He is not the only designer to use lace this spring – but his modern take defies expectations, says Susannah Frankel

Model: Alicia at Ford

The Guidebook

Insight Guides' Select series has four new editions: Marrakech, Paris, Chicago and Shanghai, all bound in patterned linen. £9.99 each.

Go to Insightguides.com

A cape created from golden silk spun by more than a million spiders is going on display this week.

What we love, we're not sure about, we're buying and can't wait for

Wool is the latest commodity that has shot through the roof. Thanks to tropical storms in Australia (which have disrupted production) and rising demand in China, the global price of the material, harvested from the backs of sheep, has doubled. This is expected to lead to a 10 per cent increase in the typical price of a man's suit. So expect a jump in popularity for linen ensembles. And other cheaper materials will get a boost too as the laws of supply and demand do their work.

With a thump, a thick tome lands on my desk: it is the Provisional Atlas of the UK's Larger Moths. Two adjectives in that title, provisional and larger, may well deter some people as they give off a definite whiff of nerdiness, but having by now been infected with the nerd germ I am immune to such concerns, open the volume eagerly and at once find myself immersed in the world of the oblique carpet, the dark spinach, the smoky wainscot, the brindled pug, the snout, the beautiful snout, the Bloxworth snout and the true lover's knot.

Add a touch of Sixties rock-star glamour to your wardrobe with this winter's warmest accessories...

Click on the image to launch our guide

Writing under the pseudonym Frances Brody, best-selling novelist Frances McNeil debuts with her first crime novel, a retro-mystery set in 1920s West Yorkshire.

By William Shakespeare

AFTER THE pashmina came the woolly scarf (yawn!). After the woolly scarf came - and this is the new bit - brightly coloured silk squares! A timely exhibition, if you're thinking of decking yourself out in the latest neck adornments, comes courtesy of Hermes, the haute-bourgeois company and unparalleled producer, among other luxury desirables, of deliciously coloured silk squares.

When the days are so short and summer seems a long way off, what better way to stay cosy at night than to snuggle up in a pair of cotton pyjamas from Toast, or some slinky silk PJs from Bonsoir of London? The word pyjama stems from the Hindi word paejama, meaning "leg covering", and men first started wearing them around 1870, after the returning colonials brought them back from the East.

A thick underlay will help protect a carpet by absorbing some of the wear. Buy the best you can afford - preferably rubber crumb or felt. It is almost more important for the underlay to be fitted professionally than the carpet, because any gaps will cause uneven wear in the carpet.

THE HISTORY OF... LACE