The Liner, The Clutch and The Wardrobe

Beauty has so far been bold at this week's couture shows, and John Paul Gaultier's Autumn/Winter show was no different.

Models wore their hair piled high, but what was most striking were their vibrant red lips. Bright colours have been huge this Spring /Summer, so just-bitten, cherry red makes the transition to Autumn perfectly.

The key to getting this look right is to use a good quality, highly pigmented red lipstick, and to line lips especially carefully to create a cleanly framed pout. Chanel's Le Crayon Levres in Roux gives a perfectly precise finish and comes with a handy brush to help blend the colour into your lips. When it comes to a good red lipstick, I have never found anything better than MAC's Russian Red, which provides incredibly intense, long lasting colour without drying out your lips.

While the Credit Crunch may be taking its toll on the actual collections at the couture shows this week, bad economy doesn't need to have an effect on beauty. The pieces shown at Chanel were perhaps a little more subdued than we are used to at a couture show but the hair and make up was really up to standard. Models wore sleek, helmet-like bobs, and sexy smoky eyes, both of which created a dramatic and glamorous look.

The presence of these styles at the Chanel show is further confirmation that we can expect beauty looks this Autumn that are far more striking than the whimsical, loose plaited, rosy cheeked look we have all been embracing this summer.

MAC's new Cult of Cherry collection with its deep, earthy tones, will be perfect for creating a gorgeous smoky eye look with a touch of colour. Similarly, the rich chocolate tones of the Nars Autumn/Winter collection will allow you to embrace the sultry eyed look with a little more subtlety for daytime.

Kanye West may be a huge star in the music world, but he managed to enjoy relative obscurity at the Dior Homme show in Paris yesterday as all the paps were busy mobbing Karl Lagerfeld.

The presence of Chanel's creative director at a Paris fashion show may seem as obvious as fish and chips on a pier, but according to Hadley Freeman, his attendance caused such furor amongst the press as it marks a step up for the flagging Dior Homme. The label which has in the past had somewhat 'flashy' associations, has developed a slightly cooler air, thus attracting the likes of Kanye and Karl.

Quite frankly though, if the Kaiser cares, we care, even if menswear is nowhere near as exciting as womenswear!

Being super stylish comes with a certain nonchalant air, but that doesn't mean you should negelct your safety. That's the message being bandied around in a new French road safety campaign anyway, featuring none other than the style master himself, Count Von Lagerfeld.

The poster reads 'It's yellow, it's ugly, it doesn't go with anything, but it could save your life'.

Good on you Kaiser Karl for reminding us to remember our green cross codes, no matter how chic we are! I hope you remember to wear one of these bad boys when riding your Chanel bike!

It was annouced this week that Chanel have added some interesting pieces to their sports equipment line, including a boomerang (!), a fishing rod, and this rather delightful tennis racket. Now I am not one for playing sport, in fact the most exercise I have done recently probably involved a mad dash to a tray of Champagne, but for this baby, I'd hotfoot it down to my nearest tennis court before you could say Anna Kournikova!

Apparently it is made of lightweight fibres, and high quality string, but who cares about any of that when it is boldly emblazoned with the iconic double C and a classic Chanel rose, it's not like you'd actually play tennis with it anyway! This is a racket for posing by the side of a court with a glass of Pimm's, which is far more my kind of sport anyway. I can see VB holding one whilst wearing her oh-so-practical wedge trainers!

The new Chanel sports equipment will be available to ladies who lunch in Chanel stores worldwide soon.