Make Mine Silvine. Mary Pret a Portas.

I don`t watch a great deal of TV but I made a point of watching Mary Queen of Shops, the one about the elephants` graveyard of the 1990s [ Brighton].

Then she was in Sunday Times Style magazine. Several things about this have nagged at me all week.
I wanted to like Mary Portas. I quite liked this:

`People say they love American fashion. I say `Sorry?` I mean it is so safe. Abercrombie and Fitch is just Gap in a nightclub, isn`t it?`

Well, shit nightclubs and David Lloyd sports centres.

Does Mary look dangerous? They tried to style her for TV but she wasn`t having any, not when she`s got `Last winter`s most-coveted accessory, those YSL platform ankle boots`. Accessory? To what?

Oh Mary, skewer me now. `I didn`t turn up to a meeting with Armani because it was Mylo`s [ her son, not the rock`n`roll-destroying nuisance] sports day`. Silver bells and cockle shells...

Then there`s the things in Mary`s world. She never leaves home without her little red Smythson notebook [from £28]. I never leave home without a Silvine exercise book [ from 28p]. `The affordable new YSL jewellery line is addictive [ring, £70]`. When you`re done with this addiction pop the YSL ring in a party bag, the recipient will be none the wiser.

Mary wants [and she Quants] to `Put the joy and glamour back into shopping`. But Mary, what are you wearing in your self-styled photo?
Part Purdey New Avenger, part Eric B and Rakim. You know those secondary parade ladies` dress shops which are all closing down as we speak? You know the last two items they can`t shift as the bailiffs hover? Mary`s stitched them together. You`ll get more joy and glamour at a church fete.

What did she do in Brighton? She New Rave`d them up is all, still it`s better than tripping over a didgeridoo and putting your `accessory` through a bodram. Mary, you`re such a checklist - Mark Jacobs, Notify, Theory, Hamish Morrow, YSL, Armani etc. Mary is `All emotion` - how dare they run around in their affordable, replica fashion - where`s the joy, the excitement in `Stacking my bag with tons of identical clothes that add up to less than £50?`

As if she would. Millions of people have no choice but to think hard about where £50 will go, all of them no doubt in need of a make-over.



Next Guru please.