My daily browse of WWD this morning brought with it the blaring headline 'Neo-Gypsy: When mixed with a street sensibility and rebel edge, fall’s volumes are fit for a punkish, modern-day gypsy'. With a picture of a dark-haired model wearing large hoop earrings and a baggy cardigan, sorry coatigan.

Being a fairly crass and foot-in-mouth sort of person, I would never describe myself as PC – but that headline made my insides tighten a bit. Surely, from 'neo-gypsy', it's just a hop, skip and a jump to 'derelicte' as parodied so brilliantly by Mugatu in Zoolander?

I don't dispute or disagree with designers and stylists finding inspiration from the world around them, its diversities and differences – that's part of the joy of getting dressed very morning. There's the awkward fact that some of the most innovative pieces from the Eighties avant garde, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto, looked like they had been cribbed from homeless people. There were then even more awkward 'Jap wrap' and 'Hiroshima chic' labels given to them by the style press at the time. But, hey, it was the Eighties, the least PC decade ever to have snapped its red braces and waved a wad of fifties in a poor person's face.

But modern fashion falls prey to the same horrendous glibness, as if we haven't become any more aware of the difficulties – even in times like these.

If you're going to suggest people dress like 'gypsies', what's to stop you suggesting they dress like 'blacks'? Or like 'funny little people with no money'? Surely there's been enough discussion of exactly why it's patronising / offensive to use the term 'tribal' for us not to make the same mistake with gypsy too.

Fashion gets enough bad press without the industry itself telling us to dress like sub-cultures that we know nothing about but which have, like, such great style, yknow?