FASHION / August

August is always a wicked month for fashion. And this summer the fashion for non-fashion means that the most au-courant are wearing clothes that, for once, ordinary people also wear (and don't think of as fashion). The message, so far as it goes, has been one of ethnic mix - the last vestiges of grunge played out in a meeting of the second-hand with the exotic and the chain-store. So devore velvet from Jasper Conran meets French Connection; Idonesian batik meets Monsoon; the best of the cheap separates labels mixed with something a little more exquisite. Flip- flops, those summer staples, are the fashionable footwear of choice. But things won't be relaxed for much longer. It's almost autumn, and change is in the air.