Sartorial scribbling

I have long wanted to write about style. Wait, not style – fashion. Shoes, handbags, socks, gloves, a scarf – let me talk you through them, tell you how and tell you why. But can I? Should I? Despite almost enrolling in London College of Fashion's fashion journalism MA, covering fledgling fashion shoots at university and being endlessly absorbed in fashion magazines, devious doubt has kept me shy of that world. Don't you have to be explosively different to merit a role where it is your job to tell other people how to dress? Tirelessly glossy and immaculately groomed, always with the correct hemline and yet in possession of something extra - that zha zha zhu that means you turn heads in the street now and in later life means you are so imprinted on the style consciousness that you are written about in raptures: even your funeral is eulogised in Vogue. I refer, of course, to Isabella Blow.

Not everyone can be Issie, but can you be presumptious enough to make sartorial suggestions in inky permanent print when your tights have a hole in them and all your sandals are last summer's? The doyenne of UK fashion press, Alexandra Shulman, recently wrote in The Guardian that she doesn't enjoy staring into the mirrors at Vogue House – but the blame falls more on the apalling light than her heavy brows and round face, which by now she can stand. Besides, it's easier to see faults in others than to correct faux pas in yourself. The best fashion journalists possess a self-deprecating humour that chimes with British women's insecurities and welcomes them into the bosom of not always getting it right, but having lots of fun trying. Serendipitous style successes are part of the joy of clothes, and far more achievable and wonderful than a constant regimen of perfect outfit mongering. Joyful Jess Cartner Morley writes happily about how to dress and tells us what to do in a sing-song voice, so that we don't mind at all – the nursery school teacher of the fashion press. The Guardian show a snap of her in all her glory – like a flashcard of style – perhaps to demonstrate, with an imaginary curtsey, that she does practice what she preaches. Not for her the angrily scribbled fashion prescriptions of the Grazia team – now there's a gang of editorial angels who agree with Project Runway's Heidi Klum – "In fashion, you're either in, or you're out."

But often it's nice to be told what to do. I have enough decisions to make at home and at work. If Vogue tells me that I'm to wear a beret this Fall, I'll happily dig an old one out of my closet, mine through eBay for a pre-season steal, or keep my beady eye on the high street for the first jewels of the new season. Probably, I'll do all three. But certainly, I'll laugh at anyone who believes this funny thing called fashion is serious. It's wonderful, sublime, creative, life-changing, hilarious and a beauty – but truly important? Perhaps not. Humour, here is key – and so if I do ever find myself in Hanover Square, ordering a coffee before an interview – (I'm not double barrelled so I suspect this is unlikely) – I will bear this in mind and strive to always write about clothes in the most English of ways (see Jess, and see Hadley Freeman). That is to say, with a liberal smattering of irony, as much wit as I can muster, an awareness of the fabulous fun fashion is – and one eye on the weather.