Hot to trot in sunny St Trop

It is at about this time of year that most of us breathe a sigh of relief that we're not remotely famous. The celebrity magazines are full of pictures of household names clambering on to boats exposing cellulite-riddled bottoms, standing up to shake sand from a towel and revealing a white potbelly, and waving at their offspring in the shallow end with arms that flap like a spinnaker.

The beach holiday is a great leveller: a time when even Leonardo DiCaprio looks like the man laying a gas pipe at the end of my road. But there is still one place in the world where it is a prerequisite to be both groomed and stylish, where a suntan absolutely will not give you cancer, and where a zoom lens doesn't strike the fear of God into only the most honed.

That place is St -Tropez, playground of the jet set since the 1950s, and suddenly in vogue again, with everyone from Jerry Hall, Lisa Snowdon, Lady Victoria Hervey and Joan Collins dropping anchor this year to strut their stuff in the beach clubs.

Even bad boy rapper P Diddy was spotted earlier this month, wearing so much gold jewellery that if he went in the water he would probably drown.

Although St -Tropez is still renowned for its garishness, teeming with more women with blonde hair and boob jobs per square metre than the set of Baywatch, it can be useful for spotting swimwear trends for next year - all the leading fashion buyers, from Barneys of New York to Harrods, come here to sip Virgin Marys and make copious notes - and for picking up sartorial tips from those on first-name terms with the paparazzi on how to avoid holiday snaps that make you resemble Jade from Big Brother.

The first advice us mere mortals with two weeks booked in the Balearics can benefit from is that the hottest swimwear label to be seen in is Melissa Odabash - a new designer who makes bikinis designed to flatter the British figure -

the classic pear shape. Tatler's Nicola Formby was in St Trop last weekend, and she swears by the label. "The great thing about Odabash is the cut and the stretchy fabric - your bottom will look good, the halterneck top is good for droopy boobs, and there is lots of hidden wiring on the sides," she says.

Odabash can be found in the new swimwear shop Heidi Klein in west London, which has only been open for eight weeks, but has already sold several animal print bikinis to Elle Macpherson, and six little white and khaki bikinis to Kate Moss three weeks ago (white is big this year, apparently, as is khaki).

Also popular with It girls heading for the sun are Burberry's string bikinis and Missoni tankinis in the trademark stripe from The Cross in Notting Hill.

Liv Tyler and Kate Hudson have just been into the shop to snap up bikinis by Miss Italy - - made in vintage cotton by Mark Getty's wife, Domitilla. Don't, whatever you do, get them wet.

Harriet Quick of Vogue won't be going to the South of France this year (she is off to Croatia, where there will be more fashion editors lined up on the sand than in the front row at Prada), but if she were, she would wear Eres, a funky little label owned by Chanel. "Their bikinis are flattering, with a zigzag edge, which gives you a nice silhouette," she says.

"I like boy pants - little shorts - as a high cut makes your legs look shorter. I'd also wear a Versace bikini with a halter neck, which can double as a top at night," she says wisely.

But whatever bikini you choose - and please don't choose a thong, unless you are Brazilian and called Gisele - you must also pack several diaphanous sarongs to wrap nonchalantly around your wobbly bits, and a see-through kaftan for wafting around on deck (Marzia Genesi does a matching bikini-caftan combo, also from The Cross).

Remember, even Gwyneth Paltrow and Kylie have cellulite.

The Cross 020 7727 6760; Heidi Klein 020 7243 5665.