most exuberant and embellished clothing found its greatest audience in places like the middle-east. You have these stories of women who have dinner parties and lunches with their female friends.... They arrive and underneath their burqa or hijab is this rainbow of colour! It does seem to suggest that when circumstances require you to be subdued, there is a natural human tendency to express a sense of adventure, pleasure and joy in some way. What retailers have been saying through the recession is that what people want is not more basics that they can rely on and get lots of wear from. They want something that transports them, that is irresistible. There are stories dating back to World War II of the importance of little things like lipstick and perfume- and this idea that in the midst of war, sorrow and sadness- that fashion in many ways was this tiny little pleasure- as was music, art and so on. These were hints of the battle, manifestations of the question of what people were struggling for in the end. People may say that a dress is not an expression of joy, being just a material object- but for certainly a large number of people, there is something very energising, wonderful and delightful about a pretty dress- in the same way that someone may get an incredible amount of joy from being able to go and watch a baseball game. [Dov Charney] Things have been very tough in our industry since 2008.