By Queen Michelle

Fast Christmas
Christmas is traditionally the time for bad knitwear to flourish. Knitted sweaters heavy with images of snowflakes and winter scenes are somehow deemed acceptable gifts because it's Christmas. Good taste is thrown out the window and bad taste is given a seat by the fire with a cup of mulled wine and a mince pie.

Thankfully there are designers out there who are turning the art of knitwear on it's head and producing work that even I would be happy to find under my tree.

Canadian born Mark Fast is one such upstart, who has dared to make knitting sexy. Yes, sexy. Who knew the humble knitting needle could be manipulated into creating skin tight, flesh baring body con dresses that look more like intricate lace confections than wool, viscose or angora; less Fair Isle and more S&M.

This young London based designer and Central St Martins graduate, will no doubt go on to great things...and I shall keep a wee space under my tree for one of his fabulous knitted creations.

Wrap Me In Wrapping Paper
One of the best things about gift giving and receiving for me is the wrapping paper. The patterns and colours are always so cheerful and I often wish I could turn those glorious sheets of paper into clothes. I think I may have found the closest thing to wrapping paper inspired clothing you can get.

Mischa Woeste, the designer behind the label Smeilinener, has created a world where colour, pattern and texture fuse to create unapologetically bright and cheerful clothes. She graduated from ESMOD Berlin and won the Baltic Fashion Award in 2006.

Her SS09 collection is filled with multi-coloured stripes, polka dots, stars and geometric and graphic inspired patterns. She is fearless of colour and no palette is left unexplored: orange with bright cyan; red, white and blue; brown and blue; red and green and every other combination you can think of - a veritable feast of hues!  Her silhouettes are feminine and playful, and even though the colours are bright she manages to keep it on the right side of saccharine.

How lovely it would be if my gifts came wrapped in Smeilinener designs.

One For The Men
When it comes to pressies the guys get a bit of a raw deal don't they? I mean, how many gadgets and pairs of socks does one man really need? I admit that even I have fallen prey to the old sock/gadget kind of gift. The truth is that men are a bit harder to buy for than women because there are fewer exciting choices out there for the men. But I think the tide is slowly turning.

I have been looking to menswear more of late as I believe the male/female boundaries in dressing are becoming more and more blurred. Whilst women have pillaged menswear for their own wardrobes for many years, men haven't been quite as forthcoming in adding a bit more femininity into their style. Of course there are always exceptions with the occasional waifish boy borrowing clothes from his female friends, but menswear designers rarely design with traditionally feminine fabrics and shapes.

However Croatian designer Damir Doma is one such designer who is taking the risk and repositioning traditional menswear. He includes fabrics such as chiffon in his collections and keeps the silhouettes decidedly soft, fluid and quite unstructured. There is also a lot of white involved and beautifully draped jersey, leggings and billowing shirts.

Of course, my interest in this designer isn't entirely selfless - I would happily borrow any of Damir Doma's clothing should any find its way into my Princes closet!