Pear shapes, pagans and protests
As anyone who has not been living under a stone washed denim misapprehension knows, two plummy gals from Up Over have revolutionised the world of feminine style. TV stars Trinny & Susannah, originally of What not to Wear fame, have been around for some time now.
But their increasingly untamed antics have put a whole new spin on what was already a daring proposition: in other words the sacrilegious belief that the purpose of fashion is to make women feel great - as opposed to the dogma that supermodels' purpose is to make fashion look great, while the rest of us can all get stuffed... into ill-fitting garments.
However, I started to view the pair with even greater respect (albeit mixed with jaw-dropping disbelief) watching one of their more recent shows ('recent' as in a year later than originally aired Up Over). This involved an ancient pagan site named, with admirable literalness, The Long Man of Wilmington, because it's very long, depicts a man, and is located in Wilmington, UK.
From what the poor long man - a white outline on a hillside who we'll call Wil - was subjected to it soon became clear that T and S were prepared to do almost anything in the name of female body image. Anyone who did not see them striding around Wil's resting place, walkie talkies aloft, shrieking commands at hundreds of white clad female volunteers, missed one of television's most memorable moments. (Memorable in the 'Oh my Gucci-this-is-cringe-making-but-I-can't-look-away manner', that is).
The purpose of these bizarre manoeuvres was to give Wil a sex change - deploying the volunteers to "re-draw" his outline and endow him with varying degrees of wide hippedness, fulsome thighedness and voluminous bustiness to illustrate the 12 shapes of women.
These will by now be well known to T and S converts: the apple, the hourglass, the skittle, the vase, the cornet, the lollipop, the column, the bell, the goblet, the cello, the brick and the pear shape. Talking of which, Trinny and Sue's audacity in flouting deeply held beliefs other than the credo that women with generous girths can get away with low rise skinny jeans, provoked the wrath of a force more formidable than even the fashion establishment: the pagan fraternity of Wilmington.
Dressed in velvet cloaks accessorised with creative facial hair, sickles and rowan boughs, the small but fearless huddle of druids was less than amused at this affront to their beliefs. You have to hand it to Trinny and Susannah, who must have bitten their tongues to avoid the obvious riposte that Gandalf & Co were an affront to fashion.
Instead, ever the diplomats, our gals won the day, armed with a permit from the local council and the argument that anything which celebrates the glory of womanhood can't be all bad. These days it's hard to know what to believe in, but for my money that seems a good starting point.
By Kat Walker