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Judging by the crowd gathered outside, the mesmerising creatures in this year’s Christmas windows at Selfridges have an allure that Santa and his elves will never possess. ‘Look! That’s me!’ exclaims a twenty-something hoodie, pointing at a horned apparition in ethereal Antonio Berardi. ‘OMG!’ roars an excited woman further down the street, snapping a selfie with a golden cyber being in Giuseppe Zanotti high-tops. ‘Mine’s really cool!’

Taurus and Leo have been two of the most popular of this year’s zodiac-themed windows, although the buzz is even bigger inside the department store where Father Christmas appears to have loaned out his grotto to Mystic Meg. In a shadowy lair called the Astrolounge, you can create a customised astrology T-shirt by The Numinous and bespoke fashion printer YRStore for £45, buy a glittering zodiac clutch bag by Greek label Urania Gazelli for £695, or an array of star sign-specific perfumes and jewellery. By night, you can attend workshops on alchemy, meeting your spirit animal and making a dreamcatcher.

Horoscopes, crystals and Tarot cards used to be associated with mung bean-eating, tie-dye types. But now mysticism has become glittery and aspirational, promoted by design houses from Chanel to Mary Katrantzou, JW Anderson, Pucci and Givenchy. Chanel’s new Chance perfume was accompanied by a surreal social media star sign campaign featuring GIFs designed for each of the astrological signs. Mary Katrantzou’s S/S 2016 catwalk show had cosmology as a theme (think lots of shimmering, sparkling dresses). Riccardo Tisci celebrated ten years at Givenchy with a show dedicated to peace and love, featuring chanting Tibetan monks. JW Anderson’s interstellar show displayed words such as ‘Orbital’ and ‘Asteroids’ all over knits. Amanda Wakeley’s cashmere zodiac scarves are bestsellers and Charlotte Dellal’s Birthday shoes collection helped establish her Charlotte Olympia brand. ‘Even the biggest sceptic is interested in their star sign,’ she says.

Ruby Warrington, the 38-year-old writer behind The Numinous website (tagline: ‘material girl, mystical world’), helped curate many of the products in the Astrolounge. She says that astrology is ‘like a gateway drug to a more cosmic world view. And I think at Christmas especially, we’re all a little more inclined to believe in magic.’

It’s not hard to see the appeal of horoscopes to the fashion set; after all, they offer a great opportunity to talk about me, me, me. Susan Miller, the preferred astrologer of New York style mavens, has fans ranging from heiress Gloria Vanderbilt to Katy Perry. Ambitious twin sisters Ophira and Tali Edut, aka The AstroTwins, work with brands including Nordstrom, Revlon and H&M, and offer eco-chic astrology retreats in Mexico.

Hong Kong-born jeweller Sarah Ho, who has created a collection of gold rings based on numerology, says consumers are becoming more demanding, seeking out personalised, bespoke goods: ‘Shoppers don’t just want to buy something these days. Be it the zodiac or lucky numbers, they want it tailored to them — that’s why the bespoke market is going so crazy.’ Stephen Webster, rock’n’roll jeweller for celebrities from Madonna to Ozzy Osbourne, has designed a horoscope-themed Astro collection of gem pendants. He believes ‘the personal story contained in a star sign makes people feel more emotionally attached to a purchase’.

The astrology trend is also due to the fact that, in a world of too much choice, shopping by star sign takes the stress out of con-sumerism. But what if you don’t like your star sign? Selfridges has an ingenious new Shop By Star Sign feature on its website. This is all very well if you’re a sexy Scorpio (suggestions include deep red Alexander McQueen dresses, Princesse Tam Tam lingerie and Armani red lipstick) or a luxe Leo (think Sophia Webster butterfly-heeled sandals and Ann Demeulemeester cashmere-lined black leather gloves). But if you’re a Virgo like me, the supposed control freak, nit-picking, neurotic of the zodiac, the site advises me to buy a brown MaxMara coat and a Valentino one-shouldered white gown. Frankly, no.

Hannah Emslie, senior creative manager for Selfridges’ windows, confides that of the 12 zodiac displays ‘the only one to have received any gripes is the Virgo window, from Virgo people’. No surprise there — we are the whingers of the zodiac. Luckily, Warrington offers me hope. If I’m not ‘feeling’ my Virgo sun sign, she says I should check out where Venus is in my birth chart. Venus apparently points to how you feel about luxury and clothing. When I look up my birth chart (you can get a free one at alabe.com if you know your time and place of birth) it turns out that Venus was in Leo. Another piece of the astrology puzzle is your rising sign, which is about how you present yourself to the world and ergo very important when it comes to your wardrobe. My rising sign turns out to be also Leo, which maybe explains why I sometimes feel as though I’m channelling Nancy Dell’Olio in my dress sense.

Selfridges’ in-house psychic Jayne Wallace offers an ‘intuitive shopping service’, which is based on the elements of your sign: air, water, earth or fire. Her job until Christmas is to monitor the Astrolounge, representing her Psychic Sisters in-store brand. She also does readings and gives crystal massages. Looking into her crystal ball, how does she see the future of spiritual fashion? ‘It’s going to get bigger, especially with straight men,’ she says, adding that she’s not an aspirational mystic. She doesn’t like to charge customers too much for her services, offering them instead what she calls ‘tit stones’, an assortment of coloured crystals that she advises women to put in their bras. Green Fluorite is good for stress; pink Rhodonite for fertility. They’re only £2.50. ‘I’m hopeless at business,’ she confesses. ‘Typical October Libra!’

But for an increasing number of stressed fashion designers, an interest in the stars isn’t just some shallow fashion trend. Mary Katrantzou has said that her recent Cosmology show was ‘a quest to solve a personal puzzle’. And she’s not the only fashionista searching for meaning in life beyond duchess satin and silk organza. She’s part of a new generation who, while loving nothing more than a holiday in the Balearics and a hip new cocktail, is also looking to slow things down in a bewilderingly speeded-up world. To try to regain a sense of the wonder of being alive by realising we’re just specks in eternity. Immersing yourself in something that’s not shiny and new but millions of years old: the constellations of the night sky will certainly help with that.

Net-a-porter founder Natalie Massenet’s favourite way to disconnect from the digital world is ‘looking at the stars’. And that’s not as hippie dippie as it might sound. As she says, it’s just ‘being connected to the world in a different way’.

Illustration by Jonny Wan