Context is a much greater part of chic than we all realise. That's why we've all bought things in sales that we wouldn't buy at the same price in normal circumstances. They're just the best bits in the overcrowded racks of mediocre reductions.

Perhaps it was in a similar frame of mind that I came across this photo, after trudging through pages of red-carpet starlets looking like frumpy matrons of honour in long mauve ''gowns'', or as if they were on their way to a costume party themed ''Trailer Trash''.

If you insist on wearing very, very short, very, very tight dresses, with bare arms and bare legs, and very, very high platform shoes, this is going to be the effect. So, wondering how I was ever going to find something to be nice about among all that, I fell on this pic of Jessica Stam like a Dukan dieter at a Krispy Kreme counter. But having extracted it from among the other photos, I still like it. In fact, I bloody love it.

Of course, it does help to be a 25-year-old top model, whatever you're wearing. Stam would look good in a Slanket and that face would shine out from underneath one of those old-style hair-streaking rubber caps.

But I think there are many ideas to be gleaned from this outfit for us mere mortals, too.

First, formal doesn't have to mean either a long dress or a dress that shows 85 per cent of your flesh.

And once you get into the formal pants genre, it doesn't have to be that wide-trouser-with-high-heels look, which I've always found terribly annual dinner dance. I have worn it and I just couldn't have a good time. It makes you dance like a parent.

It's the tight-cropped pants that make this rig so fierce, especially with shoes they wouldn't let you wear onto an aeroplane. Those Louboutins are deadly weapons - in the best possible way.

And isn't it marvellous to see something pointy, without a platform and not flesh-coloured? Monsieur Louboutin started that surgical-boot look, so let's rely on him to get everyone out of it. These stilettos are a good place to start.