Flash and dash power dressers in politics
Thank god summer is over. No more young women strolling the streets with butt cheeks hanging below their shorts till next spring with any luck. Even determined buttock-flashers must eventually take the hint.
Spring is on its equally chilly way in the UK, where Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Prime Minister Theresa May posed recently for a photograph illustrating negotiations over Brexit. The photograph became infamous when the Daily Mail headlined it, ‘‘Never mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!’’ and put it on the front page.
Women then ranted about sexism and a woman’s right to flash whatever she likes, while men are despicable if they look, but to be fair, it’s weird for women in positions of power to wear above-the-knees skirts. They’re more popular with roly-poly girls with lots of tattoos and green hair who let it all hang out.
The two politicians didn’t have the Fox TV women’s highly developed art, legs pushed together and aslant in a flattering way. Where were their minders? Sturgeon’s sturdy legs were crossed, which makes anyone’s legs look fat, while May showed all her knees and tantalised with thigh besides.
In this she’s a bit like our Christine Rankin, who got into trouble when she was boss of welfare for short skirts and teasing glimpses of breast, and didn’t last long in the job. If you’re a prime minister you shouldn’t tantalise. They know you’re a woman. You don’t need to display the evidence, especially not when you’re 60.
The Obama period in the White House was marked by the elegance of both president and first lady. Elegant bodies, elegant clothes, elegant manners.
The Trump period is already marked by other things, like his fake tan and weird hand signals, possibly a secret code communicating with the Russians. He must have found a batch of the very same Coppertone self-tan lotion I slapped on my legs one summer as a young teen, only to have them turn what will be known on future paint charts as Trump Orange. You wouldn’t want it in a pullover, but it might work for tiles in the guest toilet if they were sale price.
Women insist it’s bad to judge people on their dress sense, but I find it an excellent key to understanding them. Nothing can come of a woman in beige, for example, but more beige, and phoney fur is for phoneys.
Most of us are merely bewildered when we dress in the morning, but Trump worked out his style a while back. Being a lumbering, overweight man with a sizeable puku he has worked out that his best bet is a long jacket, a type of frock coat, worn with matching suit trousers. Dressed thus he references a card sharp in a Western, which may be key to understanding both the man and the people who voted for him.
Where his ensemble goes truly off track is when he wears ridiculous white trucker’s caps, pretending to be one of the boys, with a white shirt and a bright red tie. The effect is more technicolour than tasteful.
Melania Trump, theoretical American First Lady, is only trundled out on special occasions, when she looks bewildered but dresses appropriately. Only the autocue lets her down. Anyone keen enough to look will find her half undressed on the internet if they’re interested. Like the young Marilyn Monroe, who famously sprawled naked for a calendar, she had to eat before she met Trump. Pickings can be thin in a big city.
That is not a problem suffered by French President Francois Hollande. Like Trump, he never says no to a second pudding. Being short, he can’t solve his problem with a long frock coat, so his tailor turns him out in shortish suit jackets shaped to suggest he has a waist. He could easily be mistaken for a bell boy in a smart hotel. Like Trump he has been – still could be – a ladies’ man, a fact in both instances that refutes Darwinian theory.
Meanwhile I have been studying the strange things makeup and hairdressers do to the women on TV. One day recently they gave the lovely Renee Wright, weather presenter, false eyelashes and did her hair up like an old lady. The effect was bizarre and unflattering, but watch out for those lashes. The same pair seems to be being rotated around other female on-air staff, reminding me of Lamb Chop, the children’s TV glove puppet, or Bambi.
I object to false eyelashes on grounds that men don’t get the chance to wear them. Mike Hosking is crying out for them. It’s only fair to give him a turn.