1. Dress watch

Britain won gold, silver, and bronze on a sail-off today at the world championships for all 10 Olympic classes, but there was a great big gap on the race course off Fremantle.

Shares in the Italian fashion house Prada opened only 0.25 per cent higher on its trading debut in Hong Kong yesterday, amid waning investor interest in initial public offerings and volatile global stock markets.

Italian fashion house Prada has made it down the stock-market catwalk at its fifth attempt – but only after cutting the price of its listing by a fifth at the last minute.

Prada's £1.6bn Hong Kong initial public offering is five times subscribed.

A $2.6bn flotation will strengthen the Italian brand's position at the top of the style tree. Susannah Frankel reports

Two British champions were at the bookends of the 11-boat fleet contesting the second Extreme Sailing Series of the season in Qingdao, China.

A pre-collections trip to Bond Street is part of every self-respecting British fashion editor's agenda. However much we may already have in our wardrobes, the (debatably ridiculous) anxiety surrounding our own appearance on the eve of the twice-yearly women's ready-to-wear shows is comparable to the sleepless nights of yesteryear at the start of a new school term. And so I find myself in Prada and Jil Sander and witnessing first-hand the veritable explosion of colour, six months after it was first shown on the catwalk, and a dazzling reality by now. (Consider these edited highlights. I won't bore you with peripheral hosiery shopping, for example, here.)

The forthcoming book Fifty Bags That Changed the World recalls the sensation that the Queen's style caused on a visit to Italy in 2000. La Repubblica ran a front-page story entitled "Ode to the Queen's Handbag". "There it is", the article gushed, "that disturbing object, firmly attached to her left forearm. The secret of her regality is in that little royal but oh so ordinary accessory."

While the very idea of "intellectual" fashion is likely to bring out an even a half-intelligent woman in hives, there are certain industry heavyweights who regularly come up with designs that provoke a certain amount of thought at least.