If you thought tanning got complicated when SPF numbers were introduced back in the 1980s, you may find that the labelling introduced following last year's round of EU sun-screen regulations drives you to a darkened room for a little lie down.

There is barely a current fashion trend that doesn't owe its provenance to the latter half of the 20th century: sweetheart necklines and below-the-knee pencil skirts from the 50s, ladylike A-line shift dresses from the 60s and batwings and beading from the 70s. Naturally, the high street faithfully replicates the fashion of these eras but, as many women have discovered, why buy new when you can be totally authentic with vintage.

One woman who has been buying vintage since long before it became cool is Leeds-born Judy Berger, founder of the Affordable Vintage Fair.

It's not sexy, we know; and it is reminiscent of the lectures we all got/get from our mothers, but it really can be cathartic (not to say hugely practical) to give your closet a clear-out. And right now, in that window between winter-sales splurging and planning spring purchases, is the perfect moment to do it: to decide what to keep and what to send to the local All Aboard shop, even - quaint, old-fashioned thought - to decide what to repair and what, in these recessionary times, might be given a bit of va-voom with some TLC and, maybe, some new buttons.

According to F Scott Fitzgerald, there are no second acts. Well try telling that to Elizabeth Emanuel, who on Tuesday night was due to perform not her second act but her fourth.

A new skincare collection based around the white peony has been launched by a woman with no previous experience of the beauty industry.

Dianna Cohen was on a business trip to Taiwan four years ago when she noticed the smooth, youthful skin of the women and began asking questions.

"I discovered that the local women regularly consume the root and petals of the white peony, which is a natural antioxidant and has been known for hundreds of years for its healing and beauty properties," she explained.

Serendipitously, the garment set to have a real fashion moment this season - a ladylike blouse - happens to make the perfect transitional piece at this time of year. The blouse is the ideal apparel for early-autumn, when it can be too mild to plunge into winter's fashion-fabulous pieces such as aviator jackets, fur collar tailored jackets and perfectly groomed, minimal-chic coats, yet is also too late for tribal-print maxis no matter how balmy the weather.

Let's be clear. When every fashion page - including this one two weeks ago, and our glossy Edge - is telling you to get into camel, they/we are talking "fashion" camel, which is anything approximating to that pale toffee shade, rather than to a garment made from the fine, soft, warm and prohibitively expensive hair of an actual camel.

It is impossible to ignore the influence that the 1950s and early 60s are currently exerting on trends - big skirts, wide, waist-cinching belts, capes, hairbands, below-the-knee pencil skirts, soft blouses, nipped-waist jackets...

In the 40 years that Susan Graff has been designing dresses for the high-end girlswear brand David Charles, she has seen fashions come, go and come back again. But it's the girls themselves who have changed the most in four decades.

They are "more assertive, more demanding and achingly fashionable", but that should not mean parents should give in to their daughters' desire to look like mini versions of Paris Hilton or Lady Gaga, insists Graff.

There is a new fashion mood this autumn and it doesn't shout - it whispers. It offers a new minimalism, but with distinctly luxe touches like fur and leather, and it marks a return to a low-key, polished elegance. It is about clothes that are grown-up but often with a twist - either literally, as in clever knots of fabric at Yves St Laurent, Burberry Prorsum and Elie Tahari; or metaphorically, like ribbed tights with brogues or 40s-style platforms to sharpen something that might, otherwise, slip into soporific dullness.