Last night I watched a TV make-over show for the first time. “What Not To Wear” features a pair of obnoxious “fashion authorities” who convert a normal looking person who has developed their own style, into a bland non-entity you’d never look twice at.
The show I watched involved a sweet 33 year old woman who just got a promotion at work and dressed like a classic rockabilly chick. Most of her clothes were black, with lots of skulls, cherries, and crosses. She loved leopard print handbags and coats. She would have a blast at Hot Topic, in other words. It wasn’t very original, but it was a Look.
The “experts,” Stacy and Clinton, who look like a Persian housewife and an aging preppy hairdresser, respectively, tore into the poor woman like hungry jackals, and I guess that’s supposed to be the fun part of the show. Maybe it’s fun to watch average people being ridiculed? They witlessly mocked her taste in clothes, and dumped all her stuff into a big box. She looked genuinely freaked out.
In the end, Stacy and Clinton had persuaded the woman to cut her long natural hair into a frizzy mass of dyed layers, and she modeled some new outfits that made her look generically frumpy and at least ten years older. Now she can fit in anywhere, especially at Target.
The funny thing is, I actually imagined that a show called “What Not To Wear” would transform ugly ducklings into swans. Silly me! The goal is to divest everyone of their individual quirks, and send them home looking like a bank teller.
I would love to see Stacy in a burka, and Clinton in a prison outfit or maybe a coffin.
We are on opposite ends of the spectrum – you are fashionable and I am barely presentable, yet we manage to agree on our hatred of the evil snarks Stacy and Clinton. Ah, I love how the internet brings the world together.
The British version of What Not To Wear is fun and gentle and inspirational. I haven’t seen it enough to know if they do a better job dressing people, but at least they make it feel like an adventure instead of a trip back to junior high.
have you seen that show ‘how to look good naked’? I love it. The sweet little stylist shows women how to love their bodies just as they are. They end up doing a nude photo shoot and walking a catwalk in loungerie with their friends and family cheering them on. No humiliation involved.
I lost a leg in June of this year . Could tell me some I could wear that might look good on me. I’m not very pretty.
Tresea – I’m sure you are beautiful on the inside.