The check's in the post

Stripes and spots are square this summer. Go gingham, go dogtooth, and order them from home, says Tamsin Blanchard

If the heat of the summer is too much for you, and the prospect of fighting your way through the sales for an impulse bargain destined to languish in the back of your wardrobe is too grim for words, do not despair. You need not move out of your paddling poolside deckchair: checks are this summer's strongest print and those thoughtful mail order companies have included pages of them in their summer catalogues.

Catalogue shopping has come a long way since the days of mass-market tomes the size of telephone directories. Kingshill is the most upmarket - the Bond Street of mail order. Since its launch in 1992, the glossy, hard-back catalogue has grown from selling only three designers to the current summer catalogue with clothes by around 30 British designers. The clothes are not commissioned specially for the catalogue, but are selected from the designers' collections. This summer, there are mini collections by Caroline Charles, Joseph, Betty Jackson, Jasper Conran, Ally Capellino and John Rocha. Like most catalogues, Kingshill produces an extra brochure for high summer.

Another upmarket mail order company is Racing Green. It sells good, no-nonsense basics in addition to well-cut swimsuits and summer essentials. Mail order clothing has, in the past, been perceived as good value (or at least payable in small instalments). But pounds 35 for a swimsuit is not cheap and the quality is, correspondingly, much higher than that of traditional mail order merchandise. But at least you do not have to suffer humiliation in a communal changing room when you try it on. And if the suit doesn't fit (or flatter), you can always send it back and try again.

Racing Green and Kingshill both started on a small scale. So did Old Town, a shop and mail order business based in Norwich. Old Town, run by partners Will Brown and Marie Willey, is only two years old with a 200- strong mailing list. Will Brown designs the clothes - a mix of simple, durable workwear styles, including reefer jackets, cotton-drill workshirts, and jean jackets, as well as a simple, everyday pinafore dress in gingham. And, if you have really caught the checks bug, there is a range of bedlinen that comes in six shades of gingham and three tartans.

Mail order has undergone radical change over the past few years with the emergence of the smaller, well-targeted catalogues. Even Littlewoods, the traditional bastion of mail order, is fighting to keep up with the upmarket trends. Sally Sykes, Littlewoods' marketing manager, says the market is set to change even more over the next decade, with cable, the Internet and interactive shopping. Despite its traditional roots (the mail order catalogue has been going for 60 years, has a customer base of over 3 million and a turnover in excess of pounds 1bn), Littlewoods is not afraid to experiment. The company has capsule collections by Katharine Hamnett, Vivienne Westwood and Workers For Freedom. "The appeal of designer names is not restricted to the higher socio-economic groups," says Sykes.

Photographs: Sheila Rock

Stylist: Belinda Morris

Hair: Mark Thompson for Steven Carey

Make-up: Carol Hart

Model: Adriana Nemcova at Elite