Deborah Ross: Do you have enough of the white stuff?

If you ask me...

If you ask me, the information that "white is the new black" – it started, apparently, with Pippa and Kate "wowing" us in their wedding frocks, and then proceeded with "white gowns dominating the red carpet at Cannes" – may be the most tiring news of the season. Who can wear white dresses? Who? You?

To ascertain if this is so, you may wish to take the Ross White Dress Practicality Test, which I only thought up a minute ago but is already the standard in the industry, and will settle the matter once and for all. If you answer "no" to any of the 10 questions below then white is not for you, never has been and never will be:

1. Am I Kate or Pippa or Jane Fonda or Penelope Cruz or Uma Thurman or Rihanna?

2. Am I so stupendously rich that I have a liveried manservant whose sole job is to scurry around dry-cleaners all day with those little tickets that are so easy to lose?

3. Do I have anything even approaching the right "nude" underwear (or is the nearest I have to nude "black")?

4. When I laugh hard – on seeing someone run for a bus and miss it, for example, or fall over in the street – can I honestly say I have never snorted a beverage out my nose?

5. Have I never dropped fag ash down myself and made it worse while trying to rub it off, or dribbled tomato soup, or sneezed into a cappuccino?

6. Can I guarantee that jam-smeared toddlers or muddy-pawed dogs are absolutely no danger to me?

7. Have I mastered the exceedingly fine art of pulling clothes over my head and not getting make-up all over them?

8. Do I look at The White Company catalogue and think: I wish there was an Off-White Company so I could start as I mean to go on?

9. Have I ever got so drunk I've ended up rolling in a gutter, singing Abba's greatest hits?

10. Do I have a smoking hot ass?

This is the Ross White Practicality Test, which is only in its second minute, but still remains the industry standard. It is a good and reliable test and if you have just failed it, it is probably because you have a proper life with children and pets and laughter and booze and dirt in it. You should be ashamed of yourself.*

*Alas, the Ross Shame Test is still in development, but give me seven seconds ...