Unexpected item in bagging area

Anything which makes one look this triangular is deeply unfair on the pear-shaped.   And if your mum's migraines are phototropic, she can be felled by the merest flash of this blouse from under your coat.

Presumably designed by Isosceles O'Humbug for River Island.  £28.

Ah yes, the venerable tartan of the Battenbergs

I think this is a plaid more suited to the coats of little Scottie dogs to make them look jolly and a little less like the ravening mad bastards they are.  And indeed this lady looks quite prepared to take a nip at the postman's backside now that she's wearing this thing.

This damned knit will enrage even the most mild-mannered librarian, and certainly it's making me want to leave teethmarks in the designer's ankles and shelve all the large print Mills and Boon in Home Carpentry.

Asos, £31.50.  It's in the sale, which comes as a terrible surprise.

So you've come as a trapezium?

Well, I'm going to work as a stellated icosahedron tomorrow.  If we must duel, my weapon of choice is a Platonic solid.

This model is looking petulant because she has just been told off for wearing Daddy's shirt.  How is she to know it costs THREE HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIVE POUNDS AT WHISTLES?  I wrote that in big letters because only upper case is sufficient to express the enormity of offering for sale this insult to a lady's silhouette.

Pretending to be a person many times your size comes in a bit expensive these days.

Target practice

This lady does not deserve to be shot in the back, but if she will insist on appearing at the battlements dressed in this, she is very likely to have some sort of unpleasant missile flung at her by a trebuchet.

I think what worries me about these low-slung t-shirts is that they're so difficult to match with anything.  Your coat must be at least below the length of the shirt, because otherwise you'll look as if you're trailing something.  And a dramatic inset pattern like this must be on show, so a cardigan is out of the question.  What an awkward, awkward garment.

Unless, of course, you're a knight?  Why not wear this as a surcoat over your shiny armour as you prepare to breach a castle or joust the afternoon away?  Gauntlets optional.

Urban Outfitters, £60.

Go home and show Mummy. Wait...maybe don't show Mummy

It's that time of year when small children decorate calendars with gold-painted pasta shapes and get over-excited with Pritt Stick and shiny paper.  How charming, then, to find a, a, whatever this is, inspired by a childlike love of arts 'n' crafts, where bits of tin foil are stuck liberally to the first object to hand.  Well done, Lucy, but do give back the glitter to Mrs Trumbull before Asos arrive and ruin the Lovely Afternoon We're Having!

Eighty barefaced, shameless, flagrant pounds.

And now, two minutes' silence for style, which died today

This lady looks remarkably unconcerned that there is a trilobite crawling over her shoulder.

I do feel that the ruffle is rather going to get in the way of things, although it will be a very good place to save the canapés for later.  On further reflection, however, marine arthropods are perfectly capable of securing their own snacks from the buffet, although the pickle fork may present some difficulty to a prehistoric creature unused to modern manners.

River Island, £60.  They'll throw the rest of the dress in for free.

How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Frock, No 173

Perhaps this looked like a good pattern at 3 o'clock in the morning to the hard-pressed designer, fag in  hand, colouring pencils at the ready.  There is something arch and oh-so-knowing in that jarring scalloped band of black and polka-dot arrangement at the hem, but it is of course the dark stain of sin slowly engulfing the floral loveliness above.

The Island of Doctor Moreau has things less freakishly conjoined than this dress.

Miss Selfridge, £45.

The model tried to smile but somehow couldn't bring herself to

Sci-fi shows in the seventies often had people dressed in outlandish spacewear, but I always took comfort from the creaking scenery and plotlines that the bleak dystopian vision therein would never materialise.  How perturbing, then, to find a survivor from the costume department of yesteryear blazoned across the webpages of Asos.  Flying cars and nuclear fusion must be just around the corner.

Asos is calling this a lantern dress:  perhaps a few fairy lights and a confused moth under the peplum would make it look less silly.

£150.

Rattling the bars

How a nice day looks through a prison window.

Topshop, £45.

Drifty and draughty

Asos' predilection for oversized, shapeless idiocy may just have reached its nadir.  Is it any wonder, ladies and gentlemen, that this lady looks a little distrait?  Falling into the duvet cover and struggling wildly to emerge, she is still draped in a sizeable portion thereof.

The snugness of those fitted sleeves contrasts so delightfully with the parachute-sized top that one is reminded of the potato animals one used to make with matchsticks and a humorously-shaped tuber.

Twenty-five quid for possibly the least practical garment ever seen in this blog.  Warmth, style, pulling power, an ability to match anything in your wardrobe - all must be found in other garments, I am afraid.

The bitemarks are still visible

There is a shark, somewhere in the murky depths of the Atlantic, reaching for the Gaviscon.

Topshop, £38.

Git out there and clank!

This skirt may just look odd, given that the mannequin is probably not well-proportioned.  But there's no escaping the fact that it resembles a lead coffin whose lid is about to be prized off by one of those hirsute chappies on archaeological digs, whose breezy attitude to mangled cadavers makes one suspect a similar disregard for personal hygiene, haircuts, age-appropriate trousers, etc.

This metallic brocade fabric is so fabulous it deserves better than being styled into a section of sewer pipe.  And the length on the leg is frankly depraved:  one's thighs will look like a couple of hams smuggled out of the butcher's.

Topshop, £90.

Hell - now with added stretch

Well, here is another of those knitted skirts which do so much to render the wearer just a little more conscious of her hips than she need be.

It's also decorated with wombs.

River Island, £22.

Not to be worn in a maze

Designed to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the invention of Pacman, Vero Moda are offering this dress via Asos for £45. For an extra fiver you get 16K of RAM and a bonus score.

I'm a lumberjack and I'm..about to have a brief but comprehensive nervous breakdown

My Dad's pyjamas have gone missing from the drawer:  they were here only yesterday, and....Christ!  What the hell have you done, Fred Perry?

Dad's continual astonishment at the price of things is probably something which comes with age (and he certainly won't be pleased that some reckless designer has hacked his jimjams about); but even hipsters may have some trouble stomaching the £100 price tag on a playsuit whose wide shorts have made the model's legs look like two breadsticks.

I also note Fred Perry has preserved the top pocket wherein old gentlemen store their hearing aids, undoubtedly a vital styling detail all teens will love!

An item right at home at Asos.

When barmaids attack

Perhaps the most unforgiving dress in the history of stretch-knit fibres.  Being mauled to death by the leopard whose skin this loosely mimics is a fate much to be preferred to having every single tiny excrescence or convexity brutally exhibited.

And what can that black lace panel possibly add to the dress?  Presumably the designer put it there to separate two colours desperately fighting each other like bull elephant seals, but this is a problem better solved by having the combatants on separate ice-floes.  One at each pole.

Topshop, £30.

Two ugly things welded together

This top can be worn to prevent your identification after you've robbed a bank.  From one side, you'll be the girl in the dull black and white t-shirt; from the other, you'll be the daft ha'porth who fell into Black's collection of tart fabrics and wrenched herself free, taking this piece of lamé with her.  However baffled the forces of law will be, they will not be as confused and adrift as this damned t-shirt thing.

This is the sort of garment which should have been exposed on a hillside at birth.

River Island, £45.