The luxe of lace

The look is dominated by black, probably because of this season's preoccupation with all things Gothic (blame Twilight).

But there are other colours too, notably midnight blue, which is offering a wonderfully sultry alternative to black, classy and wearable, teaming easily with creams and taupes. There's grey too – gorgeous greys, actually, in a faded and vintage kind of way, and this is what I will be looking out for to update my lace wardrobe this season.

For the perfect fitted, but not too fitted, black lace dress, to just below the knee, with half sleeves, head to Marks & Spencer, which has pulled out all the stops on its lace offer for Christmas. it has some rather lovely vintage-style cream lace scarves too.

In fact, there's quite a lot of cream and white lace looks about, including fitted cream dresses at H&M, although this is quite a young look, and there's a fair smattering of nudes and pale golds and silvers, which can look ethereally effective if you get just the right shade, but Christmas cracker garish if you don't.

Mixing slightly different shades of cream and nude lace works very well, especially if all pulled together with a brown leather belt and boots – and this is a look that will translate through to next spring, so it might be worth thinking about that and investing in canny cream lace dresses and separates now.

It's as separates that lace probably works best for most women – more than a touch, but less than an all-over look. But if it's just a touch you're after, there are plenty of ways to achieving this, especially in the form of accessories, especially lace-trimmed boots, shoes and bags, and lace is used rather a lot in panels on shirts and dresses, which might be a more forgiving way for the mature to key into the lace trend. Look out too for lace gloves and also for lace corsages, bangles and bib-style necklaces, which can transform a plain top into something really rather special. You'll notice that lace, especially in cream, is also used a covering for coloured baubles and beads.

Lace is of course, a festive fashion stalwart, and many of us will already have lace items tucked away at the backs of drawers and wardrobes, so do make sure you dig them out and take a look at what you've already got before succumbing to the enticements of new stuff.

You may well find that a bit of clever combining, perhaps with minimal accessory investment, is all that you need to do the lace look this year.