Too Fat to Flap? – & Other Musings on 20s Style

“Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than to merely keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us.”

— Virginia Woolf (Orlando)

Prohibition poster gals

The other Saturday night was Prohibition night: a night where peeps get together to relive the roaring twenties; sipping booze from china whilst doing the Charleston; and sizing up each other’s sartorial prowess – or some such ballyhoo. I don’t know, I used to love dressing up, I also used to love all things vintage … well, maybe not all things, but 1920s is definitely not my cup of cha.

Flip flapping away...

First I got in a minor mental flap over the dress: there is no way I’m shelling out hard earned cash for a dress I’m never gonna wear again AND which’ll make me look like a sausage bursting at the seams. The fat flapper – sounds like a sea lion – is not a look I relish sporting.  And so I fashioned me a dress from an old fringed scarf and a slip. It served as a distraction:  “No, it’s not me that’s all wobbly, it’s the dress.”

Jazz babies

Then I got to watching the House of Elliot, or at least the first two episodes someone has uploaded to Youtube, and got all disgruntled about sexism and well… clothes.  For one thing, the freedom the corset-less ‘flapper’ dress spelled for the feminine form was not as liberating for the curvy gal as it was for the gamine gal.

Don't look now, but ...

As much as I would love my wavy hair to be poker straight and my hips to be even straighter it’s as though curves have predestined me to feel like a fat, round peg in the jazzy juvenile hole of the twenties and thus not fit to flap.

Feelin' fruity

Not that I’m complaining, much. It’s just all this thinking about being boyish has made me more body conscious than usual. Although it’s not unusual to feel trapped in a woman’s body in a man’s world, it’s really only when you come to squeeze yourself into a style from an era your body wasn’t made for that you realise how lucky we are to live in a time where almost anything goes – in theory at least.

Flapping good ethi-cool style:

• Pachacuti – get up cloche & personal in hats with soul
• Annie’s – get the original dress & bead the best
• Ivana Basilotta – a lotta ethical silk dresses with a 20s twist for SS 2011

My Favourite Top – Has it Got Something to Hide?

Does my skeleton look big in this?

My favourite top is slash necked and bat-winged. Sounds like some vampire horror story of a garment I know, but I feel good when I wear it.  I love the sophisticatedness of the slash neck – not to be confused with a slashed neck, which is not at all sophisticated, or comfortable – and the relaxed yet elegant cut of the sleeves.  It is effortlessly stylish.  And yet, something has come between me and my top.  I’m beginning to suspect it may be hiding a skeleton in the closet.

I’ve no proof – just rumours.  But all the same it’s got me thinking, where had it been before we met on that clothes rack in Zara, the Knightsbridge branch, all those years ago?  Because, I don’t know if you know this, but cotton, which is mostly what my beloved top is made from, isn’t as soft and fluffy as we’re led to believe.  At least it doesn’t start out that way. 

I mean what would you think if you thought your top, could, in some small way, have contributed to an ecological catastrophe? The disappearance of a sea, no less. I couldn’t believe it.  I know, it’s hard to imagine an innocent, albeit subtly sexy, top could be mixed up in this sort of mess, but it seems the

Cotton - queen of the crops?

evidence is mounting against it.

So, ok, the story goes something like this: once upon a time the Aral Sea, which lies between Kazakhstan, in the north, and Uzbekistan, in the south, was the fourth largest lake in the world. For thousands of years, the local people made use of the Aral’s natural resources – for irrigating crops and fishing – until, under Soviet rule, Uzbekistan discovered the export potential of cotton. Ka-ching!  Jackpot! And so, began the slow draining of the Aral Sea, to irrigate what the present government affectionately term, ‘white gold’.  An apt nickname, considering it rakes in over $1 billion every year.

The thing is cotton’s a kinda thirsty old plant: according to Water Footprint, it takes around 2700 litres of

water to produce the cotton for one lil’ ol’ shirt.  It doesn’t take a genius to work out if Uzbekistan is one of the largest cotton exporters in the world then a whole lotta water is guzzled in the process. The result? On his visit there a couple of weeks ago, the UN and Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said:

“…[H]e could not see anything except a “cemetery of ships marooned in the sand.” As a result of the disaster, people are getting sick, the land is poisoned, and storms blow dust and salt as far as the North Pole.”

Cotton is quite greedy, for a plant

I guess it’s not my top’s fault, but it turns out, the desertification of the Aral Sea is just the tip of the iceberg, or something like that. Cos Uzbekistan’s President, Islam Karimov, poetically described by Sting, the

dictator’s daughter’s fave famous person, as, “…hermetically sealed in his own medieval, tyrannical mindset.”  has, according to the UN and Amnesty International, lived up to this description:

Sting in the tail?

“…boiling his enemies, slaughtering his poverty-stricken people when they protest, and conscripting armies of children for slave labour.”.  Sounds like a grimmerer and grimmerer Grimm’s fairytale.

Hmmm? What’s that? Child slave labour?  I mean if slaughtering and boiling doesn’t capture the public’s attention, then animal or child cruelty surely will – just look at those doe eyes!  Well, according to the Environmental Justice Foundation, due to underinvestment and a shortage of agricultural machinery, 90% of Uzbek cotton is harvested by hand; and a lot of it by wee nippers, who miss up to 3 months of school, to pick the prickly crop – ouch!  The EJF’s Pick Your Cotton Carefully campaign has already encouraged many high street retailers to

Come along, kiddie-winkies!

commit to sourcing cotton elsewhere.  However, last month, fashion hotspots Zara and H&M found themselves in the hot seat, accused of buying Uzbek, and essentially supporting slavery. 

And so it goes on. There are many more tales to tell, from pesticide poisoning to sweat shop labour, but that’s for another day.  I’m not sure this is the end of the road for me and my fave top, maybe we can patch things up.  It just seems to me that it’s part of our responsibility to consider where our clothes – or anything we consume – have come from.  We can learn about each other that way – broaden our horizons.  And it’s a reminder, that although we may feel like our purchasing power is all just a drop in the ocean, even oceans can be finite, apparently.

Mad March & Ethical Fashion Con-Fusion

I’m late, I’m late! Noooo, I’m not pregnant – just way overdue. Where did February go? I just don’t know! But here we are well into March. In Bunhill Cemetery the daffodils are a-shaking their shocking yellow heads; and the bluebells are a-tinkling which means one thing: spring! Ding dong the witch is dead get outta bed…

Spring has sprung and I’ve returned from my year of self-imposed exile to London tan’s Eastend to start a-new. So I began my new London life in style by attending the Fashion Fusion Expo, “a showcase for the very best in ethical and sustainable designers”. A short stroll daan the

I'm off to the sustain-a-ball

frog (that’s authentic cockney rhyming slang …) to the labyrinthine Truman Brewery, the FFE was a little hard to find. But once I found it boy I wished I hadn’t.

I’d been peachy keen to get my teeth into some sustainable style, not to mention “…get up close and personal with … industry experts…” as the website claimed. I mean I’ve just become a fully fledged Holistic Colour & Style Consultant, don’t you know, and I want to make some contacts: designers I can tell my future clients about, that sort of thing. But after costing an arm and a leg to get in – a tenner, Olympia prices! – there turned out to be all of ten stalls; a couple of which looked strangely similar, so they kinda cancelled each other out…

And I’d set my heart on listening to a talk given by Image Consultant, Hannah Jean, who was supposed to be on at 12 noon, Saturday. She has an interesting slant on image and self empowerment and runs a project for teenage girls called Diva-licious – this is the

Curiouser & Curiouser

sort of stuff I want to hear about, the sort of stuff I want to do. But the talks were rescheduled and no-one seemed to know what was happening when: curiouser and curiouser. And by the time Hannah Jean appeared she was even later than this blog, and not all I’d anticipated. So I cut my losses and left.

I did manage to have a chat with some some lovely ladies however, including: Frank & Faith, who were exhibiting an array of simple separates in sustainable fabrics, in lush colours, made in the UK; NV, an “…ethical accessories company … producing entirely handmade, high quality bags and accessories, designed in Britain and created in Calcutta…”; and the Ethical Fashion Forum, who told me, it would be worth attending their monthly socials for networking porpoises… (I went to see Alice in 3D the night before last, and I’m toadally off my head now).

Surely the Fashion Fusion Expo was meant to establish ethical and sustainable as viable alternatives to fast

Green (& ethical) with NV

fashion? Instead it showed that green is not the new black it claims to be, but a pale imitation. My climate change enthusiast (if you can be enthusiastic about such a thing) house-mate had tagged along and insisted the reason for the FFE failure was that there isn’t that much ethical or eco fashion around, full stop. I was like, er, yeah there is! I mean, if the sustainable style message is missing this gal, then there has to be something seriously wrong.

And if events like these are the face of the ethical fashion industry then there’s no wonder people are sticking to their fast fashion fix. Fast fashion comes in enticing, addictive ‘eat me’ ‘drink me’ consumable, disposable packaging; and Green is still perceived as a bitter pill to swallow. For ethical and eco high ideals to be embraced by the high street, and beyond, events like these need to stop being Fashion Con-Fusion – ho ho ho – and start catwalking the talk.  (A bit like me and the old colour & style consulting business!)

Pyjama Saga – The 3Es & Wardrobe Wonderland

Where's the gold rush?

I was thinking: I’ve strayed from the path.  Meandered from my catwalk on the wild side and marauded all over the shop.  And so, I’m back to talk about the 3 E’s of style – all things: eco-friendly, ethical and economical.

2009 was not good on the wardrobe front.  Well… I say that, but in one way, a severe lack of money way, it was.  My impecuniousness mess meant I wasn’t at liberty to go frittering my hard earned dosh willy nilly. 

Coco wore the trousers - in bed...

On the other hand lack of dough means lack of choice. It means you seriously consider shopping in Primark, against your better judgement.  It means charity shops, boot sales and swishes are your big 3 E destinations; which is fine except if you really need something, it’s kinda luck if you come across it second hand. 

In fact, actually finding what you’re looking for is one of my biggest bugbears (I never say that in real life).    I just don’t get how there are so many shops, with so many shelves, featuring so many products, in so many variations and yet finding bog standard men’s-style pyjamas – pjs without ‘sex kitten’ emblazoned across the chest in diamanté – is nigh on impossible.  I have to say my timing – pre Christmas and post Coco avant Chanel biopic fashion frenzy – may have had something to do with it.  But it’s not only pyjamas, I’d like a red scarf. Pink, purple or green, yes.  Red.  No. 

And I’m not alone.  My friend has been searching high and lo for a navy blue duffle coat with red lining a la Paddington Bear, for years.  Having found said item to be a myth she investigated the possibility of having

Can't find those bear necessities...

one tailor-made.  All fine and dandy, if you’re Jonathan Ross, cos she was quoted something like, £500 for the job!  Eeek!  Somewhere like Vogue would say this is an ‘investment’, which it kinda is, unless like some of us you don’t have a credit card; and seeing as I’ve spied things for a few hundred squids in their Cheap & Chic supplements, who knows what planet they bank on. 

So I was intrigued to read this on the future of fashion, 2010 – 2020, in the free Stylist magazine thrust in my face outside Fenchurch Street station: 

“The customer will design their own clothes and accessories online or at store computer terminals.  Within an hour, their unique creations will be ready and thanks to 3D body scanning, they’ll fit perfectly.” 

Modern Millies are happy Millies

Sounds like a return to good old fashioned tailoring, with a Thoroughly Modern Milly of a twist to me.  Imagine clothes which actually fit! Wild, eh? Although I do have some reservations about the turnaround time of an ‘hour’!  Who is gonna be making these clothes – elves?  Or maybe by 2020 the economy will be so far up Sh*t Creek employing nimble-fingered infants will be the norm as parents who went mental with the IVF and got a litter of little ‘uns are forced to send ’em out to work for a pittance.   Cos my next thought is… cost.  There must be a catch 22 ‘ere somewhere…

But before I go meandering any further down Pondering Alley I just want to end this ‘ere entry by saying: it’s pretty darned obvious our consuming passions aren’t being satisfied by the fast fashion industry.  Or at least, if some of us are dead set on chameleon couture, then it needs to be properly disposable, ie, biodegradable, otherwise it’s just more slag for the heap.  And for those of us with a more long term wardrobe plan then it means you should be able to find the perfect LBD in one hit, instead of twenty clangers.

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.

Magpie Genes & Charms of Hummingbirds – Making Jewellery out of Memories

I’ve had a magpie gene since I was a twinkle in my daddy’s eye (errrgh). One of my oldest memories is spreading the contents of my Nanny’s button bag across the carpet like a treasure trove. And my estate to date comprises: a tatty silver tinsel Christmas tree; a pair of clip on crystal cluster earrings donated by Les Dawson look-a-like Grandma Last; a tiny rose pendant dad bought me from Miss Selfridge because I told him I liked it but my then boyfriend didn’t; and a few avian-themed pieces, partly a nod to Hitchcock’s The Birds, partly a symbol of freedom, partly cos I just like ’em.

Memories are made of many things, but jewellery acts as a kind of tangible portal, a shimmering path, to nostalgia-ville. Making jewellery, or having it made for you – as in the case of my now defunct engagement ring – also imbues a piece with memories and meaning. A few weeks ago I went to Treasure, part of Coutts jewellery week, and met a cluster (?) of jewellers using vintage pieces in their work. One in particular, Rosie Weisencrantz, focussed on this idea, creating what the company terms ‘memorial’ jewellery, made from pieces left by deceased loved ones, “As each precious life is personal to the one who lived it, every necklace tells it’s own unique story.”.

So having found myself washed up on the sandy shores of Southend-on-sea-the-place-to-be once more, seemingly destined to re-live this chapter of my life repeatedly, until I discover that certain something… I’ve finally come to understand you just have to go-with-the-flow. So I am learning to lurve my home by indulging in another fave pastime, beach combing. When I was a wee nipper smacks of jellyfish used to silently terrorise beach combers with their alluring crystalline cabochon bodies; and way before that Amy-Johnson-queen-of-the-air lost her way, or ran out of fuel or something, somewhere round here, disappearing plane ‘n’ all beneath the waves, waiting to be discovered by one of those men with a clickity-click-metal-detector. I’ve been less adventurous collecting sea glass – bits of broken bottles smoothed, shaped and frosted by the sea – which I aim to turn into re-used, wearable, treasure-able jewels.

Scanning the stony, sandy shore for shards of glass glinting in the sun is a peaceful preoccupation. Tortoiseshell butterflies camouflaged amongst the stones take flight, disturbed by my inquisitive fingers. Birds strut, squawk and glide silently against the slightly eerie watery-Whistler-esque-scapes flecked with diamond light. But this is just the beginning of the process – how to join the sea glass pieces once I’ve drilled them? It’s a work in progress.

 Last weekend I attended a course at Cockpit Arts in Holborn, “a social enterprise and the UK’s only creative-business incubator for designer-makers”, on making silver jewellery. It was the tutor’s first time tutoring, just as it was my time silversmithing, which was …interesting.

We sawed sheet silver with blades, hardly wider than a string on a bow, which snapped with the slightest sign of inappropriate pressure – “This is really a magical… mystical process,” the tutor said to me when I told him I had  gotten through 6 of my 12 blades in a morning. “You have to be calm. Meditate. The metal knows if you are angry and it fights against you.”

Madeleines, memories & moustaches

But patience has to be partnered with brute strength I reckon. I sustained a groin injury from trying to push metal through a press and nearly seared my eyebrows off with the blow torch. But I soldered on (sorry – couldn’t resist)… quietly focussed on creating ‘something’ – despite the fact my outer-circle-frame-thingy pinged off and set me back a tad, meaning I ended up with a pendant instead of the planned ring.

However, going with the flow worked like a charm. As luck would have it I’d wanted to make a pendant in the first place, seeing as I’m collating a hummingbird (?) of charms in order to create a necklace for my sister, in celebration of the birth of her first child. Did you know a group of bedazzling hummingbirds is a ‘charm’? I wonder what the collective noun for memories is…a Madeleine, perhaps?

Make Your Own Memories:
Designer Courses – Expert tinkering tips
Flux Studios – Vicky Forrester’s courses aim to be affordable
Jewelry Lessons – DIY demos

Sock Tactics

Part 3:
Socks & Tights

If you were to cast your mind back… oooh, say, to February, then you may remember reading Part 2 of a series of 3 blog posts on Foundations and have been eagerly anticipating the third… Yes, I knew it! Well, here it is at long last. Having paid too much attention to balancing cherries atop a partially baked pastry shell I find myself here, 3 months later, writing the last in this series – oooh, it sounds so fancy! – lying in a pool of jam amongst pie debris, all too familiar with what happens when your foundations are flimsy.

If I’d heeded the warnings emanating from my wardrobe, I may have realised that the Norah

Sock of doom

Batty-esque wrinkling of my over the knee socks was a harbinger of foundation doom. I mean, if the the actual look of flagging footwear isn’t bad enough, it’s the feel of it sliding slowly down your leg – a kind of creeping sensation I imagine they are referring to in vintage horror films when they say, ‘Oooh, that ghastly face at the window really gave me the creeps’.

Speaking of which, hosiery meets eco-horror in this spoof film, The Sockfather – Part 1 …

As this film demonstrates the humble sock can be environmentally devastating. But like most things, it’s not the socks that ruin the environment its the feet that wear them – leaving their carbon footprints all over Mother Nature’s clean floor, tut. However the sock, like the brief, is now available in a range of eco-friendly materials, notably lenpur and bamboo, which are breathable and deodorising – phew.

Obviously comfortable, well-fitting, hosiery should never be underestimated, but I also have certain style prerequisites: I like a long sock, in either a black or ‘natural’ shade, all the better to hide that flash of fuzzy, white,

A good sock is hard to find

 bruised flesh when your trouser hems ride up as you sit down. However finding eco or ethical hose which reaches my standards has proved perplexing. Boots has a pretty good range of basic green black socks and tights, but for the longer length I desire I’ve had to trawl the net, and at last I’ve found G=9.8 which are made from the aforementioned lenpur – tree cellulose no less.

All well and good except eco-friendly tan tights / stockings / pop socks – yes, the most unsexy footwear known to woman after orthopaedic sandals, but a necessary wardrobe evil, I find – is still proving as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel. So until I discover such an item I am going on with the regular ones and endeavouring to find ways to re-use them. Having rejected the bank robber’s mask as too cliched, I was really at a loss as to how else to re-use my hole-y hose. But then I came across this little gem: why not turn your tights into a necklace? It just goes to show that off the right feet and in the right hands anything can be transformed into treasure…

Re-use those hose…

Fear & Loathing in Marks & Spencer’s – Where have all the Good Pants Gone?

Angst In My Pants:
Part 2 – Pants
An ill-fitting or unsightly pair of pants can  curb your enthusiasm no end, just as the perfect pair of everyday drawers can help you work, rest and play. Their inherent power is such that not only do superheroes sport briefs, but some have long since worn them over their tights – with pride.  Like the power behind the throne and all that, the role of pants is kinda taken for granted and they are used and abused with little to no thought, until one dares to bare, or they reveal themselves, usually via VPL or low slung slacks.  But more worryingly still, aside from causing low grade unease, according to the film, More than Pretty Knickers by Eco Boudoir, a really bad pair of pants can be bad for the planet.  Yes, the humble brief can be a toxic, energy guzzling, sweatshop produced menace.

So, armed with the knowledge your knickers could be more evil than Evel Knievel you try to find some kinder, ethical, eco-friendly, everyday underpants at a reasonable cost to you and the environment. 

How bad are your pants?

This, dear reader was my pant plan.  Setting out with a jaunty air of optimism and anticipation at some planet-loving pant action  I entered the underwear aisle of ‘your’ M&S only to have my hopes dashed and my plans foiled.  The place was awash in Fairtrade Cotton t-shirts and vests, yes, but knickers – nada.  I had hitherto not considered such an eventuality and this left me stumped.  The question was: where could I get me some good-for-everything, everyday briefs at an ever so nice price?

Fear not! I not only come armed with some good pants solutions, but also, I have some brief advice as to finding your perfect partner in pants anti-eco-crime.

Colour
The 70s penchant for the beige and brown colour palette has left a certain someone I know marred by the memory of being presented with a pair of brown y-fronts adorned with a fetching stamps of the world print, trimmed in orange – not to mention some vague consternation at his mother’s misguided notion that he was into philately. 

Everyday underwear should be understated, colour wise, I reckon, but, also there’s the whole dirty dye issue, which begs the question, do your patterned pants have something to hide?

The 70s was pants for pants

Fabric
Same guy, same pants, that other 70s obsession, nylon knickers, and a pair of polyester slacks, with cowboy and Indian print pockets – result:  sweat pants.  How a pre-pubescent boy could perspire that much has a remained a mystery to this day, but he has harboured a grudge against them postage stamp pants ever since. 

Cotton, of course, is the fabric of choice – as it’s supposedly kind to your behind, but it’s not always so great for mankind.  More sustainable fabrics like bamboo and Lenpur, a fibre made from cultivated tree clippings, are becoming popular alternatives – whatever doesn’t tickle your fancy is key to fabric choice… ahem.

Style & Fit
Once, on a camping trip with my family, I awoke to find I was wearing a huge pair of man’s olive green, tanga pants.  Was this a Jekyll and Hyde type situation I wondered vaguely. Had I been a fully grown male at night, only to awake my usual seven year old, girl self in the morning?  The truth was only slightly less sinister.  My little sister, her mind ravaged by days of Devon’s version of Deli Belly, had been awakened in the night by some strange grumbling noises she cunningly detected were coming from the vicinity of my knickers – this information from the same person who heard Rudolph get his antler stuck in the chimney.  So, naturally, given her past performance, my bleary-eyed parents took her at her word and finding it to be completely unfounded, continued in their somnambulist states to put me in some over-sized, misshapen, manky coloured dad pants – eergh.  So, yeah, style and fit maketh the pant.  

Go commando? I don't think so...

How to Wear
First wear your own.  Second wear one at a time – the aforementioned sister once wore about ten pairs she had taken a shine to, only for them to slide down her legs, gather in a heap at her feet and slip off into the street as she was being pushed along in her buggy.  Third, wear, some… If you’ve negated to wear your knickers, do not hold your skirt aloft in the middle of the Post Office and announce, ‘Mummy, mummy I’m not wearing any knickers!’ to all and sundry.  The apparent power inherent in going commando is totally diminished by scenes like these, but then again, going commando is pretty overrated unless you’re doing it for the fear factor – for most of us a good pair of pants is like an adult security blanket.

The Good – Bog Standard – Pant Guide
Make your tatty tees into new knickers – supernaturale
Say ‘pants’ to poverty and be a real do-gooder in the Pants to Poverty, Purely Natural, organic and fairtrade pants
Bag yourself some anti-bacterial bamboo briefs – Spirit of Nature

Part 1 – Bras

: : : : : : : : : : :

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…

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