Good fashion writers with a clear, clever voice are rare and wonderful things. Hadley Freeman is one of them. Brilliant.

An irresistible combination of insider's fashion knowledge, myth-busting common sense and a sparky sense of humour

Proof, at last, that fashion can be smart and funny

A witty, tongue-in-cheek demystification of fashion - a wry, philosophical A-Z that conveys fashion's delirium and delights

'Bright as a button and bitingly funny to boot. This guide to all things fashionable is quite the page-turner'

'Refreshingly down-to-earth. I found myself laughing aloud'

'Reclaiming fashion for the savvy modern woman, The Meaning of Sunglasses is light-hearted and smart'

In this funny, chic and wise book, award-winning fashion writer Hadley Freeman separates the nonsense from the fabulous and shows that falling in love with an It bag doesn't mean you have the IQ of an It girl. Ever the entertaining guide, Hadley shows how to wear shorts without looking like an extra in "Hamlet", what to spend money on, and what not to, and why only harpists should wear velvet. And most of all, she shows that you don't need to be thin, young, tall or rich to enjoy fashion, you just need a sense of humour. If you've ever lusted after an improbably priced key ring, wondered why there's a large chunk of fashion that girls get but boys don't, got into an exuberant state at a party and left your clutch 'bag' in the ladies or spent fruitless hours worrying about what to wear on a date, this is the book for you.

Ballet pumps, twee versus comfort

The trajectory of a trend from Moss to mass to verboten is both swift and cruel. To recap, Kate Moss wears something, she gets photographed, the world trembles with excitement, the high street rolls up its plagiarizing sleeves and - bada bing bada boom - what was once so maverick now reeks of the stale stench of D-list celebrity photo ops and sullen teenagers on Oxford Street (see Moss, Kate, and how she ruined your wardrobe).

Ballet pumps were always going to be the archetypal victim of this sad descent due to the Gorgon-like curse of (a) looking very good on Kate Moss; (b) being extraordinarily easy for the high street to copy but (c) rather trickier than you'd think to do well.

When Moss was first photographed wearing them a few years ago, ah, how she brought back the memories, which we shall recap here in not particularly zeitgeisty Guy Ritchie fast-editing form: Hepburn! Bardot! Gamine! Skinny cropped trousers! Bang! Stone the crows! Cor!

Anyone who hasn't been blinded by the ingenuity of this astonishingly brilliant technique will have noticed that the common denominator to all of the above is a requisite for slimness and, as ballet pumps - a footwear invented for, lest we forget, the not-exactly-girthsome-demographic of ballet dancers - show, just because something emphasizes a skinny person's svelte-ness does not mean it will make everyone else look thin, a truth which the success of skinny jeans proves has yet to be understood.

This doesn't actually matter a pin: after all, if we all looked like Kate Moss then we wouldn't be quite so thrilled by photos of her looking a bit spotty with whatever boyfriend she's hanging with, and what a poorer world that would be. And to be honest, a curvy woman trotting about with a smile in a pair of simple flats is a far more attractive sight than a twiglet limping miserably in stilettos, but we'll get back to that in a bit.

Because it's not rounded calves that have proven ballet pumps' downfall, but their cheap imitators. Despite their apparent simplicity, ballet pumps are very easy to get very wrong. In fact, the simpler the concept, the easier it is to do badly, as pretty much every spin-off TV show has proven, with the notable exception of Frasier.

The perfect ballet pumps have delicately rounded toes: not squat and wide ones like the cap of a mushroom, but ones with a gently rounded point. The soles should be thin and can either be soft or, for a more formal (and longer lasting) look, hard, which is a style that the company French Sole have made their own. They need to be narrow as otherwise you will look like a little duckling paddling down towards the pond and they should cut away just under your toes. Always go for solid colours, though be wary of red as people will keep asking you if there's no place like home, and be careful about metallic because if you wear gold ballet pumps with black tights someone might mistake you for a grand piano, which is awkward for both parties.

In other words, the ballet pumps should look as much like - ooh, what a shocker - proper ballet pumps as possible. The originals really are the best, that's why we ripped them off in the first place (see Classics with a twist).

Squared toes, thick soles, rain-damaged tips, gratingly girly colours and patterns of the hot pink polka dots, little animals and shooting stars variety have decimated ballet pumps' once proud, understated Left Bank chic image. Truly, shoes with cartoon kittens on them have never crossed the threshold of Café de Flore. Instead, ballet pumps have become the simperingly twee, waterlogged alternative to trainers.

Having said all that, the ultimate reason the world took to ballet pumps is because they are really, really, really comfortable, a factor all too rarely found in the world of women's footwear. With the exception of trainers and the occasional flat boot they are the closest women have come to finding an acceptable shoe that gives them an insight into what it feels like to be a man and to be able to walk with nary a limp nor risk of blood-letting. Admittedly, they do suffer from weather-dependent issues but still, as (possible) ballet pump connoisseur Meat Loaf once so wisely said, two out of three ain't bad.

2008-02-14 Wickedly funny, utterly refreshing

Wickedly funny, utterly refreshing, perfect for anyone who loves fashion but who still has a proper sense of humour. Hadley Freeman writes with wit and style about the perils and delights of boots and bathing suits, the dos and don'ts of clutch bags and cleavages, the highs and lows of vanity (high) and velvet (definite, rock-bottom low). It's an absolute celebration of a world that is gorgeous and wonderful at the same time as being utterly ridiculous, and she captures its spirit perfectly - for example, in the affectionately scathing section on `Fashion speak' (in which `homage' is exposed as a blatant euphemism for `rip-off') or the bit on `Karl Lagerfeld, and why he's so wonderful' (number one being that he's so fantastically rude, although she puts it a bit more bluntly than that...). Sharp, chatty, slick and catty - an absolute blast of fresh air. I can't recommend this enough.