doldrums of Kylie's tee-shirt dresses forever. This in itself is wonderful, but if fashion week can successfully market a Merino wool bikini - ingeniously designed by Josephine Nathan - then I say hats off to Australian fashion. As a girl who once possessed a crocheted bikini so unappetising that a great white shark would have had to think twice, I should know.