CELIA WALDEN
Post-Weinstein dresscode Woe betide Christmas party dressing politics
‘Women are creating a sartorial divide that runs all the way from the red carpet to the office’
What will you be wearing to this week’s Christmas parties? A tuxedo dress? Some variation on the winning “naughty but nice” lace blouse and leather skirt combo? Or a pretty winter floral wrap? I’ll be wearing spaghetti. Carbs bring out my eyes, and if Emily Ratajkowski’s doing it, spag-wear must be on trend.
In a shoot that’s akin to Kim Kardashian’s Paper cover – in which the social media caricature offered up her glazed butt to the world in an attempt to “break the internet” – the 26-year-old Californian model and actress has posed wearing only underwear and spaghetti. You don’t need me to tell you that this has been done in the name of feminism. And although there have been some curious things done in the name of feminism over the years (in the 1870s, first-wave feminists from the Women’s Christian Temperance Society tried to ban alcohol, believing it would cause women to spontaneously combust; and a century later, US activist Roxcy Bolton ran a campaign to have hurricanes renamed “him-icanes”), slathering yourself in spaghetti is right up there.
“Personal choice is the core ideal in my concept of feminism,” explained the model in an Instagram post that looked and sounded a lot like Ratajkowski’s unleavened brain dough painstakingly cranking out noodles. “Being sexy is fun and I like it,” she went on, before bemoaning the new sense of “modesty” and “responsibility” that has women covering up in a post-weinstein world. “Feminism isn’t about adjusting,” she points out. And yet that’s exactly what many women are now doing, creating a sartorial divide that runs all the way from Hollywood and the red carpet to the office Christmas party.
On one side you’ve got the New Conservatives like Jessica Chastain, Michelle Williams and the friend who decided the thigh-high boots she was going to wear to her work bash were “off message in the current climate”. They’ve opted to button their way up and out of this mess, are contemplating initiating legal proceedings against mistletoe for “aiding and abetting inappropriate behaviour” and are keen, according to top Hollywood stylist Zerina Akers, to veer away from sexy and towards “something more cerebral”.
If this doesn’t strike fear into your heart, the Nearly Nudes will. They stand defiant – probably in some snippet of mesh adhered to protruding body parts with sticky tape – on the other side of the fashion fence, insisting it’s their right as women to dress in the way they want. And even when loitering directly beneath the (inappropriate) mistletoe in said sliver of fabric, let it be clear: this is in no way an invitation.
Between Cate Blanchett’s Ratajkowski-like cry at the Instyle Awards in October – “We all like to look sexy, but it doesn’t mean we want to f--- you” – and the “let’s not inflame the office Weinstein” thinking (with all the victim-blaming that’s implicit) is a feminist cat’s cradle with a thousand possible configurations. And why should feminism mean the same thing to every woman? Because it’s easier to effect change with a single coherent and cohesive message? Probably. But far more exhausting than any debate of that nature is the idea of finding outfits this Christmas that adequately reflect my political ideologies. Faced with that, I think I’d rather upturn a large pan of spaghetti over my head.