Christine Lagarde's battle to bag new funding

Davos, the Swiss ski resort that every year plays host to the world's rich and powerful, is rarely the scene of much levity.

Global politics and economic theory don't lend themselves easily to punchlines. But in January this year, Christine Lagarde managed to inject a little light relief into proceedings at the World Economic Forum.

Holding up her Louis Vuitton handbag, the new managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) turned to her fellow power brokers in one session and said: "I am here, with my little bag, to collect a bit of money."

The joke broke the ice and the room rippled with laughter. But, beneath the disarming charm, Lagarde was deadly serious. For months now, the IMF has been trying to coerce its 187 members into committing as much as $600bn (pounds 378bn) more to the fund to build what she described at the Brookings Institute in Washington last week as a "global firewall" to defeat once and for all the European sovereign debt crisis.

Ever since "the Greek problem" flared up again in July last year, the talk from Brussels to London to Beijing has been about "big bazookas" and "giant firewalls" - a vast bail-out fund available to rescue any struggling nation from bankruptcy.

If the bazooka worked, the thinking goes, it would restore market confidence without actually paying out a penny. As Vitor Constancio, the European Central Bank's (ECB) vice-president, put it: "My definition of a firewall is that it isn't necessarily used. It is a safety net."

The pressure has been on the 17-member eurozone to build its own bazooka, but Lagarde has quietly been canvassing for an increase in the IMF's own resources. Behind her thinking has been the fact that the eurozone simply does not have the resources to bail out Italy, its third-largest economy, without help. Furthermore, a crisis in Italy, or indeed Spain, would threaten the global economy all over again. A "safety net" would allay such fears.

It has been a baptism of fire for Lagarde, France's former finance minister who was appointed after the disgraced Dominique Strauss-Kahn stepped down in the wake of rape allegations. Just nine months into the job, she has the unenviable task of trying to build a co-ordinated global strategy on the shifting tectonic plates of domestic politics.

At the IMF's key spring meetings in Washington this week, she faces her first real test. If Lagarde can strike a big deal on resources, she will be garlanded with praise. If she can't, the jury will remain out. Either way, the pressure is now on.

Until recently, talk of IMF funding has been hampered by the eurozone members' failure to show the "colour of their money", as George Osborne demanded in Davos. Last month, though, a eurozone bazooka was agreed in principle - to increase the size of the rescue fund by about euros 300bn (pounds 247bn) to euros 800bn.

Coming on the back of the ECB's euros 1?trillion emergency funding line for the banks, Europe could finally argue that it had played its card.

Limping to the podium at Brookings last week, after surgery on her knee, Lagarde said the time had come "to increase our resources" at the IMF, following the eurozone's efforts.

"I am hopeful that, during the spring meetings, we will make progress on this issue," she added, a statement that some believe has left her something of a hostage to fortune.

Osborne, who is close to Lagarde, having been one of the first to push for her IMF nomination, is thought to be prepared to commit the UK to another funding round of about pounds 10bn. China and Japan have also hinted at their support, but there are big obstacles - not least the US.

Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, is not convinced that the euro group has added enough boom to its own bazooka, and independent analysis suggests he has a point. As the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) has noted, the eurozone's new bazooka leaves a "safety buffer" of just euros 300bn after taking into consideration the existing programmes for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

That hardly looks like the "mother of all firewalls" called for by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the respected Paris-based think tank.

CEPS added: "It seems clear that [the firewall] would not be able to provide substantial support for Spain and Italy."

Tellingly, all the US Treasury could muster in response to the eurozone agreement was the weak recognition that it "reinforces a trajectory of positive efforts to strengthen confidence in the euro area". UK sources said that, privately, the US was bitterly disappointed and adamant that no further US taxpayer money would be put at risk of more euro bail-outs.

Normally, US opposition would be enough to kill any plan to increase resources. But Lagarde has other ideas. She hopes to corral the rest of the major non-eurozone players - the UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, China and India - into a joint agreement. But she has already begun managing down expectations.

From festi-chic to glamping, get down on the farm

Last weekend, a crowd of one hundred thousand flocked to Worthy Farm, Somerset, to turn on, tune in… and dress up. Genuine music geeks must be rather cross now that Glastonbury, the definitive alternative music festival, has not only gone mainstream but has been hijacked by fashion.

Still, its peace-loving hippie founder, Michael Eavis, can console himself with the fact despite the impressive stream of acts over the three-day event, it remains the crowd that wields the power.

The mob decides who does well. whoever cracks the Glasto crowd goes on to great things. The same can be said for trends arising, not from the stage, but the mosh pit. Wellies, of all things, being a case in point.

Forget Bono or Beyoncé – who were just two of this year’s line-up: what’s worn by the great unwashed has become a sort of litmus test of current fashion.

Forty years ago the crowd was made up of young people who saw themselves as anti-establishment, anarchistic and alternative. The hip and happening crowd of today’s trendsetters are hardly intent on changing the world; more showing it what to wear.

Being staged in England, in June, in a field, rain and mud had always posed a major challenge in terms of the event ever becoming glamorous.

It wasn’t so much state-of-the-art communal showers, flushing portaloos, en suite tents or even Winnebagos with built-in-spas that changed everything. It was Kate Moss who brought the celebrity and fashion touch in 2005.

Her mix of expensive, elitist, branded, countrified weekend wear (Hunter wellies/Barbours/James Lock Panamas) with the sort of skimpy catwalk gear and laid-back luxe grunge we’ve grown used to seeing the model wear on the cover of Vogue – Maison Margela haute couture yeti jackets, or APC boots – pricked up the antennae of the fashion crowd.

Never mind the practicality of gumboots: the idea of festivals such as Glastonbury and the Isle of Wight being an excuse to dress up – and shop – has set a new precedent. these days (organic) veggie burger stalls have to jostle for a place with pop-up fashion boutiques and nail bars selling the contemporary phenomenon that is “festi chic”, which can be anything from maxi dresses to blow-up angel wings.

Not counting the cost of a ticket or a tent, the average Glasto-goer’s wardrobe this year was estimated at a whopping £350.

For a key festi status symbol D&G bum bag, where you can stash your dry shampoo and baby wipes, you are looking at £550. An Alexander McQueen printed skull scarf will set you back £200.

Other must-have pieces include at least one wafting vintage maxi, several changes of Florence and the Machine-like headgear, designer jeans such as the £170 Paige brand Kate Moss recently gifted friends on her hen weekend at the Isle of Wight, and this summer’s cult shoes: flat, stripy espadrilles (wellies are considered so 2008).

Eco jewellery is deemed vital. Something like Katie Rowland’s upcycled chain necklaces or something urban by The Jacaranda Tree, which uses gold mined ethically from one of the oldest sites in South Africa with the local community producing the pieces as part of a funded training scheme.

Now, pay attention anyone who wouldn’t dream of dirtying their Jimmy Choos by attending a mud-lined music bash. you are not excluded from the latest fashion “look” taking hold of everyday wear. you might never have seen festi-chic in context, but that doesn’t mean you have to be left out when it comes to “glamping” – that’s camping with the glam factor.

Glamping holidays are aimed at the super-rich sophisticate executive who spends half her working life in eight-star luxury hotels so wants her free time to be intrepid, yet equally mirror the high life. her wardrobe requires fashionable, reassuringly expensive staples, the sort so gorgeous you can spend an entire night sitting out under the stars admiring them. next page

From festi chic to glamping, get down on the farm From festi chic to glamping, get down on the farm From festi chic to glamping, get down on the farm From festi chic to glamping, get down on the farm