wtffashionshark

Hallo Readers, The next time anyone says to you ‘this is the greatest country in the world’, just raise an eyebrow at them. And point to two things that happened over the last week. On Saturday, women holding a peaceful vigil on Clapham Common in honour of Sarah Everard, a young woman murdered as, or shortly after, she walked home from dinner with friends one night, had their protest broken up by the police. While doing so, they manhandled a number of women, one of them 5 feet 2 tall and weighing about 100 lbs, and put them in handcuffs. As it happens, the vigil was supposed to have been called off because the police deemed it unsafe in these times of Covid, even though the organisers had promised to ensure that masks were worn and that people would be socially distanced. And of course that it was to be outside.  Those on the vigil were wearing masks, although they did not look very socially distanced, and it might have been better had they not been there. But the way in which they were man-handled was crass in the extreme, particularly as the suspect in custody was a serving Metropolitan Police Officer. Women are scared to walk the streets and they wanted the world to know it. Because every day, women are subjected to indignities at the hands of men – touched, stalked, cat-called, followed, insulted, made scared. And worse. And not much seems to be done about it. And the answer is not ‘oh you shouldn’t be walking around in the dark’. Because in this country it is dark from mid-afternoon for five or six months of the year. And because the dark is not a licence to molest and terrify. Not that these incidents are confined to darkness. It is not women being reckless, it is men being disgusting and criminal. And then came Tuesday’s Parliamentary vote on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, introduced by the appalling Priti Patel, a woman who despises free speech and thinks lawyers are the Devil’s spawn. The Bill allows police to set the decibel level for demonstrations with powers to intervene when the noise is disrupting the ‘activities of an organisation’ or has a ‘relevant impact on persons in the vicinity’ . It also allows Patel, without seeking approval from Parliament, to make laws which will define what constitutes ‘serious disruption’ . Which presumably is anything of which she disapproves, which is her case is Priti much everything, and everyone, who is left-wing, do-gooding and interested in such radical concepts as being able to walk the streets in safety and the right to protest against things with which they disagree. The Suffragettes were very disrupting. And those Northerners who came down from Jarrow to protest against poverty during the Great Depression. And the million-plus people who protested against the Iraq War in 2003. Christ, they were noisy. Not to mention that lot marching through London to show their disapproval of Brexit…. If they can’t whisper, then they will just have to stay at home and do as they are told.

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We start our review of the week’s sartorial shit-pile with a dirty dozen from this week’s Grammys Awards from Los Angeles, where the music industry gathered to look daft. It was like the good old days and WTF was as happy as happy can be. Let us start with Phoebe Bridgers wearing Thom Browne. Er…. no doubt Thom Browne thought he was being very avant garde, but in fact the designer of kiddies onesies on the Not On The High Street website beat him to it. Beyoncé, wearing Schiaparelli.

If Bey was looking for something as unflattering as possible, she found it. Even Mariah Carey would have thought twice about this one. Schiaparelli has left her looking like a leather-clad egg-timer.  Finneas wearing Gucci.

Finneas is Billie Eilish’s brother, showing that there is something seriously wrong with that family when it comes to clothing, even if that clothing is from Gucci. Here he looks like he is auditioning for a role in Oklahoma! Haim, namely sisters Danielle, Alana and Este, all wearing Prada.

Oh look, there are all wearing the same colour, a harmony in baby blue lining silk. Prada is taking the piss. The girls resemble the night shift on the local NHS orthopaedic ward.  Jhay Cortez, wearing who even knows what? The designer of this execrescence is not owning up – good call.

It starts bad and gets progressively worse as you pan southward, with the stunted trousers and the oversized trainers, like a chunky version of the UPS guy in Legally Blonde. Jhené Aiko, wearing Monsoori.

She is cute, but the dress is inordinately fluffy, like a furry cat basket bought by people with more money than sense. Of course Harry Styles is included in this round-up. You would be astonished were he to be absent. Naturally, he is wearing Gucci. Harry looks like a cross between a 1940s spiv and Liberace. And there is no excuse, not even at all, for yellow shoes. Lizzo, wearing Balmain. The 1980s called and want their fashion back. The fabric is super-slithery, the cut is dismally dreadful, and the colour puts WTF in mind of a tree frog. DaBaby, wearing Dolce & Gabbana

The hat is fab, but the shoes are straight out of the Prince Regent’s wardrobe, while the suit is like a very expensively wrapped wedding gift. As for the diamanté D&G brooch, WTF prefers not to speak of it. Doja Cat Fausto Pugli for Roberto Cavalli

WTF is unable to say whether the excess boobage and the exposed belly-button are as a result of a lack of shame or the leather top being too tight to zip up. But either way there is Too Much Tit. The skirt appears to be constructed of  sun-damaged kelp littered with dead fishes and detritus various. Kevin Parker, wearing Versace. 

WTF could have lived with the jacket without the shirt, or with the shirt without the jacket. But not both together. And certainly not with those trousers. Versace has clearly been overdosing on The Golden Girls…. And finally, Noah Cyrus wearing Schiaparelli.

The dress is lovely from the knees down, but WTF deplores the turd topknot, which is a whole It’s Got To Go on its own, although not nearly to the same degree as the ridiculous billowing bedsheets. The whole thing is the lovechild of a do-it-yourself Halloween costume and an Elizabethan ruff.      

This week’s It’s Got to Go comes from WTF aficionado Alessandra from Stanmore, who has sent WTF these revolting ‘shoes’ which she saw posted on Facebook.

Chinese women used to bind their feet to make them dainty. Now models are expected to totter about with their feet in tin cans. Do you ever see men in this sort of nonsense? Of course not. It’s Got To Go.

OK Readers, that’s your lot for this week. Keep those comments coming in as WTF just loves them like anything. And please don’t forget your splendid suggestions for It’s Got To Go. There were some corkers last week. Let us meet again next Friday. Be good and stay safe. x