All right, that's it: the world has officially gone mad. Not only is there a First Lady in the Elysée Palace who once appeared in a John Galliano show wearing false eyebrows, but sales of home-perm lotions are said to be soaring. Frankly, I'm sceptical about this last announcement, and not just because it emanated from a source not a million miles away from a company that does PR for home-perming kits, but because the nation's three standard-bearers of haute fashion (Posh, Moss and Cheryl Cole) have so far resisted the Deirdre-from-Coronation-Street-frizz-fright trend. There's always time, I suppose.

This is nursery-slope insanity, however, compared with recent speculation that Roberto Cavalli is about to loop Amy Winehouse into some kind of financial love-in. Nothing has been signed, you understand, but Cavalli's spokesperson confirms that he “adores” the singer and that they have been in talks. Even more amazingly, Winehouse's agent says this isn't the first time that she has been approached by a fashion company. Admittedly, this is the sort of thing that agents are genetically predisposed to say, even when they are representing someone with the fashion savvy of Jimmy Tarbuck. But judging from the number of press releases we receive on the Times fashion desk, helpfully informing us that Winehouse has been carting her bits and bobs around in such-and-such a bag - with its, ahem, useful expandable compartments - or cushioning her long-suffering toes in so-and-so's shoes - with handy wipe-down, patent finish - there are plenty of brands keen to cash in on what might charitably be called catastrophe chic. Somehow the fashion industry has got it into its head that what's really missing from every stylish woman's life is an accessory that will make her look like someone whose next must-have is an intravenous drip.

None of this is to cast aspersions on Winehouse's musical talents. And to be fair, she has carved a wholly original look for herself. Unfortunately it's accented (as fashion folk like to say) with self-harming razor marks, the body of an emaciated child and regular bruises. I know, I know. Purple is such a now sort of colour. But a style mentor? At least wait for the girl to get well. By which time, you never know, the fashion industry might have grown up.

Patti Smith's 'barefoot' style has stood the test of time

Talking of growing up, Patti Smith's exhibition of sketches, photographs and films has just opened at Fondation Cartier in Paris. Smith - now, incredibly, 61 - tells this month's French Vogue: “I've never struggled against the passing years. I just ignore them. My parents always worked and I've always worked. I'm like a farmer who has to till the fields whether he's 20 or 90” - a farmer who happened to collaborate with some of the seminal creatives of the 20th century, including Robert Mapplethorpe, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.

Smith's is undeniably a style that has stood the test of time. Baldly, it's white shirts or T-shirts, men's trousers (she practically invented the current strain of sartorial minimalism), scrubbed face and wild black hair, now streaked with dignified shafts of grey, as untamed and free a metaphor as Amy Winehouse's surreal beehive is an emblem of a subjugated, orderly discipline that seems lacking from the rest of her life.

Thirty years on from her ground-breaking rock poetry album, Horses, Smith is still working the same look and, for all any of us know, the very same items of clothing. How ecological. Granted, the rigorous androgyny slides into full-on scary Iggy Popness these days, but you'd have to say that, on the whole, it has served her well, and the millions of women who have adopted a similar understated approach.

There are several lessons here, and, yes, one of them is that bad girls do get the lion's share of good outfits. While Smith has always maintained that her wasted looks are the results of a sickly childhood, rather than drugs, there was more than a whiff of hedonism about her. The difference is that in the 1970s, drug-taking quaintly unfolded behind closed doors rather than on YouTube. Its symptoms were obliquely alluded to, as opposed to being itemised in Grazia. They certainly weren't turned into commodities by cynical fashion brands.

The other lesson is about keeping things simple, particularly as one ages. “Elegance is refusal,” as Diana Vreeland said and, although she encountered the odd obstacle in following her own advice (don't we all?), she was right.

A well-cut jacket, expensive “basics”, accessories that are the antithesis of “try hard” (Smith is a barefoot or sneakers kind of girl), clothes that are beautifully cut with an inbuilt slouchiness that allows real figures to feel at ease in a flattering state of grace - these are genuine must-have items, and worth saving for. Luckily, tailoring is about to have a fashion moment again (R.I.P. frou-frou frills and body-con bandage dresses). So, if you can just get through this summer without succumbing to parishiltonitis, I strongly urge you to do so.

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