Marks & Spencer sell burkinis. Which are anti-bikinis. Bikinis without the bits showing. To preserve the modesty of those who wish to remain modest. Or those who the rest of us are happier to see covered up. But mainly, of course, such items are aimed at the Muslim market. And apparently they sell well.

Dolce & Gabanna and Uniqlo also make ranges of veils and robes specifically for this market. And why not? Its a massive market. The whole debate about whether such clothing imprisons women, enriches their lives, liberates them or makes them a bit too ‘darth vader’ for some tastes, is irrelevant. If enough women want to veil up, the market will accommodate them and smother them with options.

Yet a geezer (using the term loosely for pretty much anyone involved in fashion) called Pierre Berge, the 85 year-old former partner of Yves St Laurent, feels that this market is in fact ‘a denial of fashion’ and is wrong. These women should be taught ‘to take their clothes off, to live like the rest of the women in the world’. Yeah, good luck with that.

But Pierre actually questions the ‘morality’ of these designers.

Morality. In an industry where they make £800 jeans. Where they’ve created the entire world of eating disorders to keep its ‘models’ whippet-thin at whatever cost to their health and that of the mimicking masses of girls who idolise and aspire to them. Yet putting stripes on a headscarf is ‘immoral’. Tosser.

You want immorality you need never look any farther than Donald Trump. What; agaiaiaiaiain??? Yes, again. This time the Republican Orange Thing has made a point about abortion. Which has always been fought by Republicans. Donald wants to make it illegal. And consequently any woman having one would in that instance be committing a crime and need to be punished. ‘So what about the fathers/partners/men involved?’ they asked him, ‘would they be punished too??’

No said Donald, that’s a different thing altogether. Yet its a similar thing to that poor woman in Iran who was a rape victim and they were going to stone her to death for being unfaithful.

Donald too is an extremist. An extreme tosser. God bless America.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx