Victoria Beckham this week beat the likes of Stella McCartney, Tom Ford and Burberry to win designer brand of the year at the esteemed 2011 British Fashion Awards.

The award for Mrs Beckham's three-year-old label is her first from the British Fashion Council, and confirmed her status as a credible fashion brand. Mrs Beckham’s label was praised for its “focused growth strategy” and its “high levels of sell through”.

Sarah Burton, creative director at Alexander McQueen, was named designer of the year at the fashion industry’s prestigious ‘Oscars’, an award that came as no surprise considering that she designed Kate Middleton’s much-photographed dress for the Royal wedding earlier this year.

The McQueen brand was further honoured when Sam Gainsbury won the Isabella Blow award for fashion creator, after translating the McQueen archive into the Savage Beauty exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum.

City listings website Timeout has this week unveiled its list of London's 100 best shops, and fascinating reading it makes too!

Time Out’s shopping team put together the ranking using suggestions from a panel of experts, including designer Matthew Williamson and Grazia fashion editor Melanie Rickey. The assessment considered store concept, stock, customer service, and each shop’s uniqueness. The list included the eclectic and eccentric as much as obvious London retail landmarks.

If you keep your eyes peeled this month, you're sure to spot more moustaches than usual. That's because the UK is celebrating Movember - a light-hearted annual fundraiser that seeks to raise awareness of men's health issues.

We look at what there is to do for Birmingham dwellers in November!

The Footman James Classic Motor Show (11-13 November, NEC)

The biggest and most popular classic car exhibition in the UK, celebrating over 1200 wonderful cars from the veteran to the vintage, from the classic to the future classic. A must for motoring enthusiasts.

Renowned for its cutting edge fashion and innovation, London Fashion Week this season, Friday 16 – Wednesday 21 September, continued to push Britain head and shoulders above other top fashion locations across the globe.

The Prime Minister’s wife, Samantha Cameron, opened London Fashion Week at Soho House, promoting British fashion by wearing Mulberry, Sykes and LK Bennett. She announced that Britain had “the talent and expertise to take UK fashion forward”.

You have been invited…… now you must judge what sort of occasion this will be and how to dress for the event.

There are a few simple tips to get you through the minefield of social dressing. Firstly, How were you invited? Was it an email or phone call? If so then it is likely to be a more casual affair. A summer Barbeque or Garden Party perhaps.

Was it an embossed invitation for a charity ball or even a wedding? Then clearly this is a formal occasion and a dressier event perhaps requiring full evening dress. More of which later.

It’s Monday morning and time to head to your wardrobe. Whether you work in a casual office or a corporate office, the way you dress has an effect on how other people will see you. This is not news, way back in the 19th Century Mark Twain observed: “Clothes make the man, naked people have little or no influence on society”

Figuring out what to wear can seem to be at the very least daunting and for some stressful and time consuming. Fear not, for with just a little help and a few pointers you will be strutting into that office confident that you are making the right impression.

Just as there are fashion icons in the media world so too does the corporate environment offer us style heroines. Leading the way at the top of the tree, professionally and sartorially has to be France’s Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF. This is a woman who manages to achieve professional fashion Nirvana. She manages to be simultaneously feminine yet powerful, graceful and elegant sharp and bold, yet expertly tailored. One can imagine that as she strides into to the board room to fire a handful of miscreant male bankers that she struck fear into the hearts of those men and admiring glances from those women whose jobs were safe. Indeed Mme Lagarde’s interest in style is so finely honed that she found time too not only rescue the Euro but also to be seated in the front row of the Dior catwalk show at Paris Fashion Week earlier this year.   Does this make Christine Lagarde a style maven? There can only be one answer….bien sur!