01.28.08
Bored
with the harangue on Bertie so I deleted a bunch of comments ( I deleted non-Crewser ones too as they would have looked odd)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
We had T’s 3rd birthday party yesterday. Another getting-away-with-murder-family-party. Topping the “ride around the fields in the jeep” entertainment of J’s party the Da arrived with one of his vintage tractors and it was “go’s on the tractor with Bill”. Hurrah!
I know I’ve been mean with the blogging recently, so just some stuff that stood out over the past few weeks
1. Trinny and Susannah
So underrated this pair. Their What to Wear series is outstanding. M had been watching it and raving to me about it (I’d be off around the house or online and not watching telly). I wasn’t paying much attention as I reckoned I’d “seen it all before” but last week I saw the one on what older women should wear. Yet again, these women show how for women clothes are such an emotional issue! They use it to disguise, to hide, to show-off . Their clothes are SO connected to their self-esteem, self-image, lack of confidence. Susannah did a thing where she put on a cleverly made mask and suit created to show her at 70. She broke down and wept because she looked like her mother. What a reaction that was! Being reduced to tears because you look like your mother. Therapy alert! Then she rebounded and was determined : This will not happen to me. I will not ALLOW this to happen to me. Funny 
2. US Elections..
The War on the Clintons is fascinating. Andrew O’Sullivan had this interesting piece in the WONDERFUL ST yesterday on the War on McCain but the even more wonderful PO’Neill continues to expose O’Sullivan’s bizarre anti-Clinton agenda.
3. On the Domestic Front
My garden is well under way – hurrah! I now have blackcurrant, redcurrant, gooseberry, rhubarb and apple trees all planted! And this week am to plant the shallots. We even have a shrubbery! I told Kevin, the landscaper chap who did the shrubbery, Soon we WILL be the Jones’s. Surely all this planting compensates for my increasing trans-atlantic flying carbon footprint? We have planted 400 white thorn quicks and 100 beech (for the hedges), at least 75 – maybe 100 native Irish diciduous trees (like Chestnut, beech, etc) not to mention my budding fruit and veg garden. Can I leave environmental guilt behind me? Will the house lose the helicopter look?
4. Art
There is no way I am missing this exhibition.
5. Columns
Waters really should thank me. I did the column yesterday about his anti-blogging thing. I’ll post later but nothing readers here haven’t heard already.
eimear said,
January 28, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Trinny & Susannah –
I haven’t been following the series but I saw the one a few weeks ago about different body shapes and it was excellent. They divided the usual apple/pear/hourglass shapes into subcategories. It was all about flattering your body type and wearing what would balance it out, instead of hating your shape.
Sarah said,
January 28, 2008 at 3:12 pm
M told me another one they did was on bras and how none of us are wearing the right bra. He said it was great stuff. Hundreds of women in a town square throwing their bras in the air
gimmeaminute said,
January 28, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I always thought that T and S was about the ritual humiliation of women for the entertainment of the marginally less frumpy.
I know for sure that I have seen episodes where a not unhappy, casually attired forty something is transformed into an orange faced, corseted business type sporting the desperate grin of the helped. Perhaps I need to watch again.
Joe H. said,
January 28, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Not sure if I am missing an in-the-know joke here.
Was Andrew Sullivan´s name originally Andrew O’Sullivan and he dropped the “O” bit, being a Tory and all that.
Or is this just a typo (which would be much less fun)
Sarah said,
January 28, 2008 at 6:22 pm
oops! Typo!!! He’s Andrew Sullivan.
T&S are different. I think.
Elizabeth said,
January 28, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I have my doubts about Trinny and Susannah. I used to think they were great, but I now see them as self-obsessed bullies with a lot of issues. While they spout the obligatory stuff about loving yourself as you are, it is clear they don’t really believe it. The worthwhile parts of their advice, such as the benefits of a good bra, have already been done – and in a much kinder way – by Gok Wan on How to Look Good Naked.
In the episode to which you refer, I felt Susannah wasn’t distressed about looking like her mother, so much as utterly repelled by the whole ageing process – which is hardly a healthy message, given that it is inevitable. While choking back the tears, she made “jokes” (half in jest, all in earnest) about how she would definitely be opting for plastic surgery.
In another episode, they both had their bodies scientifically scanned and measured. Trinny – who looks very underweight to me – was clearly upset and put out that her waist wasn’t that much smaller than that of the hourglass shaped Susannah, although all her other measurements were much smaller. Given that Susannah told us she was a size 10, what size does that make Trinny?
On the art front, you should definitely go to the Russian exhibition. I was in the Pushkin in Moscow in December, from which half the exhibition has come. It would be worth seeing for the Gauguins alone.
Sarah said,
January 28, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Trinny’s figure was frightening. It wasn’t that she was just thin but that clearly 20 million sit ups had been done to keep those muscles “up” instead of sagging, as the tummy of a 40 something mother should. But she was right about her knees- they are the knees of a 70 year old.
Does the fact that they were willing to strip along with the other women not redeem them in your eyes? They coulda welched…
The Susannah reaction you describe was incredible. “I will not allow this to happen”. But that’s precisely what I found amazing – her reaction was completely genuine and very common. None of this was contrived. She was determined. I suppose what I can’t stand in people is contrivance…..They are completely honest even if that honesty is unattractive at times. I don’t want to see what I’d look like at 70! (though wondering if there is not some great liberation from the necessity to look good waiting for me)
Elizabeth said,
January 29, 2008 at 12:05 am
I suppose that is where we differ – my problem with them is their dishonesty!
The whole philosophy behind their programmes, books, etc is the very laudable proposition that you should stop hating your body and dress in a way which makes the most of what you’ve got – as opposed to, say, 10 Years Younger or Extreme Makeover or the Swan, which transform people through major surgery. (The Swan, incidentally, was particularly creepy, as all the women ended up with identical teeth and hair).
However, as they are making clear in this series (presumably unintentionally) they don’t actually believe any of that. Trinny, who has the body of a child, obviously revels in being “the thin one” of the duo and seems to have serious body issues. When it was revealed that, according to a scanning machine, her waist was almost the same size as Susannah’s, she looked close to tears and entered into a heated debate with the machine’s operator about the accuracy of the point on their bodies at which it had measured them.
Susannah is obviously repelled by the natural ageing process. While her “I will not allow this to happen” reaction was obviously heartfelt, I don’t believe it is common. Most people accept they will age – after all, the only alternative is death! I am in my late thirties and I really hope to age gracefully. My hope is to look good for my age – not to undergo surgery so that I can look like some weird Stepford approximation of the younger me. Maybe I’ll feel differently in ten years time but, given the choice, I would much rather be Helen Mirren or Judy Dench than the increasingly ludicrous looking Teri Hatcher.
I am disappointed by Trinny and Susannah because I thought their initial message of accepting your body and making the most of it was great, but it now seems that in fact they buy into and propagate the damaging modern gospel that it is utterly unacceptable for a woman to look her actual age. I find this worrying because it means buying into the belief that women should become invisible after a certain age if they no longer look the part. Maybe we should adopt the Jenny Joseph poem, Warning: When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple as our mantra instead!:-
“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple”.
Sarah said,
January 29, 2008 at 7:39 am
hmmm GREAT poem, and i didn’t see the measurement show and don’t know if you saw the elderly show BUT its funny you should mention “invisible”. They had one lady in the dressing room and pulled off her oversized blouse and elasticated skirt (navy blue both) and there underneath lay a perfectly recognisable figure. They said to her, “why are you deliberately covering this up? Wearing big clothes?” She said she lost her clothes confidence after about 65 so dressed to be invisible – that she’d just walk down the high street and hope no one noticed her. Their first message was “buy clothes that fit”.
I agree they obviously have their own issues, but I don’t think that diminishes the quality of the advice they give to “ordinary women”.To be fair to Susannah she followed her “I will not allow this to happen” with “I will not wear my hair like this, I will not dress like this”. Of course there was a subtext – I will do sit ups I will get the botox. I do think this is common enough though. There are too many women pushing themselves in gyms at 7am and 7pm to pretend that they are there for the good of their mental and physical health. They are there to push back the years because they are terrified of looking their age.
I stumbled into the Shelbourne before Christmas as the contents of some charity lunch emptied into their bar from the function room. I turned on my heel and left. A hundred 50something women all over-tanned, over-bleached, over-madeup and overdressed. It was hideous. I want to grow old gracefully too. But I need advice. Styling has never been my thing
There has to be a line between giving up – as the women on T&S had clearly done and overdoing it, as the Shelbourne crowd had. Grace is somewhere in between.
But I can see myself doing purple! In my college days I wore ridiculous clothes at times and loved it though now I’m sure I’d cringe. Now I play safe. Perhaps in my dotage I’ll revert…
Anyway, I’m afraid I’m keeping my fan club membership – clothes are a fundamental issue for women and I think this pair expose and address a lot of key issues. The emotional issues make it compelling..
Gordon Davies said,
January 29, 2008 at 9:24 am
I always find T&S somewhat sinister as they undress and humiliate women. On the other hand, when they start to dress men I have found that they provide useful tips and I have taken up many of their ideas… Maybe the competitive urge diminishes when they deal with men and there is some underlying tension… as they dress a man they would be wiling to be seen in public with!
Gordon
Elizabeth said,
January 29, 2008 at 9:40 am
Good point about their advice to the older woman to stop hiding in oversized clothes. And obviously I continue to watch their programmes. I’m as hungry for advice as the next insecure woman. I’ve lots of hang ups about my appearance, they’re just not age related – I’ve always had them!
I’m also no stranger to “Extreme Makeover” – although that is car crash tv. In a recent episode, a couple both had extensive plastic surgery before their wedding. The big “reveal” took place on the altar, when they saw each other for the first time since the operations.
However, I have become a big fan of Gok Wan’s “How to Look Good Naked”. If you haven’t seen it, I think you’d like it. He seems to have a genuine affection for women and their bodies (unlike, I would venture, Trinny and Susannah). His advice is just as good, but it is given in a much kinder and supportive way – gently, with never a hint of hectoring or ridicule.
Sarah said,
January 29, 2008 at 11:05 am
hmmmmmmm VERY interesting point. T&S hating their bodies…and the guy loving them. We are so trained to hate our natural shape. It’s depressing. (ref: Love your Tummy column
)
I haven’t seen Extreme Makeover but I did see the Swan. Absolutely evil programme. EM sounds like something similar.
Caroline said,
January 29, 2008 at 12:05 pm
>the landscaper chap
What is it about the use of the word ‘chap’ by anyone other than elderly English aristos that grates?
Graham said,
January 29, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I think the difference between Skinny and Boobannah and Gok Wan is that while S&B heckle and embarrass women into dressing to ‘make the most’ of what they’ve got, Gok teaches the women to embrace their bodies the way they are, accept that everyone is different and everyone has bits that they’re unhappy with, but ultimately he tackles each woman’s self image, showing her that her body is not as she perceives it afterall. I think with Gok its about giving the woman confidence and really teaching her the way to dress to best flaunt the positives. S&B just show the women a couple of outfits on a dress stand and shout rules at them and then send them off to shop before barging in to say they’re all wrong and then harrassing them in the changing room. Don’t even get me started on their constant touching of the women…