wtffashionshark

Hallo Readers and Happy New Year,

Even if you are football-averse, you will have heard about Frenchman Nicholas Anelka and his “quenelle” gesture after he scored for West Bromwich Albion against West Ham on 28 December. The quenelle is an inverted Nazi salute combined with the French “fuck you” sign and is widely seen as anti-Semitic with young men pictured doing it outside Auschwitz, synagogues, Holocaust memorials and cemeteries. Anelka, who converted to Islam in 2003, rejects allegations that he is anti-Semitic and says that he did it in support of his friend Dieudonné, the French comedian and leader of the anti-Zionist party who invented the gesture. There are some problems with this explanation.  Of course there is a clear difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it’s a duck and in Dieudonné’s case it’s quacking up a storm. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe (600,000) and active anti-semitism including attacks on people and property is on the rise. Dieudonné has been fined for anti-Semitism on 8 occasions and the reason that he was in need of  “support” was that the French government had just announced that he was under further investigation for answering criticism from a Jewish journalist with the words “When I hear him talking, I say to myself: Patrick Cohen, hmm… the gas chambers… what a shame.”   Dieudonné has accused Jews of deliberately spreading AIDS throughout Africa, neatly invoking the medieval blood libel which accused Jews of killing Christian children to use their blood in making matzos and has also accused Jews of being former slave traders who have since taken over banking and everything else instead.  Sounds familiar? This is the “friend” whose views Anelka saw fit to support at a football match broadcast live in France. 

Apologists rushed to Anelka’s defence. Someone tweeted (without a trace of irony) that he was not an anti-Semite which was an invention of the “Jew-owned press”.  Others supported his right to free speech. WTF would love to see their reaction if an English player lifted up his top to flash a BNP tee-shirt in support of some mate nicked for threatening behaviour outside a synagogue or mosque.  Most risible however was the explanation that Anelka and another footballer Samir Nasri, also photographed doing a quenelle, are simply “anti-establishment”. Oh really? Nasri currently earns around £200K a week playing for Manchester City, a club owned by that known radical Sheikh Mansour. Anelka, now 34, has earned millions playing for a variety of clubs including Arsenal, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Juventus and even pitched up at Shanghai Shenua where he earned £190K a week. His own supporters there so disliked his haughtiness that they pelted him with coins. Anti-establishment mon cul. As one French commentator put it, “I would love to be anti-establishment like Nasri and Anelka but I can’t afford it”.

To the crimes of fashion. Those of you who do not follow @WTF_EEK (you foolish, foolish people) will not yet know the identity of the WTF Christmas Turkey so grit your teeth and greet the winner …. DRUMROLL……

LIL’ KIM!!! In truth, she shot into the lead and stayed there, amassing 19% of the vote. And is it any wonder? Someone should buy that woman a pair of panties with a reinforced gusset. Sarah Harding came second with 11%, narrowly ahead of Miley Cyrus. All in all, the nominees this year were a haunting and horrible sight and judging by this week’s selection of sartorial nastiness, there is no sign of improvement.

We begin with singer Kimberley Walsh who is clearly making an early bid to win The Terrible Trousers of 2014 Award and on this showing, she must be in with a chance…..

Oh dear. Oh very dear. If Simon Cowell wore his pyjamas in public, this what they would look like…..no wonder the poor love looks so stricken. 

Kim Kardashian is up next, out and about wearing her Christmas present from fiancé Kanye West, namely an Hermès Birkin handbag customised by artist George Condo.

George is the man who put the con in Condo but in all fairness, if some gullible nincompoop offers you a fortune to doodle on a handbag you are not going to turn him down. WTF’s ire is reserved for Kanye who blew $10,000 on a Birkin only to despoil it with pictures of titsy women. And what happens when it rains?

Why innocent citizens should be faced with a depiction of a leather-backed Bacchanalian orgy whenever they pop out for a pint of milk is a question WTF cannot answer. But it just seems wrong…..

And now for the first It’s Got to Go of 2014 and by overwhelming demand, WTF brings you Sir Bruce Forsyth, 85, host of  Strictly Come Dancing.

No really, enough is enough. The old booby is more cheesy than a roomful of cheese, he can barely remember his lines and he stares into the camera like a startled rabbit whilst the sight of his bony fingers groping Tess Daly’s thigh and waist is absolutely stomach churning. It is time to wheel his bathchair offstage for good – and to keep going.

This is singer Kelly Rowland, newly engaged and wearing Balmain at the finale of American X Factor.

Even Dame Shirley Bassey would baulk at this sparklefest with its bejewelled leather bodice and Kelly’s muscular pose is very Conan The Barbarian in drag…….

Just before Christmas, talented actress Sheridan Smith appeared at the premiere of the Harry Hill Movie (in which she stars) wearing this red thing.

Why would you wear a dress that makes it look as if two lace-gloved hands are groping your breasts? And to compound the felony, both the length and the design make her look more stumpy than one of Santa’s little helpers.

Katy Perry reverted to her bad old ways at the Britney Spears concert wearing a Unif lurex top, a frou-frou skirt, long socks and a magenta metallic Chanel mini backpack.

This is just terribly, terribly terrible. Barbie’s sister Skipper has enrolled at St. Trinian’s. As for the metallic Chanel backpack, it seems the perfect way to flush $3,000 down the loo.

Meanwhile, WTF is starting to worry about Tom Ford who is straying along the Julien Macdonald Way to Wankiness. Beyoncé shows us why….

WTF has never seen the point of a peep-toe boot which is neither use nor ornament but these are particularly hideous, especially with their matching bum-skimming, pantie-revealing condom like an illuminated Moroccan lampshade.

OK Readers, that’s your lot for this week. Keep your comments coming as well as your suggestions for It’s Got to Go. Let us meet again next Friday. Be good x