As all good singing competitions should be, the best voice won X factor this year. Alexandra Burke now steps up to take the crown from last years winner, Leona Lewis.

We take a look at some of her best outfits this season………………..

She looked effortlessly stylish in this, one shouldered and sequinned, on trend but not too ‘fashion‘. Good tone for her skin, young but still elegant, great.

PVC leggings from the Cheryl Cole school of  X factor fashion, but wow, she looked great. Again good colour, and still age appropriate without looking trashy. Alexandra manages to look sexy but not cheap, even though everything is tight.

Here’s not forgetting just what a brilliant stylist and personal shopper can achieve.

Faye Sawyer, we salute you, there have been some tricky moments (mainly with Laura White), but a personal IMDB reference is pretty impressive!

British Fashion Awards 2008

MODEL - Jourdan Dunn
Nominees - Agyness Deyn, Lily Donaldson

DESIGNER BRAND - Jimmy Choo
Nominees - Agent Provocateur, Paul Smith

ISABELLA BLOW AWARD FOR FASHION CREATOR - Tim Walker
Nominees - Pat McGrath, Terry Jones

MENSWEAR DESIGNER - Christopher Bailey for Burberry

Nominees - Richard James, Paul Smith

ACCESSORY DESIGNER - Rupert Sanderson
Nominees - Lara Bohinc, Jonathan Kelsey

SWAROVSKI EMERGING TALENT AWARD - READY-TO-WEAR - Louise Goldin

Felder Felder, Danielle Scutt

RED CARPET DESIGNER - Matthew Williamson
Nominees - Giles Deacon, Stella McCartney

SWAROVSKI EMERGING TALENT AWARD - ACCESSORIES - Nicholas Kirkwood
Nominees - Charlotte Olympia, Anna Vince

Excellent news for equal opportunities, as a black model Jourdan Dunn wins, maybe British Vogue will follow the lead of Italian Vogue earlier this year and feature her on the cover. Although slight concern that the winner has thighs the same size of her upper arms, models are thin yes, but Jourdan is extremely so.

Matthew Williamson also announced at his win for red carpet designer of the year, his plans to join forces with H&M for their spring/summer collection 2009. He will be in good company as previously Stella McCartney and Viktor and Rolf has also put their name to the Swedish high street brand.

2007 Model of the year, Agyness Deyn with Daisy Lowe

The British Fashion Awards return this evening, and as usual, the event will be attended by huge array of celebrities, key industry figures and  lucky fashionistas that got a golden ticket. The British Fashion council, who host the event, first introduced the Designer of the Year award in 1984 and then the British Fashion Awards in 1989.

The awards are about recognising not just existing and established designers, but new and emerging talent within the industry, as well as the models that represent them. Stephen Jones has been announced as the winner of the BFC Award for Outstanding Achievement in Fashion Design in advance, with the remaining ten awards being revealed at the ceremony.

Hilary Riva, Chief Executive of the British Fashion Council, said:

‘The Awards celebrate the extraordinary talent within the British fashion industry, as highlighted in this year’s nominees shortlist. I would like to thank Swarovski for their support of the British Fashion Awards 2008 and for their sponsorship of the ‘Emerging Talent Awards’, which will help to support two of our newer talents as they establish their careers and businesses.’

Financial backers of all things fashion, Swarovski (great cororate branding there) are sponsoring the event and VP of communications Nadja Swarovski stated;

‘Swarovski is honoured to support the British Fashion Awards for the third consecutive year. This prestigious annual ceremony creates a platform that supports, recognises and celebrates the ongoing creativity and talent in the industry. This year, we are introducing two new awards, The Emerging Talent Award for Ready to Wear and The Emerging Talent Award for Accessories. We hope that this recognition and the financial support will enable up-and-coming designers to grow, while allowing their creativity to flourish.’

The 2007 winners were;

• Designer of the Year - Stella McCartney
• Red Carpet Designer - Marchesa
• New Generation Designer - Christopher Kane
• Accessory Designer - Tom Binns
• Best New Retail Concept - Marc Jacobs
• Menswear Designer - Christopher Bailey for Burberry
• Model - Agyness Deyn
• Designer Brand - Anya Hindmarch
• BFC Award for Outstanding Achievement in Fashion Design - Dame Vivienne Westwood
• BFC Enterprise Award (sponsor: Swarovski) - Erdem
• Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creation - Michael Howells

2008 winners to follow!

There are plenty of women that would love to have their own clothing line. Launching your brand, on your 50th birthday, may well be all of these dreams comes to fruition. For most of us, this will never be a reality, but If there is anyone who can have what she wants, it’s Barbie.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, Vera Wang and Jeremy Scott no less, are helping Barbie (that’s Mattel then) to design the collection. What is different about this launch however, is that the clothing line is for actual people.

The February 2009 New York fashion week will unveil the collection, which will also include a wedding dress and a cosmetics line.

Is this a good thing? Turning up to an event with the same outfit as someone else, bad enough. But what if the ’someone else’ is a plastic doll? Worse still, her version of the outfit was made to measure! Social suicide indeed.

Here is Barbie, in her outfit for the Go Red for women charity event.

Not even the Ugg team could have predicted the launch of their first European store being so huge. Westfield shopping centre have faced massive crowds and have had to employ a constant rotation of doormen to manage the chaos at the store front.

There have been a credit crunch busting 30,000 shoppers to the store (not the shopping centre, just the Ugg Australia store), making a total mockery of the financial crisis.

Lets not forget, the current bestselling boot ‘knightsbridge’ retails at £225. The company are opening a second store in Covent Garden at the end of the month, no doubt with the prediction of additional security requirements.

Not bad, for a boot that was worn by Australia’s version of ‘Chavs’. This was until 2003 when Kate Moss, fashion catapult (she launched Stella McCartney at her catwalk debut too), that wore them and brought them screaming into the UKs conciousness.

£250 million a year turn over later, the Ugg brand is so last season, this season and probably the next few too. For those of you that can’t quite afford them, TK Maxx have been seen selling the Ugg classic tall boots at £135 (pictured).

A new concept in shopping has been launched today, My Mall is the worlds first virtual shopping centre. The 3D graphics replicate a real mall with shoppers able to ‘walk’ around all 36 (yes 36) floors and go through virtual store fronts. The shop levels are even in categories to ensure that your money is much easier to spend on the 25 million products available.

The CEO of MyMall Ishmael Bahadur stated “We’ve created an actual shopping mall inside customers’ computers. Even those without broadband can access the site quickly, thanks to recent advances in 3D graphics. Anyone who can go shopping in real life can use MyMall.”

Adding “Besides being faster and more convenient, MyMall is also more environmentally sound. Based on average journey times, we found that 100,000 shoppers using MyMall instead of driving to their local shopping centre could save up to 65,400 tonnes of CO₂ every year. “

Over 500 brands, both international and from the UK are contracted, with more waiting in the wings, to sell their addition to the huge range of goods. Currently you can buy anything from clothing and the usual shopping centre fayre, to fast food deliveries and insurance.

“MyMall isn’t like any other online shopping portal. Instead, it replicates a real-world mall in a virtual world. That allows us to promote and brand ourselves just as we would in any of our actual high street stores. This is undoubtedly the next generation of online shopping.” Nicki Proctor from Gorgeous Couture

The press release goes directly into competition with Westfield, using a table to differentiate between the two;

Let the Christmas battle commence!

Confidence is something that makes everyone appear more attractive, and if you’ve got it, life is just that little bit easier. However, even the most confident of us are susceptible to knocks, particularly verbal ones, since the physical ones are actually less enduring (scientifically proven).

So effective is the power of confidence that some people go to great lengths to mask their insecurities, using exaggeration and blatant lying. Confidence tricksters are not stupid and appreciate the power of ‘acting’. Certainly the word itself has been tainted slightly, as arrogance and being obnoxious can often be described as confidence to soften a blow, but these are all very different characteristics.

By no means are we suggesting that everyone joins an acting class immediately, but learning the tips and tricks to make you feel more confident is the key. ‘Faking it till you make it’ is an actually an effective technique, put simply, you can’t fail if you don’t stop trying.

Here are some additional tips courtesy of IVillage, to get you started on way to build up your esteem;

Learn to be confident

What one single personality trait most makes you popular, attractive and sexy? It’s nothing to do with being tall, slim and beautiful; it’s everything to do with being confident. Countless studies show that people are attracted to people with high self-esteem. If a woman genuinely believes in herself - not with the arrogance of uncertainty, but with a calm inner security - people are drawn to her like a magnet!

It’s pretty clear how a lack of confidence can drag you down, look at these five dead giveaways:

1. The most obvious sign is that you don’t feel good - you sometimes doubt yourself, maybe criticise yourself, feel pessimistic, fight shy of challenges.
2. At work, you may down-rate your own abilities, feel you let others out-perform you, or hold back from taking responsibility.
3. In love you can hesitate before committing yourself - or fall headlong for unsuitable partners because you don’t feel you deserve suitable ones.
4. You don’t feel able to take from others because you don’t feel you deserve it. You may also give too much to others because you feel you have to ‘earn your keep’.
5. You may end up dulling the pain of low self-esteem by unhealthy eating, drinking, drug use or sexual relationships.

What stops you being confident?

1. Negative early messages that you weren’t loved, particularly from parents or guardians, can leave you with a deep-rooted and unshakeable belief that you’re worthless.
2. Childhood trauma, especially if you were abused, very ill or separated from your parents for a while, can cut across the natural development of your self-esteem and leave you ’stuck’ at that unconfident stage.
3. Bad treatment from childhood friends - maybe being bullied - can mean you’re nervous of other people and end up not trusting anyone - even yourself.
4. A major shake-up in adult life - a relationship break-up, career setback, even becoming a Mum or turning 30 - can dent your normal confidence and spiral you into self doubt.
5. Depression, which can be caused by imbalanced brain chemicals, can also result in low self-esteem. This is a vicious circle - because lowered self-esteem can then be caused by depression.

To start to turn this round and become self secure, you first need to alter the basics, the way you approach life in general.

1. Learn to think differently. When you fall into self-criticism and unconfident thoughts, note them - and change them to positive thoughts. Tracking down the original life event that made you think negatively - for example, you believe you’re ugly because the bullies told you so - will make it
2. Learn to speak differently. If you pepper your talk with self put-downs, you’ll not only convince yourself you’re not capable - you’ll convince others as well. Use ‘I can’ instead of ‘I can’t', ‘Next time I will’ instead of ‘If only I had’.
3. Try to stop judging yourself by what happens to you in life, so you’re not basing your confidence on outside events. It’s tempting to feel confident only when you do well or feel popular. Confident people take the rough with the smooth, so that when things go wrong in their lives they can rise above and deal with the situation.
4. Be aware of when you are succeeding. Naturally confident people take credit for things that go well… and put the problems down to circumstance. So when you do something well, be friendly to yourself and give yourself a pat on the back!
5. If you suspect that your lack of confidence is down to some trauma or disaster in your life, get support from a counsellor to work through the problem.

The adage ’sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’ has been proven untrue by Australian and US researchers in the publication ‘Psychological Science‘

Words effect us much more than we realise and cause more pain than physical injuries, the scientisits have found.

Volunteers experienced less anguish, when recalling ‘physically traumatic experiences’ in comparison with the more upsetting ’socially painful situations’, during tests.

Defence against social suicide? Build your confidence but making the best of yourself, both physically and mentally. Take time for hobbies and activities you enjoy. You’ll soon realise most comments say more about the speakers insecurities than yours.

If that doesn’t help, take up self defence. At least you wont feel as physically threatened when bullies strike. For tips on building your self confidence click here.

St Pancras station commuters got more than they bargained for, when over 100 people arrived in just their underwear, in an attempt to break a World Record today.

The attempt was for the biggest public gathering of people in their underwear, drawing 116 confident/publicity keen ‘breakers’.

The new record was set on behalf of the Fair Trade organisation, ‘Pants to Poverty’.

Not exactly an Agent Provocateur advert.

Recognised as THE fashion magazine, if it’s in ‘Vogue‘ it’s IN. Vogue is the fashionistas bible, as it shows the upcoming fashions a season in advance. Although the high street now has an incredibly fast turnaround from catwalk and fashion weeks to it appearing in store, Vogue is still at least three months ahead.

Vogue was started in 1892 by Arthur Baldwin Turnure, being published every two months. When he died in 1909, it was bought by the publishing giant Conde Nast. The magazines was slowly grown by the publishers and saw and unexpected increase for subscriptions during both the depression and World War ll.

In the 1960s, Diana Vreeland took over as editor-in-chief but more importantly was a well known ‘personality’. She changed the focus of the magazine to feature contemporary fashion and embraced the ‘free love’ spirit of the time by controversially featuring articles on sex.  

Vogue changed to a monthly magazine in 1973, when Grace Mirabella took charge, giving the magazine a fresh style and direction to reflect the changes in society.

In 1988 The current editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, is a huge celebrity in the fashion circuits, often labelled the most ‘influential woman in fashion’. In Anna Wintour turns up to one of your fashion shows, overnight the brand is a success. The film ‘The Devil wears Prada’ is allegedly based on her.

Other Vogue ‘brands’ include Mens Vogue (launched in 2005) and teen Vogue, not to mention the various country specific magazines, such as the UK (Alexandra Shulman is the current editor-in-chief since 1992), Italy and more recently India (2007).

If you want to know what to wear to look ‘on trend’ Vogue is your new best friend. However, if your circle of friends is more high street, pulling off PVC three months before it hits the shops may make you uncomfortable, go for ‘Glamour’, ‘Red’ and ‘In-Style’.