Dress date

Speed dating with the week’s dress date

How would you describe yourself?

I’d say I was a mix between Grace Kelly chic and brazen Eighties-prom beauty.

Who is your style hero?

Grace Kelly – I’ve loved seeing her style re-incarnated trough Mad Men’s Betty Draper over the past couple of years. I can’t wait to take a trip to the V & A to see her wardrobe exhibited from 17 April.

What do you consider your best features?

My light, summer material and the bow detail on my back: It’s cute, pretty and a little bit different – sums me up really.

What would you change about yourself if you could?

My silver bow belt: I love bow details but I think this makes me look a little tacky.

What would be your perfect date?

I love garden parties, but if it was one on one then it’d have to be a picnic, complete with wicker hamper, champagne, strawberries and delicate finger food that we could feed each other.

Where are you spending most of your time at the minute?

I’m getting ready for summer at a beautiful River Island location.

Mad Men: Betty's maxi dress

Mad Men is by far the most beautiful thing on television. Expertly crafted, cleverly written and seductively stylish, it's an aspirational show.

Each time I watch an episode, I wish I could be transported back to that time, to wear those clothes and to exude that elegance. But in actuality I wouldn't want to swap places with any the three main female characters. Trapped by the societal constraints of the Sixties, they aren't able to reach the potential that they could if living in 2010, when they could all embody the best bits of each other.

I, as I'm sure many women do, aspire to be as beautiful as Betty, as sexy as Joan, as ambitious as Peggy and as strong as them all.




This week's BBC4 show (series three, episode eight) featured Betty at her best - glammed up in Rome, flirting in fluent Italian and, for once, enjoying herself. But it was the Biba-style bright geometric maxi dress that she wore once back at home that really grabbed my attention.

The maxi-dress is one of the defining styles of the Sixties: Long not because it had to cover up skin - this was the decade of the mini after all - but because it was comfortable and, being informal enough for daywear, a departure from the floor-sweeping evening gowns of the Fifties.

The loose and floaty design was a staple of the Sixties and Seventies bohemian look, yet as Betty's dress proved, if the cut was right it could be also be the height of elegance.

Now, where do I get myself one of those?