Goodbye Damsel in Distress, Hello Princess Adventuress

The day after New Year’s day I did a boot sale with my sister. It was freeeezing. It was also a magical mystery tour into the mind of the boot sale attendee – how comes £1 for an angora beret is a steal in a charity shop, but something to be tutted at and bartered with at a boot sale? Oh, and it was a lesson in what not to buy my parents for Christmas.

Cinderella was a real bombshell...

Throughout the de-cluttering boot sale stock accumulation process we came across a few former treasures: diamonique encrusted watches which had stopped in their tracks; books we’d meant to read; and a Cinderella figurine, with her now mutilated Prince Charming, I’d bought as a souvenir from Euro Disney when I was 16.

Sis thought it made an intriguing image and snapped the pair on the window sill. Dad thought the prince’s headless, one legged and de-slipper-proffering-armed-ness was somehow symbolic.  It struck even me that I’d donned a not dissimilar Cinderella-blue gown at my wedding.

Cinderella nailed her fella…

Of course, instead of happily ever after it all turned out more like that scene from Labyrinth where Sarah, the whiny teen damsel in distress, declares David Goblin King Bowie has no power over her; and the whole magical mirrored spellbinding façade  cracks from side to side.

Unlike Jennifer Connelly I decided on the simple boob baring demo during the first dance instead.  This impromptu act – my husband’s wrist was apparently caught in my dress strap – proved beyond a doubt I was not the princess bride, but a stick-on chicken fillet sporting damsel.  I think I cried for 3 nights after that.  So what?  I hear you cry.

Damsel in a puffy dress

So, I’d been reading Caroline Myss‘ book Sacred Contracts; a book where “…Myss explains how you can identify your own spiritual energies, or archetypes, and use them to help you find out what you are here on earth to learn and whom you are meant to meet.” And one of the first archetypes I’d identified as playing a prominent part in the pantomime which is my life, was the damsel, aka the princess; or the shadow side to the princess proper.

It’s not so easy, identifying your archetypes, I found it a bit like Three Men in a Boat when the narrator diagnoses himself with every disease described in a medical dictionary – except Housemaid’s Knee. In a way this isn’t surprising: Myss asserts we have 12 prominent archetypes; these all have a light and shadow side.  We’ll see influences of others too – rather like an archetypal kaleidoscope I like to think. However the damsel in distress princess archetype screamed out at me; it was obvious: I am … I was… I have been the damsel in distress all my life.

Pink peril

It’s funny what a simple revelation can do.  Suddenly I could see lengthy tressed damsels stressing their way through my (hi)story. First, there was the Perils of Penelope Pitstop where the hapless heroine was dangled over alligator infested pools by the Hooded Claw; and Nosferatu climbing the stairway to terrorise that foolish girl who doesn’t hide under the duvet. Then, when I was 8 my first male teacher, Mr Lymer, said I reminded him of Princess Diana because of my aloofness.

Let Sleeping Beauties lie...

My parents bought me Sleeping Beauty, for my 16th Birthday – somewhat ironic considering my somnambulist-esque existence. Then there were all those Pre-Raphaelite fainting fairy maids I fancied myself as at art college – someone once asked me to pose as Ophelia. Geez.  Then there were all the guys who wanted to save little ol’ me, from the big bad world in my head.  I even asked Mr Glittery to tie me to a tree and play highway man – he wrote me a story instead. Typical.

"What, what," said the Lady of Shallot

At uni John William Waterhouse’s, wilting waif, the Lady of Shallot was one of my style inspirations.  And obviously the long blonde hair said ‘princess’ to more than a few peeps, but even when I tamed and tied it into knots I’d just become a silver screen Hitchcock Heroine (aka modern-day cinematic damsel). Eeek.

He was expecting a frosty reception...

I went to see Matthew Bourne‘s Blitz-based  ballet, Cinderella, just before Christmas. There’s a copy of The Constant Princess on my desk at work. And when my work mate, Funny Girl, told me she was going to buy me a book, she said, “I thought you’d like The Princess Bride or that one about the ugly sister.”  So I’m still surrounded by distressed princesses.  But I guess like the ugly sister who’s getting the chance to put the record straight, it’s about time to step out of the forest of shadows and into the light, bright side of this archetype stuff and tell a new tale.

Maybe?

The question is: what to wear?

Is a Tweet on the Web 2.0 Worth a Wardrobe of Words?

Too many words.  That’s what some geezer said about someone’s website at the Web 2.0 course, led by Chris from EcoTube, I attended the other week.  And I thought, hmmm, if that’s too many words he’d gawk if he saw me wee blog.  Which is

Can't see the words for the tweets?

probably … no, definitely why it takes me so long to write these posts. 

There is a prima donna ‘writer’ inside of me saying, “Too many words!? There are just as many words, my dear fellow, as required. Neither more nor less.” But I am not entirely convinced of this fact – meandering is and has been a preoccupation of mine you see.

Which is why I let my friend, R, talk me into Twittering.  You can only say whatever it is you have to say in 140

Tweet Attack?

characters or less.  So one is forced to get to the bleedin’ point!  My Twitter adventure, thus far, has comprised of an announcement of my intention to embark on said Twitter adventure, and R pointing out, a week later, that my Twitter adventuring seemed somewhat lack lustre.  Probably because I had tweeted – twitted? twat? twot? – once in that week.  At this point I did consider writing something whip cracking, witty and Wildean about procrastination…[it takes one to know one, you see] only, ironically, I haven’t got round to it. 

Not to mention I have yet to completely purge myself of the suspicion that Twitter is narcissism par excellence – unlike blogging of course, ahem.  Only I read an article by India Knight,  in Easy Living Magazine, who says:

“I love Twitter.  People assume it’s a vast repository of excruciating Pooteresque banalities … But it all depends on who you ‘follow’  … Above all, I’ve been delighted by strangers’ wit, articulacy, intelligence and good humour.  If you’re a writer, sitting at home in front of your computer all day, Twitter is like a huge cocktail party going on all around you … it’s a cynacism-killer for an ultra-cynical age, and utterly marvellous.” 

Being clever and concise is not as easy as it looks when it comes to getting your point across, which is the problem I have every time I go networking.  I have tried and tried to put my Adventuress Undressed manifesto into ten words or less, but I simply stumble over them as I ramble round the houses scrabbling for words in the rubble which was my strap line.

 So I was more than a little intrigued to meet Sheena Matheiken of  The Uniform Project at the Futerra Swish I

attended during Greengaged at the Design Council.  If you take a gander at their website, you’ll see that the concept – wearing the same dress for a year for charity and as an exercise in sustainability – is explained by way of a pictogram equation.  And it says more than a whole menagerie of words ever could. 

Which also brings me to the word ‘swish’, a term coined by Futerra, a communications agency with an eco and ethical edge, to describe the concept of clothes swapping in a controlled environment.  This was my third clothes swapping experience and pretty successful it was too.  I swashed a deceptively simple black

One Dress 365 Looks

pinafore style dress, with pockets, which I have worn countless times since.  Inspired by this new-found

simplicity and The Uniform Project, I have begun to seriously consider the benefits to be had in wearing a uniform of sorts. 

I mean, if you had a dress made to measure, which flattered your figure, you could pretty much guarantee you’d always look good.  I asked Sheena whether she’d return to her former wardrobe habits after the year was up, but she said she found it hard to think past the project right now.  Fair enough when you consider she is having to think outside the wardrobe every day and come up with a new look using the same dress and a clutch of accessories.  But it is this creative aspect which Sheena says has been particularly satisfying, and which I reckon, is an underrated element of the style equation.  Because, when it comes down to it often less is more when it comes to wardrobes, as well as words.

Dinosaurs & DIY Disasters – Making A-do & A-mending By Way of Creative Alterations

Which bitch is which?

 I’ve been a charity shop shopper for donkeys – years, that is, not actually for donkeys, that would be a pretty niche market I reckon – and one thing I’ve gleaned from all this sorting and sifting is: you’re bound to find your ‘that’s-exactly-what-I-was-looking-for!’ dress, or coat or whatnot only to find it has shoulders an American football player would be proud of!  What to do?

In the past I would go for the get-it-and-leave-it-in-a-pile-of-‘Things to Adjust’-a-little-unsure-of-how-to-go-about-it-all option. And then, when I did have a go, I’d invariably be left with something kinda wonky and I’d look kinda wrong.

Mr Glittery commented earlier in the year, when observing my humungous scrap heap collection of car crash couture awaiting a nip and tuck, that all this potential to-do-ing must be adding to my general confusion. He was right. So

A match made at the Make Lounge

recently, Tuesday night for a couple of weeks was spent at the Make Lounge making do with and a-mending some of my finds at their Creative Alterations course.

I took along the remains of my once precipitous pile: an oversized dinosaur print sweatshirt I spied when I worked at Rokit, a shapeless Hawaiian print shift, and a but-it-looked-nice-on-the-hanger red silk dress I’d picked up in the £3 sale in TRAID.

The class was led by Nin Castle, founder of Goodone, who “…produce innovative, quality, one-off clothing which is made from hand-picked, locally-sourced, recycled fabrics.”  Having gone round the table and waxed lyrical about our visions for the stuff we’d brought Nin noshed a biscuit or two – biscuits abound at the Make Lounge – then urged us to get real.
Her top tips:

Needing something to be bigger is not better where adjusting clothes is concerned.  Making something smaller is far easier.

Which stitch is which?

However drastic a makeover you’re planning, just do one thing at a time and assess your progress – it may not need as much tinkering as you anticipate.

The Make Lounge has a relaxed vibe with just the right amount of focus to make sure you get what you came for.  We tried on, trimmed and tacked our pieces together with the aid of Nin, the overlocker and a glass of wine.  And if  Nin was otherwise engaged with a creative query, then Make Lounge owner, Jennifer Pirtle was always there to lend a helping hand.

When I asked Jennifer about the Make Lounge strapline ‘Meet People Make Stuff’ she said to her the meeting is just as important as the making. Traditional crafting courses on offer were either too long winded, or too long in the tooth (old fashioned) and held in drafty church halls said Jennifer.  And so, the concept of short, practical, yet fun courses – you can make anything from frilly
knickers to candles in a tea cup – hosted in a sociable and stylish environment – with biscuits – was born.

I went with a friend who was trying to rectify some DIY disasters and we met an eclectic gaggle – giggle? – of women ranging from a classic, sophisticated, business lady who’d lost weight, to a tall, arty type wanting to adjust and update a lacklustre family heirloom.  And we left with some craftily altered outfits.

So make lounge not war on your wardobe and get creative.  ‘Make lounge’, geddit? It’s funny right?  No?

Laundry Clouds & Silver Linings

Every pile of laundry has a silver lining. That’s my new saying anyway. This blog began with the premise that my wardrobe may be the external representation of my internal state. Since then the wardrobe situation has metamorphosed from a group of disparate piles into one giant pile of dirty laundry interspersed with some out-of-season attire vacuum-packed into a few suitcases. And yes, my life looks pretty much the same way…

On the other hand despite the disarray I can see that with a lot of TLC and a new wardrobe to put it in, my so-called-life will be in full working order again! 

My glittery-green-eyed guy has gone awol once more. And I can only look in the mirror and say, “I told you so!” Lesson: two wrong-headed people do not make a right relationship.  Maybe it was the enticing aroma of his Body Shop Bilberry Detangler – it does it to me every time! But no more, the Eau d’ Angst his lack of direction and my lack of confidence emitted has left an overpowering odour in the air.

One of the many things I loved about him was how he appreciated my style. This meant a lot to me because, as he said, the way I dress is an expression of my creativity and he always, always made me feel I was perfect the way I wore…

Only for the past few months I’ve been expressing something more akin to Catweazle than creativity, wearing whatever I could cram in my bag. I’ve been thinking about all that Law of Attraction stuff – you know, where you get what you focus on – and I am wondering whether my tramp-like tendencies – my tweed coat has a huge hole in it and my red coat looks as if I’ve had a near miss with the Hooded Claw – have attracted my current rootless, bag lady state.

The thing is I feel pants – I mean in myself, not other people’s… well, it depends.  I still haven’t completed that Be Gorgeous course…I haven’t ‘trusted my vibes’, meditated, Relax [ed] and Attract [ed]… or got my hair cut in over a year… or done any of the things I knew I should to feel better.  And worst of all I have really let myself  down by believing I needed Mr Glittery’s validation.

A breath of fresh laundry...

As I lay awake the other night listening to the World Service, I heard this woman talking about loving yourself. She said people make the mistake of thinking their relationship is a base on which to build their life, when in fact your life should be self-contained contentment and your relationship the cherry on top. So that told me! No cherries till you’ve got your pastry baked or your tart goes all floppy – no-one likes a floppy tart. Or in other words all that glitters and smells like Bilberry Leave-in Detangler is not gold; and behind the smell of air-dried, hand-pressed laundry lies a lot of washing and ironing.

Life Laundry:
Clean up your act with the help of a Life Coach…
Rachel Bamber
Fiona Harrold
Jackee Holder

Eco-Laundry:
Green & clean products straight to your door …
Abel & Cole
Spirit of Nature
Nigel’s Eco Store

 

Stuff ‘n Nonsense – The Woolworth Heiress & the Cathedral of Commerce

 I was walking past the soon to be defunct Brixton branch of Woolies last month watching people snap themselves in front of the shop shutters, shutting for the last time and I got to thinking about stuff.

Inside the shelves were as bare as Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, save for a few things you’d have to pay people to buy and I thought of the stuff infesting my pre-purged room. Stuff waiting to be adapted, adorned and updated, mostly with other stuff I’d buy from Woolworths on the way home from work. Stuff which I enjoy mending and making into more stuff I will enjoy wearing, but which I suspect may actually be the stuff of procrastination.

Oh, the path of procrastination, how familiar is its meandering terrain…  I used to procrastinate by way of creating the perfect capsule wardrobe. Now I am creating an ethically sound and spiritually up-lifting wardrobe and I have to stop and ask myself, is this more stuff ‘n’ nonsense? Am I seeking a material solution to my immaterial desires?

Because if there was ever a cautionary tale concerning the trappings of excess – or stuff – then it is that of Barbara Hutton. Babs and I first met on the cover of Tatler. Well, actually, it was a modern-day zebra-striped, fur-clad, jewel-dripping, forties-style faux Babs; perched neatly in the white tuxedo-ed arms of a Gillette-the-best-a-man-can-get guy in wayfarers; their perfect smiles glinting against the painted desert backdrop. The strap line read ‘Too Rich to Walk’.

Barbara was the granddaughter of Frank Woolworth, founder of the Woolworth discount stores, known more familiarly as Woolies in the UK. And she was the Woolworth Heiress  life-couldn’t-get-better-than-this American dream princess.

Cathedral of commerce

When Barbara was a little girl she found her mother dead, like a discarded doll, on the bathroom floor – broken spirited, broken hearted. Her daddy deserted her. Her aunts passed her around like a mis-addressed parcel. While her grandfather, Frank, was ever busy with business and building his ‘Cathedral of Commerce’ – a Neo-Gothic tower of Babel, the tallest building to grace the golden streets of the Big Apple, the tallest building in the world, poking up through the clouds, like a finger held up at heaven.  Only to be trumped, in a New York Minute, by the futuristic, crystalline Cathedral of Cars, the Chrysler building.

Eventually over-shadowed by the World Trade Center the Woolworth Tower was relegated to making cameo appearances in feature films like Cloverfield, where it played itself crushed under foot by the Godzilla-gargoyle-esque creature as if in some sort of hubristic retribution only mildly worse than the American-based stores becoming Foot Locker.

More recently the building has found its acting niche, playing the headquarters of Mode magazine in the US TV series Ugly Betty. What with frivolous fashion being shorthand for crass consumerism the building seems fated for such a role. And I cannot help but imagine the tormented ghost of the Marie-Antoinette-esque Millionaire Heiress haunting its [s]hallowed halls.

Dubbed the Poor Little Rich Girl by the mock sympathetic press, Babs sought solace in upmarket candy stores Cartier, Asprey and Van Cleef buying the love she’d been deprived of as a child, marrying numerous husbands including silver screen Prince Charming Cary Grant, who said:

‘Barbara surrounded herself with a consortium of fawning parasites – European titles, broken-down Hollywood types, a maharajah or two, a sheikh, the military, several English peers and a few tennis bums. If one more phoney earl had entered the house, I’d have suffocated.’

Being an American Dream Princess is not enough when you feel worthless.

And so Babs did not live happily after, dying pretty much penniless. Her Regent’s Park pad, in some curious homage to the American Dream, becoming the U.S. Ambassador’s London residence.

I guess the stuff of dreams, the immaterial, best-things-in-life-are-free stuff we truly yearn for, is often mistakenly believed to be the material stuff we convince ourselves our [American] dreams are made of – a bit like the rubbish dump the short-sighted mole has mistaken for a fairytale castle in an animation I saw some years ago. Stuff in itself isn’t bad, but it can be a glaring distraction that can tempt you to over-look the wardrobe for the clothes.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Am I Going to Hell in a Handbag? Or is it Just a Bag Dream? – It’s Make[over] or Break for my Handbag.

I was going to say my handbag is like the Tardis, but it isn’t.  The Tardis simile suggests my bag has a compact exterior and a vast interior.  But it hasn’t.  It’s just plain old elephantine inside and out.  I find its capaciousness to be generally advantageous because I have a penchant for carrying items of about A4 size – note pads, folders

To Hell in a Handbag...

and magazines, for example.  However, the more gigantic the handbag the greater the number of ‘might-need’ objects one can store in its monstrous depths.  This simple truth resulted in me rooting around the damn thing for about 5 minutes, the other day, in search of a pen.  Having pulled out an umbrella, some chewing gum and a sanitary towel I gave up and borrowed one – this never happened to Mary Poppins, I thought.  On my return home, convinced there was a pen lurking in there somewhere, I emptied the contents onto my bed.

Handbag Contents:
1 retractable umbrella
1 black beret
1 foldable back pack – to use instead of carrier bag.
1 small purse – containing: £16.08 – with attached keyring and large selection of keys.
1 make-up bag containing various cosmetic items
1 bottle of water
1 long vintage glove – other one is later located in the laundry basket, having been mistaken for a sock.
1 sample of fabric from a coat – got the cotton last week in Peter Jones.  Note to self: mend coat.
1 pair sunglasses
1 plain notebook – almost entirely full of scribbled observations.
1 WordPress for Dummies book – how else do you think I got started on this thing?!
1 A-Z devoid of cover – you never know when you’re going to stray off the beaten track.
1 Ethics a Graphic Guide – a lot of information in an easily digestible illustrated format!
1 Vogue – The Secret Address Book supplement – with some pages stuck together by an unidentifiable, brown, sticky substance…
1 wage slip – yes… I thought it was a joke too.
1 filofax – rarely, if ever, used – but it’s the thought that counts, eh?
10 pence piece
Various bits of paper
6 pens – I knew it! 
1 broken DKNY handbag – see below.
Chewing gum wrappers
1 tube cold sore cream – I hate the damn things, they seriously cramp your style – and hurt.
1 sanitary towel
1 wallet, containing: oyster card, debit card, some receipts, an unidentifiable blue ticket, a Boots money-off token, a ‘To Do’ list, £10 note x 2, bird brooches x 2
Some paper napkins – I don’t know about you, but when Jack Frost nips at my nose, it gets all red and damp.
Balm Balm Lip Balm (Rose and Geranium) – better than Vaseline, I reckon, and so much more than a lip balm – see lid for details…
Large safety pin – it’s the Mac Gyver in me…
Small selection of Dr Who badges – what’s with all the Doctor Who stuff today?

There is some method to all this mad-bag-ness.  I did have my ‘essential’ items –  face powder, lipstick and err change and keys – in a separate smaller DKNY bag attached to the outside

This would never happen to Mary Poppins...

of the larger bag.  However, in an Amy Winehouse-esque act of self-destruction the zip sliced its way through its own fabric, rendering it a shadow of its former self and ultimately useless.  And the wallet containing my oyster and debit cards is attached to a retractable elastic cord – a cunning method by which to fish it out easily, ensure these ‘must-have’ items aren’t left languishing on a table top in a galaxy far, far away; and deter wannabe pick pockets.  I have tried the retractable elastic cord thing on other items, however, it all got a bit cat’s cradle crazy – and that is never, ever, a good thing for a handbag, or the cat… 

 

Marnie had some bad things in her bag...

According to Australian media personality and social analyst, Kathryn Eisman, author of How To Tell A Woman By Her Handbag, my handbag is spreading rumours about me – well, it’s not just me, that’s just the paranoia speaking.  Eisman – I’m envisioning Mystic Meg meets Desmond Morris – uses the handbag as a tool to analyse the owner’s personality and she has identified four main archetypes – how very Jung!

Expressive: Basically heart of gold with a streak of hooker…
Creatives: Organised chaos and cauldron of change
Prepared: Girl scout
Minimal: The Bauhaus of bag ladies

Or for a completely different take on the beauty and the bag subject, have a gander at In Your Purse: Archaeology of the American Handbag, apparently:

“…the first exhaustive quantitative and qualitative study to delve into the contents and context of the only instrument that connects the home, where consumer needs occur, and the store, where these needs are fulfilled: in a woman’s purse.” 

If that doesn’t sound like your bag – boom boom! – all too technical, consumerist and what not, then watch this. 

If  your bag’s like mine, then you might want to think about having a bag overhaul.  Gwynne Allyn Warner, a  Feng Shui Consultant, having her own adventures over in Portland, Oregan (USA don’t you know), reckons that now, with the credit crunch ‘n’ all, is the perfect time to make-over your handbag to make room all them money bags you really, really want.  Gwynne says a magnetic money handbag should ideally be:

Money Bag Shaped – natch!
Red – to attract fame, recognition, helpful people and good luck; or
Black – I hear a collective sigh of relief! – for its career associations; or
Gold and Red – a bit full on for day maybe, but its ‘Prosperity’ message rings out loud and clear; or
Green – new beginnings (and eco-trendy, I guess);
And, lastly, banish buttons from your purse immediately and replace with REAL money.

Or maybe I should just stop burying my head in my bag and get a life?  As usual I’m in two minds on this one, but hey, a tidy up is going to make me feel better and prevent me from going to hell in my handbag… or because of my handbag… or something like that.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Angst in My Pants – Laying the Foundations to a Better Wardrobe & a Better You.

“To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation. But I’m working on the foundation.”

Marilyn Monroe

Foundations, foundations, foundations

In this time of economic upheaval when we all share a feeling of angst in our collective pants we are prone to retreat to the sofa of self-preservation and comfort-eat ourselves silly. One Friday, when my parents had opted for the Indian take away cure-all, my mother attempted to pay the expressionless cashier with a pair of black lacy knickers she had pulled from the cavernous depths of her handbag. The cashier gazed, unfazed, as my mother tried to convince onlookers that she had not intended to offer her underwear, or any other services hinted at, in exchange for a lamb korma, but carried the offending item with her just ‘in case’. “There’s nothing worse than being without clean knickers,” she explained. Or with, in this instance. And yet she had a point – when it gets down to it, we all need to get back to basics and think: foundations, foundations, foundations.

In my quest for a more ethical and eco-friendly wardrobe the question of underwear has proved somewhat problematic. And I’m not talking fancy fripperies – you know, those cobweb-like affairs made by fairy-fingered folk entirely for the benefit of the beholder, with little care for the Ruben-esque curves they should be holding. I’m talking the bread and butter of your underwear collection, which should be like a lover: comfortable, reliable and effective. And, if like me, you have more dash than cash, affordable too.

Part 1: Bras

We’ll work from the top down.  This week we’ll talk about bras. 

Multi-Breasted Fertility Goddess Syndrome (MFG)

Many a splendid breast is being let down by an unwise choice of bra. A lot has been said about the perils of VPL (‘visible pantie line’ for those of you still unaware), but the subject of the many multi-breasted fertility goddesses roaming the streets is hardly mentioned. MFG is, in my humble opinion, one of the biggest enemies of the stylish ensemble. Yes, the whole deciphering your cup-size thing can be a little daunting, and I guess some, like the woman on the 133, may even be tempted to let them all hang out, long, limp and pendulous – but ladies, the cleavage should always be situated around the upper chest area and not risk being sat on by a fellow passenger.

To be honest I’ve had my fair share of trouble with bras on buses, notably with my first bra (more wishful thinking than breast-ful needing I have to admit ) , which, having so little to cling onto gave up the ghost, released itself from its moorings and displayed its wrinkled, white, deflated self about my neck like a pair of sad old balloons left over from a party. I’m sorry to say my years of bra-blems are not over and I am often forced to endure the errant bra strap scenario, which encourages a sort of lopsided shrug in order to keep it in check – think Quasimodo.

Like a glove...

 

And once you’ve got yourself a reliable bra which fits like a glove, then remember: one bra does not fit all occasions. Obviously there’s the whole strapless / backless consideration, but colour is also important. I once had to swap bras with my sister, in a nightclub lavatory, because she had worn white beneath a black top, resulting in her breasts glowing like Belisha Beacons in the ultra violet lighting – rumour has it she was the inspiration behind Electric Six’s video for Danger! High Voltage.

Bra-sics – Where to go for the green, the good and the glamorous:

Greenfibres Green goddesses go here

Figleaves – Green Leaves is every Eve’s fave eco undies department

Ciel – Organic undies

Sleek ‘n’ Chic – Vintage va va voom

Next time we’ll be talking pants!

: : : : : : : : : : :

Gok & Goth – Beauty Revolution & Revelation

No amount of styling is going to help if you aren’t happy in your own skin (The word according to Gok -allegedly).

Gok - style god or devil in disguise?

Go Gok!  And so I was really keen about the whole Miss Naked Beauty thing. No, not a naturist pageant.  It’s a “search for a modern-day Eve” …  “a woman who embodies … confidence, spirit, sex appeal, brains and beauty (inside and out).”  The winner will be crowned beauty ambassador to the masses, writing industry exposes for Glamour magazine.  I liked the idea, just not so sure about the execution. The Times’ TV critic, Andrew Billen, wrote:

“Gok lured a herd of wannabe beauty queens to Blackpool pier and thence to an old-fashioned municipal swimming baths from which the water had been emptied. With just 15 seconds warning the women, already stripped to their underwear, were then hosed down until every trace of make-up was exterminated.

“Girlfriends, I love you!” shrilled Gok, perhaps to prevent aberrant images of the Holocaust popping into viewers’ minds.” 

Yep, my initial reaction was ‘cattle’, ‘slaughter’ and ‘holocaust’, however having watched subsequent episodes I’ve come to think that ‘the pool scene’ was not so much massively misjudged as an uber cool calculation – it got people talking.  And perhaps it was a symbolic death for those women.  Or for the seaside beauty pageant.  In a way it could be seen as a ritual marking a transition, a phoenix rising from the ashes, that sort of thing – or is that just my Classical education rearing its ugly head?

Death of the beauty queen

It wasn’t until I was doing a bit of digging behind the scenes for this here piece, that I realised how Gok is loved and loathed in pretty much equal measure across the press.  Hadley Freeman writing for The Guardian quoted one paper as dubbing the stylist “the saviour of modern womanhood”; whilst goddess of morning TV Lorraine Kelly calls him “the messiah”.  Oooh, ‘Eve’, ‘saviour’, ‘messiah’, the Biblical references abound!  There’s nothing like building someone up so you can watch them fall… consider other positive high profile campaigns: Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners – now the Ministry of Food – or the Anya Hindmarch / We Are What We Do ‘I’m Not a Plastic Bag’, for example, both of which received some overly hostile responses in the media and sometimes by the public.  The problem: no-one likes a smart arse telling them what to do – especially if there’s a whiff of hypocrisy to be found (M&S poster girl, Mylene Klass, crusading for women to go au naturel whilst herself daubed in war paint, for instance). And I’d question the unbiased nature of any report this Miss Naked Beauty ambassador may ‘write up’ in Glamour magazine – won’t their advertising sponsors have something to say about that? 

Theda Bara - the vamp

The “essential beauty kit” the contestants were given in the third episode really intrigued me though – capsule beauty, great!  I have to say, nothing overwhelms me more than the vast array of beauty products available nowadays, and the idea that there were just five essentials calmed my overloaded, advertising weary mind.  I wish they hadn’t included Vaseline though.  My mum, long time beauty therapist and former owner of a health & beauty salon, swears by the stuff;  but as a petroleum by product it ain’t that eco friendly or that great for your skin; and it’s not so much a moisturiser as a barrier – I use it when tinting my eyelashes, to protect the surrounding skin and thus avoiding the Theda Bara look. Wouldn’t shea butter have been a more appropriate ‘all-round good guy’ product?

Talking of vampires, the revelation that the goth goddess girl had the best skin, age-wise, was a great advocate for keeping outta the sun… and being a goth, I guess.  Most the other contestants had skin aged 5 – 9 years older than their actual age, whereas goth goddess’s was about 8 years younger! Mum, a bit of a tanorexic in her heyday saw a lot of ladies who lunched and lounged in the sun suffering with skin cancer, so advised my sister and I to keep out of the sun, or at least slap on the sun block and shades.  Although she did complain about the resulting obsession with black and boots on the beach – if we ever ventured into daylight.  So, maybe it’s ‘Go Goths!’ And being nocturnal and thus ‘pale and interesting’ is the answer to eternal youth – rather than drinking the blood of virgins a la Elizabeth Bathory (think Ingrid Pitt in Countess Dracula!).   

Perhaps Addams Family style will become the norm and Goth Lolitas will haunt high streets everywhere.  Posh and Kate will be ousted and fashion icons will be Kirsten Dunst in Interview with a Vampire; or Winona Ryder in Beetle Juice as we encounter not so much a Gok revelation, as a Goth revolution…

: : : : : : : : : : :

I AM the Fairest One of All – Loving Yourself Warts ‘n’ All

“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted…” as the inimitable Mae West once said.  Actually I wasn’t purposely Snow White – although I love the whole hair black as night, skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood thing… very Vampira – I was actually more… off-white… cream, in fact.  Head to foot in cream, with a hood and everything.  This prompted a loud-mouth youth in Southend High Street to bawl out, “Oi, Snow White!” And I shrunk, tortoise-like, into the cavernous depths of my hood, horrified. That was the point of most my clothes then, they were a disguise – though not always so literally.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall..."

I never had a style as such, more like a theatrical costume – or props department – a character for every occasion.  One day, when I was about 11, I had looked in the mirror of our sauna-style bathroom – what was with that look? – and watched myself submerge into its silvery depths, like a mermaid, and reappear Laura Palmer blue – I didn’t recognise me any more. And for a long time after I played at being anybody else but me – except one of them people in the Body Shock documentaries.

It wasn’t until the day I got married, in a dress I felt all wrong in, my scalp singed and my hair pulled into a knot by a mad Italian hairdresser, that I realised becoming Mrs Somebody was not the answer to eliminating Little Miss Nobody – she looked at me from the mirror with her ‘I told you so…’ expression and I knew I had some facing up to do. 

Where had my fairytale gone tits up? When searching through the evidence, photos bore testament to the fact that no matter how much real jewellery, designer scarves, or Thomas Pink shirts I layered on, I was fake.  I’d adopted – voluntarily I admit – someone else’s idea of me.  And I could hear my mother saying, “You used to love colour!  If I see you in another shade of beige, I’ll scream!  You look like death!”  I later realised I had been suffering from a severe case of Beige Zombosis.

At its worst, this disease manifested itself as a desire to create the perfect capsule wardrobe.  In itself this holy grail of sartorial zendom is not a bad objective.  I mean, even Einstein, had a capsule wardrobe of sorts, apparently comprising of seven versions of the same outfit.  Sounds pretty dull, but he had that crazy ass hair-style thing going on, so he didn’t want to go overboard, and he knew what he felt most cosy in when doing all them formulas, so voila!  Ultimately if the point of clothes is to do a job, then the capsule wardrobe is like an elite task force.

Albert Einstein Style

This whole capsule wardrobe thing had me going for a while.  In fact I spent the time I was meant to be writing my novel, trawling the length and breadth of London searching for the pieces which would create this seemingly elusive ideal.  It was when I was packing for my honeymoon and I filled the entire flat with various ensembles for every conceivable occasion, but still felt as if I had ‘simply nothing to wear’, that I realised something had gone horribly wrong.  Dun, dun, dah!  Half finished chapters of my novel flew up and slapped me in the face; French vocab stickers I had studiously ignored in my attempt to learn the language of lurve mocked me at every turn; and playing cards flew through the air… oh no, wrong story.  Basically, I was starting but I wasn’t finishing – anything, ever…

So right now although I have moved on somewhat, I am still standing in the fall out of this unhappy episode, wondering how to pick my way through the debris.  And I may be itching to get the hell outta here, but rule number one when changing anything is:  Learn to love yourself the way you are and where you are NOW.  Stand in the midst of the disarray that is your wardrobe, look into your make-up smeared mirror and say, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land is fairest of all?” and accept the reply, “You, my queen, are fairest of all.” without cracking up.

: : : : : : : : : : :