Wow, you've come a long way, baby, you might smile.

Fashion columnist for The Times? Certainly not senior political commentator.

But in the late 1980s, it was hard to imagine anything except life as a political journalist, and contemplating a job in the fashion media would definitely have seemed too frivolous for words.

States of emergency, sanctions, save the press - back then, graduates all had serious academic, intellectual or commercial intentions and even if they dreamt about a life in fashion, no one would have dared to voice it.

As soon as I could, I headed for the newsrooms of Johannesburg and hit the hard news trail.

Within a few years, however, the 1994 elections had come and gone, I'd left the world of hard news and having found my groove in magazines, fearlessly followed a path into fashion.

But the world has not changed in the way it views the fashion business.

There might not be a state of emergency any more, but when it comes to making career choices, telling your parents you want to go into fashion is right down there with acting and air hostessing on their list of favourites.

Even the famed Miuccia Prada, one of the most influential fashion designers ever, with a business that makes about $2-billion a year, once told The Wall Street Journal she almost didn't join her father's leather goods company because fashion was stupid.

She thought there were more intelligent and noble professions available to her such as politics, medicine or science.

It's a mystery to me why, when one of the first things all of us do every morning is to get dressed, fashion gets such a bad rap.

Walk into a shopping mall and there are more clothing, shoe and accessories shops than any other store category.

And in the latest MasterCard consumer shopping survey, South Africans said the first thing they were going to spend their money on in the coming six months was fashion. Yet fashion remains something of an embarrassment to all except those who actually work in the business.

And it's often women - who spend much more time shopping and appreciating fashion than men do - who find some sad solace in talking down the appreciation of fashion. We hide purchases from our husbands, we lie to our friends about what things cost and many even claim to hate shopping.

A love for fashion is equated with being off the radar in terms of intellect, and spending huge amounts of money on a handbag is considered by many to be irrational and stupid.

But consider the allure that fashion has and that what we wear communicates something about us long before we have even opened our mouths.

Fashion trends speak volumes about the human condition and wordlessly point us towards the zeitgeist.

Watch the video of the Alexander McQueen collection that was shown in Paris last week on http://www.showstudio.com - it will be the most striking work of art you've experienced all year.

Fashion's also a multi-billion dollar business with low barriers to entry that mean there's huge potential to improve lives.

Some say the fashion economy might be the one to save us from this recession: As more women start working and earning money, they're going to go shopping.

All in all, it may just be time to start taking fashion a little more seriously.