This year is Olympic year and there’s no doubt that London will be packed with people wearing sporting gear, even if they are not, themselves, sporty. Designers are clearly being influenced by the combination of Cool Britannia and sporting fever, and designers such as Lacoste, Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors are all getting hot under the collar.

Performance fabrics, such as poly-cottons or poly-elastic-cottons are very much in evidence along with sports styling such as ultra-long vests worn over leggings for women and layered T-shirts in primary colours for men.

A lot of dropped crotch cotton trousers turned up on the catwalk again in the spring collections, and it will be interesting to see if they actually make it into the high street this year – last year the harem pant style was very much in evidence in the collections but not very prevalent in the shops.

One difference this year is in colour. While male luxe sportswear is still focused on bright colours, the female palette is much more subtle, with bronze, grey, heather, cream and stone appearing as basic tones. This makes dressing in luxe sports clothing much more accessible to the average women both financially and in terms of body shape. While most of us can’t contemplate pearl coloured leggings and a sheer panelled vest, we can imagine wearing a gold or silver vest or camisole, under a grey zip-up hoody, with dark jeans or leggings. To get the look, focus on a good leather slouch bag, or even better, a leather backpack which looks properly sporty and consider jogging bottoms worn with heels, ‘sporty’ hairstyles like pig-tails tied with wool, gymnast-style, and neon detailing like earrings and shoe-laces.

Hollister has become synonymous with twilight retailing: and teenagers seem to love buying casual clothing in such dark conditions that they don’t actually know what colour their new garments are until they’ve got them out of the store. According to the Daily Mail, parents are complaining about not being able to see the true colour or the price of what they’re buying, and even of losing track of their teenagers in the store.

The ‘greeters’ whose six packs are on display even if there is snow on the ground are also viewed with suspicion by some parents who feel they are tacky or maybe even that the young men are being exploited.

Even so, the Hollister experience seems to be a popular one, so what can parents learn from it about teenagers and shopping?

1. Casual clothing needs special focus – because teenagers spend most of their time in jeans, joggers, hoodies and trainers, these, not party outfits, are the focus of their attention, and the party atmosphere of Hollister can make them feel they are getting more for their money. To get your teen to shop in less expensive outlets, or even online, arrange for one of their friends to come round, let them play loud music and lay on pizza, snacks and multi-player gaming in between bouts of online clothing browsing. This makes them much more likely to engage with the idea
2. Colours matter – Hollister are coy about the number of returns they receive but it does seem to be the one part of the shopping process that disconcerts teens. Point out that online shopping allows teens to look at all the colours, sizes and options, to do comparison shopping and even to google potential purchases and see reviews on their wearability. This encourages a picky shopper to realise that they can spend as long as they like debating a black T-shirt versus a red one, online but in the shop it gets annoying to family and friends!
3. Feed the senses – Hollister spray perfume around their shop and on their customers to make the experience memorable. Do the same for your teen shoppers by squirting the room with their body spray before they start shopping – believe it or not, psychologists say that a favourite scent can  prejudice us in favour of an experience by up to 46%.

Starting today and running until 30th October 2011, the British Ski and Board show is taking place at the Birmingham NEC. It includes an amazing amount of interactivity, including an indoor skill slope with expert instructors and a climbing challenge on two specially constructed climbwalls with fake ice. There will be a winter film festival, several trick shows and a fashion show too.

If you’re looking for bargains in ski-wear, you can balance fashion with frugality by investing in base clothing that supports winter-sport outerwear without breaking the bank:

1)    Thermal underwear is vital because it transfers moisture out to the next layer of your clothing and keeps your body warm and dry.
2)    Ski socks – like other work socks, have two functions: to keep the feet warm and dry and to protect feet against hard impacts such as knocks and bouncing. The thicker and more padded the better as far as socks are concerned, as long as the socks fit comfortably inside your ski boots.
3)    Fleeces, whether jackets or jumpers, are the second layer of protection after thermal underwear – they need to be lightweight but a tailored fit so that they are snug against the underlayer and don’t bulk up between the thermals and a specialist ski jacket or salopettes.
4)    Ski boots need to be specially designed to work with bindings or boards – getting them specialist fitted at a ski show is a good way to make sure you have boots that work well for you and keep you safe.

A recent show at Imperial College, London offered vanishing dresses (using a blend of polymers that dissolve when exposed to H2O), hoodies that actually clean the air as you walk through it, thus leaving the street cleaner than when you found it, and special underwear that makes you fitter.

Within five years we may see full-body compression underwear that allows even ordinary gym goers to run faster, lift more and punch more strongly. Also on the cards is a sports bra that shapes itself to the wearer, and most interestingly to many women, ‘clever’ undies that use the body’s own heat to generate tiny electrical pulses that activate the muscles so that you become slimmer the more you wear the garment. This technology could also be used in socks to help frequent flyers and those who stand all day, by returning blood to the upper parts of the body, thus reducing the risk of clots, thrombosis and varicose veins.

Photo-catalytic clothing is already being tested. It involves cotton clothing treated with a chemical layer that reacts with light to break up water in the air and create radical molecules that neutralise pollution – fitted into the jogging bottoms of running groups or the jackets of street workers this layer could actually make our cities cleaner and safer at no cost to us.

If you think you’re one of those who looks fantastic in sportswear, JD Sports may be looking for you. They are searching out “real people with real style” to replace their usual models for their next promotional campaign. Using Facebook and an app that allows people to log in, enter themselves, or friends in the contest, and vote on the winners, they will choose a top twenty potential models, who will be whittled down to the final eight winners.

To look good in sports clothing, it’s important to wear items that are properly weather-appropriate. Clothing should keep you warm, but not trap sweat, allow you to move freely and – to look really good – be in colours and styles that make the most of your features.

Consider the winter sports look by layering. A bright-coloured polo-shirt looks great worn under a fleece and allows good arm muscles to be revealed without the goose bumps marring the appearance of the would-be model. Pink, orange and bright green are good colours to wear, although if you have an excellent tan and good teeth, a pure white polo-shirt or T-shirt may give an impression of extra health.

For women, wearing long shorts with trainers is a good move, as this is considered to be one of the hot looks for 2012, so showing how well you can work the look may move you into the shortlisted twenty.

According to Richard Sutcliffe, writing in the Yorkshire Post last week, chat in Sofia city’s bars after the England match covered three topics, the match, the price of beer (dirt cheap!) and ‘the mess the new away shirt looked’ with complaints suggesting the watching fans thought it was ‘more like a polo shirt rather than a team shirt’.

Really?

This came as something of a surprise to me, given that the last time I stood on the terraces (admittedly, back in the days when Alan Shearer had hair) men did not discuss fashion. Even sports fashion.

So I went looking for some evidence of this new discussion subject, and found it almost straight away: Nick Carbone writing in Time magazine points out that the language used to discuss men’s fashion is not very masculine. The idea of a ‘murse’ as seen on the catwalk this year (man+purse = murse) is apparently cringe-making to the average chap.

He also points out that market research group NPD claim that men’s clothing spending rose 4.6% in the first half of 2011, while women’s spending dropped 0.8%.

So it’s a subject of discussion (vocabulary allowing) and a big share of the market, but what are men really focused on?

Clothing that makes them look fit is the key requirement, apparently. Which is why the new football strip was such a disappointment. Each time there’s a new strip, it give the average man a change to wear some new styles without admitting to fashion interest. V-necks for example sell in much greater quantities whenever England are in the World Cup, as it legitimises ordinary men to wear a long-sleeved, v-necked top without feeling embarrassed. Similarly, long socks, snoods, gloves and short shorts all get purchased and worn much more readily when Beckham, Rooney, Ferdinand etc have demonstrated their usefulness on the pitch.

It’s the time of year when teenagers migrate to their new homes: student dorms, digs, shared flats and other accommodation where they will live (and maybe learn) for the next few years.

New students are easy to spot: they arrive laden with possessions and with Mum and Dad in tow – some have packed the family cars to the roof, others have even hired a van to help them move in, but how useful is all that equipment?

This year it seems there are fewer flat screen TVS and smaller cases of new clothing as the recession continues to bite. Vast amounts of new stationery have been purchased though: retailers report good sales although all more towards the ‘essentials’ than the ‘luxury’ end of the market.

In the USA, students (and their parents) are expected to spend $808 on clothing, electronic items and furnishings for their first year of college life in 2011 and Edinburgh University reckons students should budget on spending around £13 a week on clothes.

All students are looking for ways to stretch their budgets and seeking out good deals and saving money on college clothing can help them, and their parents, to make the best of the money available.

Ensuring that a student has a sensible coat and boots that will keep them warm and dry in a climate that may be unfamiliar to them, and summer clothing that can double as simple sportswear all help save money on the long run.

Choose T-shirts that can be worn to the bar or to play a game of football, and polo-shirts that double up for seminar attendance, cinema trips and attending interviews for part-time jobs to boost the budget. Ensuring the student has lots of socks and underwear can really help them save money on laundry (and maybe even mean they don’t save up all their dirty washing to bring home with them) and some parents are buying in bulk so that they can replace stained or shredded T-shirts when those rare visits home occur. It means that they can be sure their child has clothing that coordinates together and is easy to wash and wear.

Don’t let your new student take a printer to college until they’ve investigated the costs of printing on campus – with student union cards, many colleges and academic libraries can print reports and papers more cheaply than the student can.

In a few weeks everybody will be heading back to school: for some it will be the first school day of their lives, for others it’s a familiar routine that still causes stress and hardship, but for all there are simple tips to help prevent the September blues.

Save money

•    Look out for Buy One Get One Free (BOGOF) offers on everything from school stationery through to shoes. Even if you can’t use the supplies in your own family, you can save money by buying with another parent or student and splitting the cost. Uniform clothing can be a real cost, but shopping around delivers real savings. You’d be surprised what you can find: quite a few shoe shops are even offering BOGOF deals on trainers in August so planning ahead can save you quite a bit.
•    Look at the extra-curricular activities you want to do, or your child is interested in, and work out what supplies are needed. Find out if you can buy in bulk for things like art activities, when an order for aprons, paper, paints and so on could be placed on behalf of half a dozen students, leading to free delivery and major discounts on cost.
•    Sort through your wardrobe or the child’s wardrobe and pick out what can be used again; put what is too small through the free small ads in your local paper to try and make a bit of cash, and anything worn out can be taken to a charity shop. This makes room for new clothing and might even raise a little cash to put towards it.

Save time

•    Get hold of the school calendar (often to be found on the school website) and note down all significant dates: first day of term, inset days, parent/teacher days etc. Add them to a family calendar so that you all know when you need to be together for certain events and also when you need to be around to cover days off school. Work out your back-up plan for illness (yours, the teacher’s, that of a child in your care).
•    Plan your morning and afternoon school runs. It can be good to organise a library stop one day a week so the student can use the reference section/internet/borrow books – doing it the same day every week can mean it becomes a habit that means a bit of extra homework/project work gets done without needing to nag or self-motivate.
•    Make a plan for storage: some material that comes home from school needs to be kept as coursework that will be marked at the end of the year; some needs to be kept for sentimental reasons (like those first big paintings that every parent treasures); and some probably has to be quietly jettisoned so that it doesn’t clutter up the house. Having a storage box, a scrap book and other necessary filing organised can mean you don’t have to worry about where the right stuff is months down the line.

Simple plans and money-saving ideas can make returning to school simpler, cheaper and much more fun!

Golf is both a hot topic and big business. Tiger Woods apart, the world seems to be full of talented young golfers and many people want to get into golf.  It can be an expensive hobby though, so here are some tips to help you get started without a massive financial investment.

Golf Essentials

1.    A good set of clubs the right size for you. The absolute minimum is a driver, a putter, at least one iron (7 iron is the best choice if you can only afford one) plus a wood for the fairway. And a bag, of course. Tees and balls are necessary, and a newbie needs a lot more balls (excuse the pun) that a more experienced golfer. A budget choice is cheap or ‘refurbed’ balls, they can usually be purchased at your club and save you a fortune in lost balls as you find your swing.
2.    Easy to wear shoes and clothes. They need to be comfortable and to meet the dress code at whatever club you visit. Remember that if you’re travelling around local clubs to find one that suits you as a base, the dress code may vary. Virtually no clubs allow vests or sleeveless T-shirts, and many privately-owned clubs are much stricter about the rules, some insisting on shirts with full-length sleeves and ‘golf shoes’ rather than trainers or loafers, for example. Polo-shirts work well for nearly all golf clubs.
3.    Accessories. A good hat is really necessary – something that shades your eyes but doesn’t catch your arm on the swing, so nothing with a brim that sticks out sideways from your head. Most people wear some variety of the baseball cap. Gloves are often seen as optional but for beginners they are close to vital, as they improve the grip and protect you from blisters. Remember that sun cream may be necessary but a good water-resistant jacket is more likely to be of long-term value!

You might not know what it is, and we weren’t too sure either, but apparently one of the hottest trends for this autumn and winter is the move from formal to casual at all levels. Stylesight trend forecasters say we’ll all do it. For example, knitted T-shirts are going to be office wear (although we don’t recommend being the first person in your company to try this out in the boardroom!) and leggings will replace trousers when being worn with jackets. Hmmm.

Getting the look

There’s no doubt that certain kinds of sportswear are being tipped for massive success in the next year or so: shorts like a cross between cycle shorts and scuba wear have been on the Hong Kong catwalk – they are like ‘fat pants’ for both men and women and act as compression clothing to completely change the contour of the lower body while, it’s claimed, helping to improve circulation.

Other top tips are polo-shirts in red, which has been seen as the winter’s big colour. Apart from red, most colours will be muted and cool, offering the crimson sportswear as the key item in a wardrobe that will probably mainly feature grey, ice-blue and charcoal.

As companies the size of Wal-Mart rely on Stylesight’s trend-spotting, the forecasting firm must know their business. We’re really not convinced about the knitted T-shirts though …