wtffashionshark

Hallo Readers,

The X Factor is back and from now until Christmas warbling wannabees will be murdering Coldplay classics and tugging at our heart strings with stories of dead parents, disabled children and grieving grannies. Everyone is on a “journey” and “wants this so badly it hurts” in the same way that our eardrums hurt. Fame is beckoning them to the Promised Land and they seem to demand it as if it were their constitutional entitlement, not that we have a Constitution, or something enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights…. They will be applying to Strasbourg next…

The thing is, nothing is what it seems (rather like those snaps of Simon Cowell and his baby-mama this week. The last time WTF saw anything more staged was back in 2000 when sanctimonious Cabinet Minister John Selwyn Gummer force-fed his daughter Cordelia a burger during the BSE outbreak.) Last week we were introduced to Sam Bailey, Sam filling the slot of the buxom mum with unruly hair, a large pair of lungs and a crap job who longs to become a singing sensation.  To add to the magic, Sam was a Prison Officer – in a male prison! She lumbered into the audition room as shy as a virgin on her wedding night and bashed out Beyoncé’s Listen with plenty of tonsil. The panel swooned. Sam then made it to the live audition in front of 4,ooo screaming  hysterics at Wembley and belted out another tonsular  triumph.  The crowd went bonkers. The panel gushed. Sam’s salt-of-the-earth husband wiped his eyes and their two little kiddies leapt up and down shouting “mummy, mummy” to order. There was so much sugar about that diabetics had to reach for their insulin.

The Sun then broke the news that Sam has sung professionally as a backing singer and on cruise ships, just like last year when tousle-haired, middle-aged mum Melanie Masson stormed through the auditions with her Janis Joplin manquée efforts before it turned out that she too had sung professionally for about 20 years. She made it to the Finals but she didn’t win like those other mums-who-just-longed-to-sing-and-leave-the-old-life-behind. Simon Cowell is not going to waste his time on anyone he can’t market to the kiddies and kiddies may go ooh and aah at buxom older ladies who can hit the high notes but they ain’t going to buy their records. Fact.

 Sam will make the Finals and can wave farewell to the old lags who will continue to bugger each other senseless without her restraining influence. After a few weeks, she will be voted off whereupon she will do the X Factor tour for a pittance and end up in pantomime in Widnes. Meanwhile, this year’s Winner will have a Christmas hit, appear on The One Show and in Grazia, Heat and Hello, pose on the Red Carpet at film premieres and then probably fall into desuetude in the manner of Steve Brookstein, Shayne Ward, Leon Jackson and  Joe McElderry. And all the while Simon Cowell will rake in more millions with which to pay for Baby Cowell’s layette and new houses for members of his discarded harem.

Talking of former winners, Alexandra Burke could sing and did win, had some hits and dated priapic footballer Jermaine Defoe but like others before her, her record contract has been terminated and she is now reduced to appearing wherever she can to drum up interest in her career. Like this…

It has to be said that this leotard, reminscent of a shrink-to-fit black plastic bag, is nearly as big an error as the tights with their reinforced gusset. If you are going to wear flesh-coloured tights with a PVC cut-out leotard (i) don’t, but (ii) if you do ensure that your tights are sheer from waist to toe. Not so much the X Factor as the WTF Factor. With added “F”.

Here is Lady Gaga, back again because she is wearing this Versace thing in a London street.

Lady G is wearing a very nice bra. It is just that the rest of us neither need nor wish to see it under this sparklefest onesie or at all. Living in London is quite stressful enough at the moment what with the heat and every bloody road being dug up simultaneously. We do not need to look at half naked women flashing their underwear on a public thoroughfare.

However, there has been an immense amount of flashing this week and not just of underwear. Sometimes, there is no underwear to flash. From what WTF can see, celebrities are now roaming about nearly naked.  What the hell happened to clothes? 

Tuesday saw the GQ Men of the Year Awards. Last year this event gave us one of 2012’s most revolting sights, namely Nancy Dell’Olio displaying sideboob and more orange than a ripe orange. This year’s Red Carpet saw a variety of women showing us their midriff, the worst of which (albeit in a hotly contested field) was young Emma  Watson wearing Balenciaga.

She looks like the Flying Nun whilst the baggy trousers put WTF in mind of Charlie Chaplin.  All she needs is a bowler hat, a walking stick and a little moustache….

Meanwhile there was a lot of flesh on display in the shape of model Daisy Lowe spilling out of, rather than wearing, Yves St Laurent.

None of this is YSL’s fault. The dress, properly fastened, is elegant. On Daisy, it is bursting open like a slovenly slapper in a negligée and red fuck-me shoes who has popped outside to collect the milk in some 1960’s movie. The word “cheap” has insufficient nuance. Put it away love for Heaven’s sake.

Here is in the Gucci-clad form of Olivia Wilde  at the premiere of Rush in Leicester Square.

To paraphrase the classic Peter Cook and Dudley Moore One Leg Too Few sketch, I have nothing against the Gucci tuxedo – the problem is neither does she.  As the result she looks trashy, not helped by more makeup than a Chisinau cocktail waitress at Happy Hour.

The Minge Moment of the Week comes from the Venice Film Festival where model Natalia Borges was wearing Fausto Puglisi.

Natalia is Brazilian and she needed a Brazilian to get away with these double split genitalia curtains and tawdry tan mark. This dress has crossed the boundary of ostentation and scaled the heights of exhibitionism and it could have all been so lovely had Fausto only extended the seams by another 18 inches. Gorgeous shoes though.

Finally we have Cate Blanchett, fully clothed, wearing Christopher Kane.at the premiere of her new film Blue Jasmine

Blimey, it’s Spiderwoman …Cate has worn some very strange outfits recently  and this is certainly one of the strangest, not  just because it makes her look lop-sided but also because every time WTF looks at that face-thingy whose bald head is nuzzling her left breast, she keeps seeing Rupert Murdoch.

OK Readers, that’s your lot for this week. Keep the comments coming and you might want to follow me on @WTF_EEK.  Let us meet again next Friday. Be good x