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Ready to Wear: Katie Price has democratised the most toffee nosed sport of them all

Susannah Frankel
Monday 25 May 2009 00:00 BST
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Put some glamour and sparkle into your riding" says the homepage for the KP Equestrian range. And let's face it, Katie Price – for it is she – is a woman who knows a thing or two about that. Riding horses, that is, thank you very much. Juvenile puns aside, the excitement when a (right royal) blue hunting jacket (oh, alright then, it's a velour hoodie) landed on the fashion desk last week was barely repressible.

Dripping with diamante encrusted hearts and with a big, neigh massive, (also right royal) heart-topped crest stamped right across its back, it is perhaps the most perfectly déclassé riding habit in history. Zip-fronted and with short, puffed sleeves (yes, puffed sleeves) it is designed to be worn not with jodphurs but matching velour hot-pants. (Who needs jodphurs? The next thing you know it'll be back to big skirts and sitting side saddle.) Whatever: rough, not to put too fine a point on it, doesn't cover the heady ensemble in question.

One can only admire the thinking behind it. In one fell swoop, Ms Price has democratised this, the most snooty of sports. Katie Marx.

With this in mind, KP Equestrian is nothing if not a salve to those with a more classic take on the theme. Ralph Lauren has made a career out of flagrant Anglophile tendencies: his dewy-eyed view of the British upper classes has led to perhaps the most successful fashion empire in the world. Then there's Luella Bartley's referencing of aristocratic English country dress. This is a woman, remember, whose catwalk debut was entitled "Daddy I Want A Pony."

None of this touches on Katie Price's new business venture, however. It should come as no great surprise that this is predominantly candy-coloured down to the horsewear itself – in the press pictures the poor creatures are clad in sugary bridles and blankets. As well as aforementioned two piece there is also a belly-baring cropped polo shirt and hot-pant combination (we're not talking Jack Wills here), striped rugby shirts in equally un-macho shades, and T-shirts that are, without exception and entirely obviously, cap-sleeved.

Upon, er, entering kpequestrian.com budding glamour girls – sorry, horsewomen – will be delighted to see Price's own determinedly chirpy thoughts on it all. "So here we are with our second collection. I love it and know you will too!" The tortured creative, struggling for his/her art in a garret she is not. The difference, incidentally, between this and the launch collection aired six months ago, the lady opines with a wisdom that belies her years is that: "it's not just pink".

Move over Vivienne Westwood.

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