When I reach into my wardrobe for yet another T-shirt, I glimpse the satin sleeve of the Martin Grant top I wore to Buckingham Palace hanging next to the jewelled coat by Akira Isogawa, which I have worn rarely, yet spectacularly. They seem like ghosts from another life.

My diary, which is an old-fashioned, week-at-a-view hard copy, also bears ghostly traces of where I might have been: the Hermès cruise show, April 28 somewhere in London; Copenhagen for the annual fashion summit; the south of Italy in May. I have never travelled less or had less need of finery.