Ultra high-waisted jeans started coming through a year ago in skinny and straight-leg denim silhouettes. This season high-waisted, wide-legged jeans are the next big thing. They’re available in both faded “hippy” looks, and dark, streamlined modern styles.

I have fallen in love with this design. I do not have a bohemian element to my style and much prefer the smarter version in dark denim. It’s a great look when the strictness of a high-waisted jean is contrasted with a sophisticated and soft tucked-in blouse. This ensemble is all about tucking in tops to show off the mid section. You’ll therefore need the right body type to pull off the look and preferably a bit of height and a pair of heels. Am I alone in loving this look?

Dark high-waisted jeans and one faded high-waisted “hippy” style. I adore blouses and denim so I’m definitely giving this look a bash.

Spring and Summer 2008 introduces a tribal-rich trend that’s fresh and new. African inspired patterns, animal skin prints, natural fibers, safari looks, beaded ornamentation, gladiator sandals and wooden jewelry are what make the global trend a wearable and mainstream style.

You don’t need to wear this look from top to bottom to achieve a great effect. It can be interpreted in numerous ways and it’s all about mixing it up appropriately to suit your style. Simply add gladiator sandals to a modern black and white ensemble, or a safari jacket to a classic smart casual outfit. Match zebra print flats with a preppy look, or sport a tailored caftan over white skinnies and cork wedges.

Don’t choose beige items if the colour washes you out. Choose white, cream, mushroom brown, black and army green instead. I’ve added a tomato red belted safari jacket and an army green shirt dress to my Spring mix and they’re a nice change to the trapeze jackets and A-line jersey tunics I’ve been wearing for a while.

Athletic-inspired anoraks were fringe fashion last year, but are now mainstream. They’re a super lightweight, casual cover-up that’ll give your look a sporty edge with lots of style. You’ll find them shiny or matte, long or short, and neutral or coloured. Fabrications like nylon, polyester and acetate give them a particularly authentic active appearance.

I like anoraks best when they’re contrasted with dressy attire, like a little black dress, dark jeans, slacks, swanky walk shorts and fancy shoes. This is a rather avant-garde, high fashion look, so it’s a little tricky to pull off if you don’t get the components right.

I’ll bypass this trend – the less sporty trench is more my style. But If you’re an active zip-up-and-go kind of gal, than the fashion anorak look might be for you.

The best thing about the American retail industry is its lenient and convenient return policies. The luxury of being refunded for unused items months after acquiring them is the height of customer service and quite unprecedented. This is not common practice in Europe or Asia, where full refunds are few and far between and returning items is generally tricky. Certain retailers in Hong Kong and Singapore won’t even let you try on an item of clothing before you’ve purchased it, let alone return it later.

But the ease with which we can return items has its drawbacks. I have met people who get into a cycle of continually buying and returning items without keeping anything. They don’t wear their purchases because they might need to return them. And the option of making the return sparks doubt and buyer’s remorse. More often than not, the item goes back because there might be something slightly better. This is what I call “the return rut” and it’s a frustrating shopping strategy. More trips to the store and fewer successful purchases are the result.

Returning items because they don’t fit or match is perfectly acceptable, but constant returns because we can’t commit to our purchases is quite another thing. Are you in the return rut? How often do you return items? Do you frequently experience buyer’s remorse?