It's Called Flair

Obituaries of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy concentrated on the cool, pared-back character of her style, as though this were something unique. In fact, minimalist dressing has been a feature of the 1990s, and nothing could be easier to achieve. Key elements are a strict colour regime (usually based around black), avoidance of all fussy detailing, and rigid loyalty to a handful of designers. Much more challenging is to achieve success through eclecticism but this has been managed with apparent ease by Adrienne Long. An advertising commercials director, she has no specific clothing code, buys her clothes from a wide variety of outlets and always manages to combine radically different elements in a successful manner. A pair of hiking boots, for example, might be worn with a delicately layered dress or, as seen in last year's "Style of the Irish" issue of Image magazine, a sheer top combined with a thrift-shop skirt.

Married to organic farmer Marc Michel, Adrienne Long looks as well in wellingtons as in kitten heel mules, suggesting there is nothing that she cannot wear (although perhaps a taffeta puffball dress might be a challenge too far even for her). Her skill lies in putting together seemingly-disparate pieces because she possesses an eye which can spot the merits in clothes others might dismiss. For once, this really is a woman who would look wonderful wearing a black bin liner. Gloria Guinness once said that when poor, she had bought a simple piece of jersey fabric, cut a hole in the top "and everyone asked where I bought my dress". Adrienne Long might well do the same.

It helps, of course, that she has a slim, waifish figure and clear, pale skin generously scattered with freckles. But of greater assistance is her exceptional self-confidence. Other women could dress like Adrienne Long but not look even half as well as she does because they lacked her sense of assurance. She shows that, with regard to style, anything is possible, provided you can carry it off with aplomb.