Kawaii, or a love of the adorable, is huge in Japan – and it’s big here too. Bless, says Will Coldwell

i Newspaper
 
TheIPaper
The Independent around the web
E-break Time
Independent Crossword

Profile: Agyness deyn

Another magazine cover?

No, the peroxide model's latest endeavour will see her make her stage acting debut in February next year. She'll play a "promiscuous" young woman who's invited to dinner by a yuppie couple in François Archambault's comedy The Leisure Society.

Cooper Brown: Kids

Had a very pleasurable three minutes talking to Claudia Schiffer outside the school gates. She actually asked me where I lived.

Cooper Brown: Horny Guys

I’m back in town. I have become quite a “man of the moment”after my diary on Monday about chicks. I have been asked to go on Loose Women, a TV show where five angry old chicks ritually humiliate younger men guests. I told them that I didn’t want to be on the show and they laid into me and called me “gutless.”

David Hart: Flamboyant banking heir who made his name as Thatcher’s political fixer during the 1980s miners’ strike

David Hart, the Thatcherite banking heir, was a property magnate, defence industry lobbyist who came to prominence as the scourge of Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Miners during the strike of 1984-85.

Rimmel is given a lashing over claims in mascara advert

Mick Jagger's daughter has become the latest face of a misleading beauty campaign. British brand Rimmel exaggerated the benefits of a mascara by pinning false eyelashes on Georgia May Jagger, the singer's daughter by Jerry Hall, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled today.

Kylie Minogue fronts breast cancer campaign

Kylie Minogue is fronting a breast cancer charity campaign for the first time following her own successful battle with the disease.

Naomi Campbell wins Elle Style outstanding contribution award

Supermodel Naomi Campbell scooped the Outstanding Contribution award at the Elle Style awards last night.

In bed with the stars

It's no wonder that the new Anglo-Indian lifestyle boutique Lulu and Nat is charming celebrities like Claudia Schiffer and Keira Knightley, says Annie Deakin

Claudia Schiffer: 'It's only on a shoot that I become sexy'

in an age where airbrushing rules supreme, we no longer expect celebrities to actually look like their magazine or screen images. It comes as a strangely reassuring sort of surprise then, when Claudia Schiffer looks, well, just like Claudia Schiffer. For a start, she is so tall that tilting my head to look upwards at her face feels like staring up at one of her billboards. Then there is her skin: taut, unlined, and as creamy and pale as a panna cotta. Her cheekbones are arched and cat-like, her eyes a bright ice-blue. Her long, thick blonde hair is straight out of a Timotei advert – it's the kind of thick, shiny mane that men want to tousle, and schoolgirls want to plait.

The Fashion Audit 09/02/09

We love Topshop's EDIT

Jean Muir: a fashion icon, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh

When dressmaking was 'painting in cashmere'

Murray makes new management move

Andy Murray has joined David Beckham, the Spice Girls and Claudia Schiffer by signing for Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment management company.

Parties: In fashion fantasyland

A menagerie of animal sculptures and a cartoon-like television housing a DJ booth are not what one might expect to find in a church, but set designer Shona Heath's transformation of Sir John Soanes's Holy Trinity in Marylebone on 3 November made for a suitably surreal setting for Vogue and fine-jeweller Van Cleef & Arples' "Fantastic Fashion Fantasy" party.

Fashion: Sell high, buy low?

Political upheavals and economic woes may come and go, but our fascination with the vagaries of female footwear reigns eternal. Last month, an announcement by shoe designer extraordinaire Christian Louboutin, in which he unveiled his dastardly plan to unleash a pair of eight-inch stilettos on the world, led the fashion press to declare that heels, and women's irrational love of them, are set to reach new heights this season.

Career Services

Day In a Page

Independent Travel Shop See all offers »
Berlin - East meets West
Three nights from only £399pp Find out more
Europe’s finest river cruises
Four nights from £669pp, seven nights from £999pp or 13 nights from £2,199pp Find out more
Historic Sicily
Seven nights half-board from only £799pp Find out more
Lake Como and the Bernina Express
Seven nights half-board from only £749pp Find out more
Pompeii, Capri and the Bay of Naples
Seven nights half-board from only £719pp Find out more
Special report: How my father's face turned up in Robert Capa's lost suitcase

Special report: How my father's face turned up in Robert Capa's lost suitcase

The great war photographer was not one person but two. Their pictures of Spain's civil war, lost for decades, tell a heroic tale
The unmade speech: An alternative draft of history

The unmade speech: An alternative draft of history

Someone, somewhere has to write speeches for world leaders to deliver in the event of disaster. They offer a chilling hint at what could have been
Funny business: Meet the women running comedy

Funny business: Meet the women running comedy

Think comedy’s a man's world? You must be stuck in the 1980s, says Holly Williams
Wilko Johnson: 'You have to live for the minute you're in'

Wilko Johnson: 'You have to live for the minute you're in'

The Dr Feelgood guitarist talks frankly about his terminal illness
Lure of the jingle: Entrepreneurs are giving vintage ice-cream vans a new lease of life

Lure of the jingle

Entrepreneurs are giving vintage ice-cream vans a new lease of life
Who stole the people's own culture?

DJ Taylor: Who stole the people's own culture?

True popular art drives up from the streets, but the commercial world wastes no time in cashing in
Guest List: The IoS Literary Editor suggests some books for your summer holiday

Guest List: IoS Literary Editor suggests some books for your summer holiday

Before you stuff your luggage with this year's Man Booker longlist titles, the case for some varied poolside reading alternatives
What if Edward Snowden had stayed to fight his corner?

Rupert Cornwell: What if Edward Snowden had stayed to fight his corner?

The CIA whistleblower struck a blow for us all, but his 1970s predecessor showed how to win
'A man walks into a bar': Comedian Seann Walsh on the dangers of mixing alcohol and stand-up

Comedian Seann Walsh on alcohol and stand-up

Comedy and booze go together, says Walsh. The trouble is stopping at just the one. So when do the hangovers stop being funny?
From Edinburgh to Hollywood (via the Home Counties): 10 comedic talents blowing up big

Edinburgh to Hollywood: 10 comedic talents blowing up big

Hugh Montgomery profiles the faces to watch, from the sitcom star to the surrealist
'Hello. I have cancer': When comedian Tig Notaro discovered she had a tumour she decided the show must go on

Comedian Tig Notaro: 'Hello. I have cancer'

When Notaro discovered she had a tumour she decided the show must go on
They think it's all ova: Bill Granger's Asia-influenced egg recipes

Bill Granger's Asia-influenced egg recipes

Our chef made his name cooking eggs, but he’s never stopped looking for new ways to serve them
The world wakes up to golf's female big hitters

The world wakes up to golf's female big hitters

With its own Tiger Woods - South Korea's Inbee Park - the women's game has a growing audience
10 athletes ready to take the world by storm in Moscow next week

10 athletes ready to take the world by storm in Moscow next week

Here are the potential stars of the World Championships which begin on Saturday
The Last Word: Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale's art of manipulation

The Last Word: Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale's art of manipulation

Briefings are off the record leading to transfer speculation which is merely a means to an end