Kate Mulvey: Big lips, big hair, big cleavage. Big mistake, Nancy

Poor old Nancy Dell'Olio. Not only does she think she looks stunning decked out in vaudeville chic, but she really believes that British women have no idea how to dress. Last week Sven Goran Eriksson's girlfriend delivered a scathing criticism on British fashion. "It's very individual," she said damning an entire nation of women with euphemistic scorn. Then she puffed out her pneumatic chest and proclaimed - without irony - that Italians and French have much more style.

It's time to put the record straight. Being Gucci'd up to the eyeballs, and with big lips, big hair, lots of cleavage and spray-on dresses is not stylish, Nancy. It is just plain naff. That doesn't stop Nancy and co. Walk down any street in Florence or Rome and you will be met by a collective heaving bosom, and acres of linered lips.

The desire of Italian women to be groomed and glam all day long, and every day, is something which we Britons can never come to terms with. It's as if they believe that greeting your amore in a pair of tracksuit bottoms is grounds for immediate divorce. I lived in Rome for three years and even my professional friends wouldn't emerge from the bedroom without their face on. Even if they had high-powered jobs they would make sure they looked perfectly groomed when their husbands came home.

Not that this meant the average Italian woman wants to look like our version of the dutiful housewife. Nancy is more lover, with a touch of hooker. Think Gina Lollobrigida in leopard print. It's a style that the Italian media colludes in perpetuating. Whether you are watchingDomenica In, the television show with a 48-year-old Raffaella Carra still trying to look like a nubile 20-year-old, or a news reporter on Italy's BBC equivalent, Rai Uno, discussing Iraq, the lip-liner is in place, the come-hither smile is plastered over the screen and there is more flesh than on Brighton beach.

The Italian look for women is not just bold; it's tacky, with its want-me, desire-me message. It's also offensive. It says a woman's role is pleasing one's man, and it's a full-time project.

This style of über femininity did exist in Britain - 50 years ago. Post-war Britain and America wanted women back where they belonged in high heels and baby-doll nighties. But since then, women have realised they are more than sexual commodities. They have since played the sexual game on their terms.

In post-feminist Britain, unless you are a footballer's wife or an Essex princess, hooker chic is frowned upon. What Nancy hasn't realised is that it is precisely because we are sexually confident that we don't feel we have to shove our 40DDs in the face of every passing male.

Instead of hooker chic, sassy British girls do glamour with a twist. Think Kate Moss in a barely-there dress and a pair of pink Birkenstocks. Italian women may be incapable of deviating from the obvious sexy clichés, but women here have the confidence to play with image. So come on, Nancy, get out your Birkenstocks and feel the freedom of expression, UK-style.