Whatever it is, glamour is back, and we celebrate it here with a special Christmas fashion shoot with John Lewis Leeds, which opened in the Victoria Gate shopping centre in the middle of October.

We want statement pieces, we want polish, we want grooming. We also want more than a touch of high/low dressing – for example, chiffon skirts and slouchy sweaters – because this is a perfectly glamorous look for Christmas Day, Boxing Day… any day, actually.

John Lewis – which opened as a drapery shop in 1864, named after its founder, on the very site where the flagship store on Oxford Street in London still stands – is unusual in the current economic climate because it is actually investing in its fashion and aims to grow its womenswear.

It brings together an eclectic fashion offer from selected high-quality external brands, alongside its own designs, with pieces to please a wide range of ages, attitudes and tastes, but all underpinned by quality of form, fabric and manufacture (all of which are very glamorous). John Lewis intends to be the authority on British fashion. For many, it already is, not least because it is superb at finding and giving floor space to exactly the right brands, reassuring, seriously stylish, yet with plenty of room for surprise.