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appreciated form of transport. Love them.
    Pedicure feet at least once a month. You should also have a friendly local chiropodist, for a six-monthly, degree-trained MOT. If you don’t have time to go to a professional, which can be claimed as ‘grooming’ or ‘therapy’, learn to DIY.
    First remove any old nail polish. Soak feet in a basin of warm water, ideally for as long as it takes to drink a cup of tea.
    Clip and file toenails straight .
    Push back toe cuticles. They should be soft after soaking but if not use a cuticle moisturiser.
    Use a loofah or pumice stone to smooth any hard skin.
    Separate your toes. Do this by folding a tissue longways and twisting in and out between each toe, or use a special pedicure foam separator, if you want to be flashy.
    Apply clear base coat, and allow to dry. Usually takes the equivalent of one CD track. This is the perfect foundation so don’t skip this stage.
    Apply polish, twice for deeper colours, and tidy with a cotton bud dipped in nail varnish remover to wipe away any stray blips or mistakes.
    Allow polish to dry thoroughly. This takes longer, allow three tracks of a CD to be sure.
    Apply clear topcoat. Leave shoes off, or wear open-toed sandals for at least an hour to ensure they are really dry. Shroud them too soon and you risk messing up all your handiwork.
    While you have all the products to hand it’d be silly not to do a manicure too. Matching fresh nail colour is essential. There is no point angling for a diamond ring if you don’t have nice, well-groomed, kissable hands. Therefore it is only sensible to paint them, and prime them, to their best advantage. Try to avoid painting finger tops as well as tips; for this reason it is best to get dark colours professionally applied. But remember the longer they are the less easy it is to type or write, amongst other necessary functioning skills.
    Nail varnish should be stored in the fridge. It makes it easier to apply and the varnish glides on thicker and smoother in fewer coats. It also adds a dash of decadence to your dairy product section.

    A quick word on colours and their associations
    Red is dangerous, vampy, sex siren. Think Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor.
    Rouge Noir is vamp with a twist. Plum and poisonous. Immortalised by Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction .
    Pink is girly, dainty, pretty and sweet. Grace Kelly.
    Clear suggests a good girl and hard worker. Perhaps a little safe. Audrey Hepburn and Carolyn Besette Kennedy spring to mind here.
    Nude/cream means you’re high maintenance, well groomed and know a good manicurist.
    French Manicure is when tips are white and a clear gloss is run over the tops. Super high maintenance, control freak, and, more often than not, American. But don’t knock it till you try it, and as for on the toes . . .
    Fashion colours, glitters, blacks, blues are fine if you are on the runway or fifteen years old. But unacceptable otherwise.

    How to cope with chipped nails
    Chipped nails are far from ideal, but it does happen. That’s life.
    If wearing deep plum or red always carry a bottle of the matching shade in your bag for emergency cover-ups.
    File your nails while you assess the damage. A nail file should always be close to hand, whatever the length of your nails. Think: do you add more of the same colour? Take it all off? Or can you afford to splash out and grab a cab to the nearest manicurist?
    Sometimes it can be easier to add than subtract. Add a fresh layer of varnish to dark colours rather than wipe it off. Softer shades last longer and are more chip proof because errors show less.
    A slight chip is excusable (for half a day till you reunite with the bottle of polish). A chipped nail on your way out is not.
    In addition to a nail file, always have nail varnish remover in your desk, your bathroom, your location.
    Red, Rouge Noir, and glitter varnishes are hard to remove, and require patience.

    How to understand your silhouette
    ‘In my day hot pants were something we had, not