And the award for best gusset goes to ...

She can ease your fashion pain

At the Brits this year, a remarkable number of the female performers seemed to have forgotten their trousers or skirts. Is this a new trend?
Marianne, London

Katy Perry Camel toe chic: Katy Perry poses backstage during the Brit Awards 2009. Photograph: Tim Whitby/Getty Images

Yes. It's called Camel Toe Chic, Marianne, and I think we can all agree it does exactly what it says on the tin. Well, 66%, anyways. As serious fashion historians (contemporary era) know, this trend was started by that modern-day icon, Peaches Geldof, the 21st century's Marchesa Luisa Casati. We can only wonder how precocious Peaches first came up with this extraordinary wheeze of not bothering to wear anything with her leggings, aside, perhaps, from a small top and a "suck on my paparazzi photos, Bat for Lashes" headband. Peaches realised, like many women have done before her, that the best way to ensure you are photographed by the paparazzi and therefore feel the glow of life affirmation is to show as much of your anatomy as possible. Lo, Camel Toe Chic.

This has now reached such ridiculous proportions that we have novelty pop act - sorry, Best International Female Performer - Katy Perry turning up to the Brits in a corset and leggings and Victoria Beckham showing corset tops with just a pair of tights - tights! - at her show in New York. Now, if even Victoria can't afford to buy another pencil skirt, this economy truly is in trouble.

So yes, Marianne, it is a trend. But unlike other, far inferior columns, that does not mean we advocate following it. A trend is just a suggestion, not an order, and definitely not, slipping into fashion speak, "essential". If all your friends walked off the Brooklyn bridge would you, too? To be honest, I'd rather you all did that than going out in just a pair of manky tights.

I live in Milan and I've noticed Italian women wear a lot of fur, but, curiously, they only wear it when they get to a certain age. Why is this?
Matt Bedford, Milan

National differences of dress: oh we love those around here! Nothing like a bit of sweeping generalisation to get a fashion writer's mojo going.

The true sartorial differences between countries lie not in the wardrobes of the young but in those of their elders. For example, older American ladies tend to be great advocates of sportswear. French older women go for the "Coco Chanel, avec chien" look, while Italians, as you rightly say, break out the fur. Personally, I suspect this is because many (not all, not all, calm down, faithful Italian readers) Italians tend to have commendably little fear when it comes to flashiness, hence the popularity of rhinestone detailing on their black jeans and their apparent belief that a T-shirt is not a T-shirt if it doesn't have a big ol' designer logo slapped across the front.

But they seem to realise that this is not a look that tends to work in one's more mature years because by then you really should have learned better. Hence, fur. Ultimately, as is the case with most fashion statements, it's about showing onlookers most emphatically what demographic or, more specifically, what class one belongs to, and in Italy this is apparently accomplished by dressing like Harry and the Hendersons.

This discussion of class brings us quite effortlessly to the subject of Jade Goody. Apologies, readers, we're going off piste here for a moment but we'll soon return to our scheduled programme. Some have been suggesting of late that any expressions of unease regarding the media's latest reality TV show, Let's All Watch Jade Die, are classist. After all, no one objected to John Diamond and Ruth Picardie chronicling their illnesses in the press, so this proves that any wariness about Jade is just because she's not middle class. If the only difference people can see between Goody and Picardie and Diamond is class then this country is even more class-obsessed than already appreciated. Let's take this slowly: Diamond and Picardie did not have tabloid journalists hanging outside their hospital, trying to get photos of them on their gurneys. Even more obviously, Diamond and Picardie weren't writing for papers that, for the past seven years, had described them as pigs and racists.

To feel a twinge of nausea at seeing the same journalists who had described Goody in those terms now standing around her deathbed has nothing to do with feelings about Goody (which surely begin and end with extreme pity); it's entirely about the media and revulsion thereof. Hot breaking news: Piers Morgan is rumoured to be doing Goody's last interview. Anyone out there still claiming that she's in control here? Comparatively, a big ol' fur coat looks like the height of good taste.

Today's best video

Today in pictures

More from Ask Hadley

Hadley Freeman answers all your sartorial questions