Us? Overdressed? Never!

'It's all getting terrifyingly sophisticated around here. You now can't go to a party in the southern Cotswolds without the hostess coming over all Katharine Hepburn, a couple of Marilyns sipping champagne in a corner, a sultry Ava Gardner snacking on the vol au vents and an early 70s Faye Dunaway queueing for the loo.

'It's all thanks to the recent arrival of a vintage clothing shop in Stroud operating as what I am informed is known is the big city as a ‘guerilla store', appearing without warning in empty shop premises around the town in a shimmer of sequins and satin. All of a sudden, women who you never saw out of jeans and jumpers are floating around of an evening in cocktail frocks, like flocks of lost ex-Bond girls looking for the next helicopter to Monte Carlo.

[quote]'Given that previously the clothes shops on offer - if you didn't fancy the trip to Cheltenham - were mostly at the, shall we say, lower reaches of the fabulousness scale, many women have become completely over-excited by the arrival of the new shop.

'Lots of us have gone completely too far and now have wardrobes bulging with beaded bodices and feathered frocks. And of course there's pretty much nowhere for us to go.

'Hence the parties. Whereas once upon a time having a few friends round for a couple of glasses of wine and some brie on a baguette could pass for a birthday party, it just won't do any more. Cocktails, roulette, pool parties are now the order of the day.  And if no one has a birthday for a bit, I think we're going to have to start glamming up for the school run and the supermarket shop. What with all this credit crunch palaver, we might as well start sweeping through the aisles of Lidl in style whilst stocking up on discounted German tinned peas.

'It was actually on my first-ever trip to Lidl to follow a friend's tip to buy cheap gallon cans of extra virgin olive oil that I found another source of fabulous clothes. Our nearest Lidl is on the edge of Cirencester, which is much, much posher than our local town of Stroud. Just north of Cirencester is the Cotswolds you usually read about in the property sections where all the Kate Mosses, Elizabeth Hurleys and Kate Winslets have their country piles. Almost everyone in Cirencester Waitrose on a Friday night has driven directly from London SW7 and you actually see aged ladies in there having their trolleys pushed by long-suffering staff who I'm sure would rather have a quick whizz round on their own rather than be stuck with ma'am squeezing each and every avocado.

'Anyway, once in Cirencester I decided to take the advice of another friend and check out the charity shops scattered around the town which definitely benefit from a better class of donor. I'm almost reluctant to mention the treasure troves that they are for fear others will catch on and raid them. A couple of Boden linen shirts, some Levi's jeans, a Versace top and a French Connection jacket later I was very pleased with myself. I've repeated the trip a few times now - on my last foray I came away with a pair of unworn Dolce & Gabbana trousers for a fiver. In one shop there were racks and racks of clothes from Bloomingdales - obviously some of the American money locally had decided it was time for a new look and the rest of us mortals could cash in.

'Maybe the new vintage shop has gone to my head a bit though. I was describing my latest purchase to a group of friends who are yet to discover its delights and their faces were looking more and more bewildered as I raved on about this confection in black chiffon. I blame the rainy summer. As the mud has grown ever deeper so my desire to ponce about in unsuitable clothes has increased. It's when I start dressing my dogs in oyster silk and ostrich feathers that they really need to start calling the doctors...'

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