Joys Of Modern Life

17. Women's Clothes Shops

THEY'D HAVE called my father a ponce if he'd tried it. I remember once seeing him - 1969, maybe 1970 - flicking through my mother's Vogue. I wondered about him. All his married life he was relegated to the bedroom armchair, to sitting motionless while my mother showed him her latest purchase - sometimes actually wearing it, sometimes merely hangering it in front of herself. He was required to do only one thing; give his approval and admiration.

Thank God for sexual liberation. Now I can accompany Julie on her clothes- buying expeditions. In fact, I have to accompany her. None of us knows what we might look best in.

And there's nothing like the atmosphere in Karen Millen or Whistles or Jigsaw or - when our boat sporadically comes in - Nicole Farhi. You sit there, surrounded by women, the only man, utterly accepted and yet also wonderfully different.

It's like you've been given a day-pass into the harem. Except they can't complain, no one runs screaming for the eunuchs - you're invisible, you're immaterial, you're the licensed observer. And you have the time to observe, the freedom to soak up that exotically hyper-female atmosphere.

And what you see is womankind observing itself, concentrating on itself, readying itself for the cut and thrust of the sexual piste. What could be, for a man, more watchable?

It started with an argument - all the best married habits do. She came home with yet another purchase which may have perfectly matched her own - touchingly warped - self-image and may have had the right label but just did nothing for her. She called my bluff and I had no choice but to go with her next time.

And, yes, the first time, it takes nerve. You know there's nothing wrong with a man standing at the rails, scarping the hangers along, pulling this one out, examining it, putting it back. But you wonder - you can't help it - what is everyone else thinking? But in return, there's the pleasure of a shared decision. We wouldn't buy a new table, a new rug, a new jug, without choosing it together. So clothes seem an inevitable extension. Admittedly, it's all just Getting And Spending, but if you have to get and spend, you might as well make sure you both like it. Why is there a special exemption for clothes? I like looking at her, I like being involved in how she looks.

And it's about closeness. It's about understanding the woman you love. We still argue about whether all clothes, all adornment is ultimately sexually-orientated (my position) or whether there can be an abstract, non-sexual definition of beauty (hers). But, whichever, we both care about what she's wearing and so I intend to be there. Sometimes I even look along the rails she has ignored and find exactly what she was looking for. She says "Why didn't I see that?"

And once she's in the cubicle, you're free to enjoy your resident alien status. You find a chair, a mahogany ledge, a steel shelf, and look around. Other women, passing on their way to the cubicles, look at you, wondering. You look back.

That's why you have to avoid Saturdays. The harem atmosphere relies on languor and quietude, women with time to kill and nothing else to do. A hectic Saturday afternoon on King's Road is a waste of time. Last Tuesday, it was Covent Garden at lunchtime. We were looking for a new coat. She said it had to be grey - this season's black. Unfortunately the blonde- cream was a hundred times sexier. Then my mother walked in. She didn't ask for my opinion.