High-waisted pants will always be a great divider. Like the spreadable yeast extract of the top drawer (I am sorry for saying ‘yeast’ there), you either appreciate the sultry, structured charms of the high-waisted silhouette… or you just don’t.

“I think it’s creepy when I can’t see your bellybutton,” my boyfriend admits. “It’s like, you might not even have one.”  Which is discriminating against the navel-less, for a start, and also futile because I don’t care a fig – I love big pants. I love their comforting hold-you-in-ness, I love the way they never disappear into places and require hoiking out again behind a post box, and I love the way they admiringly trace the whole shape of my hips, rather than cutting them off in the middle.

Once you’ve gone high-waisted, it’s hard to go back. Which is why I’m also thankful that this season, swimwear designers aren’t skimping on the fabric either. There are high-waisted bikinis to be had all over the high street, and they’re not all the same tired retro knock-offs – there are tribal, tropical, neons and animal prints to add to my bobbling collection of polka dot lycra, plus some seriously great structured bikini tops to go with them.

Sorry, bellybutton. Maybe next year.

Tropical bikini, £32 Urban Outfitters

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In stores early June

In my life I have so far had two “signature scents.” Not rich person, custom designed signature scents, of course; that’d be cray, but perfumes I Quite Liked and bought multiple times.

Signature Scent the First

Janina effectively had no nose. But her spidey sense told her Provocative Woman was the one…

When a girl first realises there are smell options other than Impulse body spray there is just one place she turns: The Body Shop. For the portion of my teenage years in which I thought I was a grown up, I was committed to their Dewberry fragrance. It was the name that first caught me. I didn’t realise dewberries were an actual kind of berry and, firmly convince that it was a whimsically made up name, I loved the combination of the most delicious of all the fruit categories and a natural phenomenon that, although it’s a pain in the arse in real life, is romantic in imagination.

When they discontinued the line, amid dark rumours of animal testing, I was sure would never find anything to replace it. I would be forever destined to just smell like a human.

Signature Scent the Second

My second favourite fragrance (chronologically speaking) was altogether more difficult to discover.

I was heading to Australia with my family and we had big plans to go to a bargain perfume shop, a thing unheard of in little Christchurch.

The first sign of trouble was on the flight over. My ears popped to the degree of excruciating pain, a sure sign of sinus issues. Within few hours I was in the grips of the most violent cold ever to rock my feeble human body.

We delayed our shopping trip day after day, waiting for my nose to unblock, until we were a mere twelve hours from our taxi ride to the airport and home.

“It’s fine,” I said. “We’ll still go, I just won’t get anything this time,” but I was overruled. We would triumph, it was decided.

So I sat in the middle of the shop while my mother (something in Elizabeth Arden) and sister (that Calvin Klein one Scarlett Johansson advertises in The Island) waved little strips of cardboard at me trying to describe what they smelt like and why they suited me.

Eventually we settled on Provocative Woman. Fortunately when my cold abated, I was a fan. All that’s left to regret is that I finished my last bottle before I met the man I now habitually provoke.

Follow Janina on Twitter @J9lf

Here’s our top 10 items channeling the 60s look.

Pencil Skirt in Retro Daisy Print £32

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Made from a cotton stretch fabric, high fitted waist skirt featuring retro daisy print. Tailored darts and kick split to hem. Asos

You don’t get a lot of Laurens in fashion. Lauren Bacall was pretty much flying the flag for stylish Laurens by herself for several decades, before Lauren Hutton joined the cause in the ’70s and Laurens Goodger and Conran (they’re probably friends, right?) took up the torch in recent years. But on the whole, Laurens don’t have a whole lot of representation out there – even with Lauren Bush Lauren nobly taking taking husband Dylan’s surname to raise awareness twice over. Of course, myself and all the other Laurens in the world held our breath for her to go the whole hog and just be ‘Lauren Lauren’, but you can’t have everything.

Anyway, this is all by way of introducing our latest Sleeves of the Week, which is this frankly awesome frock by People Tree. It also happens to be called ‘Lauren’. With my wonderful co-editor Daisy Buchanan never more in vogue thanks to The Great Gatsby, it seemed fortuitous that the loveliest dress in my inbox this week also has my name. BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT.

If you haven’t yet discovered People Tree, it’s definitely time to. The “pioneers of sustainable and fair trade fashion,” they’ve been making clothes in partnership with farmers and artisans in the developing world for over 20 years. Everything’s made with fabrics and methods that bare minimal environmental impact – and they’ll have maximum impact on your wardrobe because the designs are damned nice too.

This jersey number has my second favourite sleeves, bracelet-length (balloon sleeves are my first favourite) and a beautifully flattering fit in a print that manages to be both fresh and springlike, but also suitable for the steeliest of grey-skied days. It’s also got that rarest of things, a high-but-not-too-high neckline that won’t squash your boobs into an unfortunate lump.

Basically, it would almost be unethical for you NOT to buy it… but then, I would say that. It’s a Lauren thing.

£55, littlewoods.com

There’s a thing in fashion, and actually in lots of other things such as water features and Mr Whippy cones, known as the ‘trickle down effect’.

Most people will tell you this is the process by which trends work their way from the catwalk down through the rungs of the fash ladder until they reach the high street, the market stall and eventually the bargain bin. But I prefer to think of it as the process by which the powers that be decide on the next big thing, and then we steadfastly ignore it for five years until we’re ready to accept it into our wardrobes and lives.

Midi skirts, for example, were pushed doggedly season after season, while we all stuck our fingers in our ears and sung “la-la-la-la-la” like an obnoxious toddler, our thighs still in chilly minis until 2011. At least they finally got their moment in the sun, though – wide-legged jeans have been supposedly ‘on their way back’ for almost a decade now, peering through the windows like an uninvited loner at the skinny party, and they’re still showing no sign of getting an invite.

So it’s in light of all this, and with a big whoop of much joy on behalf of my bunions, that I tell you stupid heels are finally going. BUH-BYE, bizzarro-stilts! So long, pain trotters! When even Victoria Beckham – the woman for whom being eight months pregnant in Westminster Abbey called for a pair of brutal six-inch stillies – is proudly showing off her flat Church’s boots on Twitter, we can confidently call time on the reign of the Ridicu-Shoe.

And ohhh, what a tedious reign it has been. Excellent for Compeed and gin distilleries, less successful for feet and female moral. What looked edgy and daring in about 2007 has now become the hallmark of the identikit, hobbling lady on every high street from here to John O-Groates. I’d like to present a graph showing the inverse relationship between average heel heights and the number of us chasing down criminals in the street to perform a citizens arrest, but I’ve been too distracted by my throbbing toes to collect the data.

Of course I’d like to stress firmly here that I am not anti-heel. No siree. I’m not heelist, or indeed heelphobic. Some of my best friends are heels. I’ve worn heels in the snow; heels on the beach. I’m the patient who once held up a trip to A&E because I didn’t want to arrive in flats.

Millie sandals, £129 Hobbs

But there is a big difference between the sexy, percussive stride of a really great heel and the debilitating totter of a ridicu-shoe.  For if a shoe fails to do its one, basic function – being a thing you put your foot in and walk on – then it’s not really a shoe. It’s like buying a cup with a hole in it, or a house with no roof. It’s little better than the £400 Louboutin equivalent of those yellow buckets from the Early Learning Centre we used to hold on our feet with string.

But the perfect heel is a rare and wonderful thing – and of course, different for every wearer. For some, it’s one you can dine in, dance in, then march to the kebab shop in; for others, one you can run for the bus in without any fear of stacking it down Kingsland Road (I still have the bruises); for some it’s the barely-there elevation of a half-inch pump, for others a stomper with a whacking great platform.

Personally I’ve always been obsessed with two-inchers. Not mimsy kittens, but sturdy, elegant mid-height heels with a good amount of clop that make your calves look really great. T-bars, Mary-Janes, that sort of thing. On top of a good pair of two-inches I feel powerful and important, like having my own little stage.

Molly T-bar shoes, £35 Topshop

And then of course there are the flats, which finally trickled down and are now set to woosh like a lovely, soothing river into our wardrobes. Brogues have lasted the distance and been rewarded with every colour, fabric and finish under the sun, while jazz shoes, plimsolls, moccasins, proper sporty trainers and Jesus sandals are all still loafing about to help see us merrily through summer.

Just think of all the things we’ll be able to do, now that we don’t have to do it on ridicu-shoes! Maybe we’ll start running for buses when we don’t even NEED to. Maybe we’ll start running, generally. Maybe we’ll just dance harder, faster and longer, then march to the kebab shop without ever having to make foot-pavement content. Maybe giant heels will start looking edgy and daring again, rather than just default.

I wouldn’t hold my breath on the wide-legged jeans though, if I were you.

Dr Brandt CC Mat, £34, available exclusively from Feelunique.com

But when I calm down, take a deep breath and stop riffing on Daisy Steiner’s Ode To A VCR, I realise some stuff is invented to make our routines simpler, not more complicated. And so it is with Dr Brandt CC cream. I do like a BB cream, but they can be a little lightweight for me. (For what it’s worth, esteemed coeditor Lauren Bravo swears by nothing but BB cream and a little powder, and she has skin like a duchesses’ freshly plumped peach satin pillow case.) Dr Brandt was the CC cream pioneer - stop laughing, that’s a thing! – and invented an all in one, oil free, mattifying formula created to even out your skin tone, so you can look as smooth and evenly toned as someone in an advertisement.

The cream feels quite heavy – hardcore BB fans might be alarmed by this, but I loved the fullness of the coverage – it was reassuringly textured, like an enevelope full of birthday money. And as well as instantly mattifying your skin, the formula reduces oil production over time, so you’re investing in future non-shininess. (Obviously we are PRO Shinyness – but no-one likes face shininess). It’s perfect for summer as it has an SPF of 30, and it has staying power – you could probably wear it during Bikram and it wouldn’t slide off your face.

Chantecaille Bio Lift Concealer

Chantecaille’s Bio Lift concealer (£57, Space NK) protects your skin and moisturises, concealing wrinkles and stopping them in their tracks as it contains the alluringly named botanical Squalane. I’m beginning to notice the very first signs of ageing (I’m in my late twenties, but I’m a giggler, a grimacer and a face scruncher) and the area around my eyes definitely looks a little smoother and more polished, giving me the expression of someone who rarely raises her voice and eats a lot of kale.

But the best bit is the way it makes your eyes pop. Like many ladies I’m a long time Touche fiend (even though the YSL people rejected my marketing slogan “It’s like Tippex for the face!”) and like many people I’ve talked to, Touche kind of stopped working for me. It was as if my skin decided it was cheating and decided to stop playing ball. But, perhaps because the Bio Lift is good for your skin, my under eye area has really taken to it. It lights up my eyes like the insane recessed, reclaimed Venetian glass bulbs lit up that kitchen in Grand Designs the other night. The one where the people in it were so posh that they didn’t have to live in a caravan when their house was being built. That’s what fifty quid concealer does.

This is why we wear perfume. Everything else we put on our bodies might give a very cerebral message about our lives – an astronaut’s helmet here, a “world pie eating championships” sweater there – but perfume is pure sex and sensation. Never try to smell “like a meadow” when you could smell “like having it off in a meadow”. Scents react differently to everyone’s skin, and a really awesome fragrance will only warm and enhance the pure animal musk coming out of your pores – isn’t that the most carnal thing you ever heard?

But how, I hear you ask (which is odd because I have very poor hearing), how will I know that the people smelling me will be thinking ‘sex in a meadow’ and not ‘used condom thrown in a field’? Because if a perfume is doing its job, it will make you want to have sex with yourself. If you get a waft of something lovely on your shoulder and immediately have to throw your coat over your lap for some crafty self sufficient time, you’ve got a good thing going. Making strangers crave you is a hollow and meaningless exercise if you’re not already engorged with desire for your own genitals.

Here are some fragrances that will make you want to throw your knickers out of the window and lock your bedroom door for a week:

Marc Jacobs Femme

Marc Jacobs Femme

This is the one to put on when you’re wearing nothing but white broderie anglaise, and you’re at the mercy of someone else’s wandering hands in a verdant, deserted park. This smells like cool cotton sheets on sunburn and kissing that went too far. This is what Nicole in Tender Is The Night would have worn during her affair with Tommy. It’s the gardenia. Gardenia is what good girls smell like the moment before they fall.

Hermes Kelly Caleche

Hermès Kelly Calèche

It’s the scent of a girl on girl teen MILF porn trope, albeit one with very high production values. There’s a powdery hardness to it – it’s all a bit gilt and marble, ‘do me in the Trump Tower’, but when it stops just sitting on your skin and yields to it, there’s a sensory rainstorm. You might smell it on your best friend’s mum’s scarf as you lean in to kiss her cheek, and then spend the rest of the day squirming with guilty, horny confusion.

Versace Bright Crystal

I suspect this is what Marissa Cooper was wearing when she lost her virginity to Luke in The O.C. You know, before she went massively emo and probably started wearing something manly from Creed, or motor oil. It’s joyfully, trashily, irresponsibly adolescent, sparkling and smouldering simultaneously. If you’re giving your first blow job at your boyfriend’s parents’ beach house, spritz some on your hairband before you tie your ponytail. Use your Jersey trust fund dollars for multiple bottles you can keep in your car, bag and any bedrooms you wind up in.

Thierry Mugler Angel

Thierry Mugler Angel

This is an odd one. On me, it smells like a Magic Tree that has been hidden in an old trainer for reasons that probably seemed sensible at the time. But on some ladies, it’s a superpower. A force of nature.

During my first term at university, I befriended a girl called Alison. I thought we’d be pals because we both had our Reading wristbands on, and she decided I was a good prospect because I was carrying a bad pink Dior handbag. (I was wearing Pink Crystal at the time). Alison had attended a very minor public school and thought she was posh, and inexplicably spoke in a high pitched fake Australian accent. Despite claiming a connection with the Rothschilds, she had the most suburban highlights I’ve ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on. Anyway, after about three days of misery I decided to distance myself from this whiny, human chihuahua, but bumped into her at a social event and ended up snogging her. All night. (I’m pretty much straight, and I wasn’t doing it to impress any boys – we were locked in a cleaning cupboard.) She was wearing Angel, and it was as potent as LSD laced MDMA. It made her irresistibly fanciable. If this one works on you, it could be someone else’s Kryptonite.

Ever since the first cave lady crushed up a beetle and rubbed it on her face before a trip to the nearest water hole, we’ve used cosmetics to try and make people kiss us. Iodine, pearlescent fish scales, beeswax… and their eventual evolutionary zenith, Bonne Bell lip gloss.

Because, as a 14-year-old at an all-girls’ school, the logic went something like this: everybody likes cake. I will make my face smell like cake. Boys will then want to kiss my face. It was foolproof.

And easier, trendier and greasier than spending all day with my head in a packet of Mr Kipling was the American Bonne Bell and their wonderfully American range of glitter-crusted, dessert-themed, soda-infused lip lubes, all guaranteed to leave your hair stuck to your face in a breeze.

Occupying a wonderful space on the venn diagram of cosmetics between ‘pretty’ and ‘pudding’, they were plenty cheap enough to buy in bulk from Superdrug, but still had a gloopy novelty that left Carmex and Vaseline in the shade. Among my favourites were cherry cola Lip Smacker, birthday cake lip ‘frosting’ and chocolate fudge sundae swirl gloss. Did I mention it was American?

For more or less the whole of year nine, Bonne Bell was our currency. We swapped them, gifted them, kept them in sticky piles in our pencil cases. So prolific was our collection that we would take them out during English lessons and line them up along the whole length of the desks, firmly convinced that understanding Tess of the D’Urbervilles wouldn’t serve us nearly as well in life as smelling like the cheesecake rotisserie in a Wimpy bar.

Of course, for more or less the whole of year nine we also waited patiently for the queue of suitors to arrive, Pied Piper of Hamelin-style, in a cloud of leather thong necklaces and Lynx Africa. They never did.

But now, when I want to make my face smell of cake, I generally just eat some cake. And I do it for ME.

Ahh, the cover-up. A far less exciting term when it’s applied to clothes than to TV murder cases, cover ups are the maiden aunt of summer fashion – cumbersome and not much fun, but if you don’t invite them to the party you know it’ll end in the cold shoulder.

When the vast majority of all spring/summer frocks are frustratingly sans sleeve, the cover-up suddenly becomes your goosepimpled arms’ only refuge post-6pm. Or, let’s face it, anytime after the flush of your morning dash-about has cooled and you’ve remembered it’s only actually hot enough for bare arms in the UK about 3.5 days a year, half of which you’ll spend leaning over a freezer cabinet in Londis trying to extract the last un-melted Twister.

And so on you plod through the endless parade of cardigans and blazers and denim jackets, feeling dowdier and a bit more like Lorraine Kelly with every one, until autumn arrives and you can put a proper coat on again.  Unless, that is, UNLESS, you find something dazzlingly awesome and build your outfit around it instead – less cover-up, more ‘I guess convention dictates I wear something under this, but gee, do I have to?’

Enter the kimono. Voluminous, fringed and tie-dye, this Topshop number is both a scene-stealer and a multitasker supreme. Belt it over a black jersey maxi, throw it on with rolled-up jeans, make like the model on the website and wear it over a bikini or just swap it for your dressing gown and lie around on a chaise lounge all day smoking cigarillos and talking to everybody in a Marlene Dietrech voice.

The tie-dye print even makes it look a bit like a thundery British sky, which is fitting. Last year’s bobbly cardigans will tremble in its wake. Cover-up: covered.