Every year, at the time of the London Fashion Week, regular as the first cuckoo, come cries of fear and loathing about fashion. Social observers and columnists – mostly women – announce, yet again, that fashion sucks. They hate everything about it – its extravagance, its bitchiness, its eye-opening prices, its manic neophilia, its very worldly unworldliness, its eye for PR and profit, its indifference to the poor of the world (except as a source of ethnic models), its corruption, its exploitation of women, and so on. They talk with contempt of fashion victims and fashion mavens, and how daggy the fashion editors look in the front seats at the shows. What is more, they say, they are not actually interested in fashion.

I don’t believe them. Of course, there are things you can hold against the fashion industry – from the hissy fits of misogynist designers to the supremacist silliness of fashionistas, and all the greed and vanity in between – though some of it is rather fun. But the industry is not the same as the product; I don’t bother myself about back-stabbing and hysterics in the organic meat industry when I buy a fancy pork chop. And the truth is that almost all women, understandably, love fashion. A woman who says she is tired of fashion is pretending, or else she is deceiving herself. A woman who really is tired of fashion is a woman who is tired of life.

The way we look is an essential part of who we are and how we feel. And how we look has always been extremely important to women and to men, time out of mind, in all cultures. Whether you paint yourself in woad, have an exclusive stripe of purple dye on your toga, a must-have bone through your nose, an antique dodo feather in your penis shield, how you look says a lot about you, in every culture.

It is not simply a matter of whether you’re wearing last year’s Manolos or passing on this year’s Nancy bag. It makes a big difference to where you position yourself, to your feel for the times, to the people you belong with and the way people treat you. Nobody can afford to ignore that.

Besides, you can’t deny it. However you look, you cannot help but give out powerful messages about yourself – some of them voluntary, some involuntary. Fashion is, quite literally, what you make of yourself, how you fashion yourself (including how you don’t bother to). Luckily, there is much you can make of it: fashion is so many different things. There is couture and the wildly imaginative and sometimes very beautiful excesses of top designers. Then there is sub-couture, deuxièmes lignes, high-street avant-garde, high-street rip-off, street-market indie and thrift-shop retro, not to mention comfy, mid-market classics and mail-order sensible – all influenced, at some stage, by high fashion. At its best, fashion is an art form that transforms the craft of the entire clothes trade.

We have seen not only the democratisation of fashion after the second world war – when mass production meant that working-class women could, for the first time, buy cheap, fashionable clothes – but since then, pretty clothes have become ever cheaper. We have also seen the diversification of fashion – these days, there is never just one must-have look. So fashion, though powerful, no longer has a style stranglehold on anyone; it means different things to different people.

But what the puritanical critics seem to miss is the joy of fashion. It is fun to try finding your way through all the wonderful and silly ideas when you feel like it – and when you have the money. It is okay to ignore it, too. But it is amusing to experiment with new ways of looking; it is entertaining to gaze at the most beautiful materials and colours and the zaniest or most classic shapes. There is something wonderful, if slightly guilt-inducing, about searching for just the right shoes, then buying a highly impractical pair that are too expensive but irresistible. There is something positively erotic about the whisper of tissue paper when you take those drop-dead gorgeous Vivienne Westwood ankle boots out of the box at home. Those are shoes you will remember, along with all the times you wore them.

Choosing high-fashion lingerie when you have just fallen in love, hesitating between provocative scraps of delicate silk and lace while dreaming of Mr Right, is one of life’s great pleasures, silly though it may be. It is exhilarating to find a perfect summer dress at Portobello Green market for next to nothing. Above all, it is a great pleasure to buy and own something exceptionally beautifully made that particularly suits you – and then to wear it again, 10 or 20 years later, and leave it for a grown-up granddaughter to discover.

I have a 25-year-old Azzedine Alaïa cowl-neck jacket, a 15-year-old Vivienne Westwood horsehair jacket, some 10-year-old Cesare Paciotti super-high-heeled brown lace-up brogues (about 10 years ahead of last year’s fashion), a 1980s Marks & Spencer La Perla /Fortuny-lookalike black camisole (which cost about £12), and two Yohji Yamamoto coats that I have never stopped wearing since about 1989.

Then there is the Issey Miyake short black pleated dress that I bought eight years ago and have lent to friends for special occasions, since (rather unusually for him) one size fits all, and everyone looks a dream in it. Then there are my huge, delicate Miyake scarves in silk, cashmere and strange finishes, and my two five-year-old redand silver-fox-trimmed cardigans from a Roberto Cavalli sale, and a green zebra-print dress with a hand-printed chiffon overshirt by the People of the Labyrinths, or several slightly offbeat Armani suits, all bought more than a few years ago and perfect for looking businesslike. I often buy these things in sales, and though they are expensive, I wear them so often and for so long, they work out as good value: the best of yesterday’s fashion is never unfashionable for long.

I also own some Biba clothes from the 1960s (all too few), a Foale & Tuffin fantasy trouser suit and a stylish 1940s tailored jacket made from blue brocade curtains by my teenage mother during the war. It, too, is a classic, and my daughter wears it today. All these things are pleasures and treasures. To dismiss fashion – to disapprove of it – is to show how little you understand of life, from anthropology to fun. Vive la mode.

NEVER COUNT IT OUT

BARONESS SUSAN GREENFIELD
Appearance is not a superficial concern. What you look like can have an impact on your confidence and health. Men underestimate the importance of appearance for women. It’s easy for a professional woman to end up wearing something acceptable but not special, dressing almost as an honorary man. I’ve never gone for fashion for fashion’s sake, but I’ve certainly made big investments – or rather, I’ve justified them to myself afterwards as investments.

ANDREA ROSE, DIRECTOR OF VISUAL ARTS, BRITISH COUNCIL
Fashion is like gossip, really, a bush telegraph about people, what they are doing and what they are. Most people are intrigued and delighted by it, even if they say they’re not. It keeps us plugged into the wider world. It is the most material side of us, of course, but as the poet Williams Carlos Williams said, “There are no ideas but in things.” It is an expression, in stuff, of how we think about ourselves.

JULIA PEYTON-JONES, DIRECTOR, SERPENTINE GALLERY
Today, everyone is so much more conscious of design, and fashion is a part of that. Anything that furthers design internationally is to be valued. Fashion charts the time we live in. There are amazing architects who engage with it – Zaha Hadid and her handbags for Chanel, and the American artist Richard Prince and his bags for Louis Vuitton. For our Summer Party, my outfit is always important: but I want it to be fun, not the focus.

JULIA GOLDSWORTHY MP
I’m in a job that’s traditionally very conformist. The smallest thing can cause a stir. What works is small, rebellious statements: this year, I’ve been foraying into bright tights and star features. They boost your confidence – in the chamber, that’s really useful. But it’s a double-edged sword: you will get personal comments, like “What does she think she’s wearing?” You put yourself at risk. But if I’m wearing something I feel great in, it will have a huge impact on my performance.

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