Deliciously Horrible TV Fashion

I'm a Gleek, it's true.  Living in the UK, we're actually a season behind the US, but I faithfully download and watch each week's episode all by myself as my teenaged sons and husband would find watching it far too emasculating!  I have to admit to often fast-forwarding through the songs because I really just like the costumes and drama...  each character is really 'told' through their wardrobe from Rachel's uptight preppiness to the never-ending Sue Sylvester uniform of sweatsuits.

It's been interesting to watch the former Cheerio Brittany exercise her fashion sense now that she's released from her red/white/black straightjacket -  especially in the 'trendsetting' episode where she introduces legwarmers as faux gloves and the Elmer hat with a tank top was amazingly styled.  Quirky, fashionable, not overly sexy and gives her a persona.

But my favorite fashion moment of Glee so far - even more than the My Chemical Romance plaid shirt extravaganza, has to be the blue satin competition dresses with leggings and boots from last week.  Surely it's a tongue in cheek reference to their 'loser' song, because, genuinely, how could you possibly combine any more heinous fashion trends into those outfits?  The tackiest blue imaginable - in wrinkled satin, with the catastrophic bow and black belt chopping them in half, with the boot/legging coup de grace.  It's a fine fashion fiasco and demonstrates why this show is such fun -- tongue-in-cheek costume design just makes me love them more.

Special kudos for the styling of Gwyneth Paltrow's character on the show - sexy, yet age appropriate and fashionable can be hard to pull off and they do a great job.


In another fashion note - if you're not watching Downton Abbey in the US, you must do so immediately! It's a must in your fashion education...

New Town, Same Girl

It's been quite an adventurous five months!  I've moved across the planet with kids in tow and started a new marriage, new life!  Now the kids are all in school, we're in our house, work is flowing and all is 'normal' in the universe.  Spending plenty of time at Topshop on Oxford Circus, Smythson on Bond Street, and Junky Styling in Brick Lane!

What's in my beauty reading radar lately?  I've been on the Tube A LOT lately and reading voraciously.  Loving "Cinderella Ate My Daughter" by Peggy Orenstein and just finished "I Think I Love You" by Allison Pearson.  Makes me strangely happy that I have given birth to three sons instead of daughters... When I found out that each of my boys was, indeed, male, I was shattered.  With each pregnancy I had visions of pink nurseries, hairbows, Barbies, Mary Janes with white anklet socks, and on and on.

Reading these books, though, is a flashback to my own perceptions of beauty and understanding just how deep those roots go...  When Pearson writes about wearing brown (a shade that makes her skin look decidedly yellow!) because she read in a fanzine that David Cassidy liked it, you realize just how early we are conditioned to conform to someone else's vision of beauty.

For me, I remember experimenting with pin curls because I thought boys liked curly hair.  I was about six and one Saturday night I painstakingly crafted the curls.  At church the next day, I flushed with embarrassment when I was convinced that two older teenaged boys were laughing at me.  Even now I can recall that feeling of just wanting to hide - even though the Grown Up Coni knows the boys probably hadn't even noticed me and wouldn't have thought twice about a little girl's hair.

Beauty Workout:  What incidents do you remember from early childhood that defined your image of how you perceived yourself? How do you feel when you think back?