wtffashionshark

Hallo Readers,

Last weekend, the US invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its de facto President, Nicolás Maduro. And Mrs Maduro. One minute they were asleep in their bed,  the next minute burly marines had roughed them up and bundled them, handcuffed, onto a plane to New York. It has subsequently emerged that about 100 Cuban military, who had been guarding the Maduros, were killed in gunfights with the US  military, some of whom were injured. It was said that Maduro was running fentanyl and cocaine into the US (he wasn’t, although he is a terrible person), and that he was the head of a narco-terrorist organisation, which turned out not to be an organisation, not even of any kind – that bit of the indictment was hastily tippexed out. It rapidly became clear that this was not about drugs at all. It was about Venezuelan oil, which the US intends to appropriate, sell and keep the proceeds. Following some confusion as to whom, if anyone, was actually running Venezuela, with the US President and its Secretary of State contradicting each other, it seems that Maduro’s deputy is the interim President, but the US will control the export of, and profits from, the oil by threatened use of more force. Even though it isn’t American oil and they have no claim to it and Congress never approved any incursion. Meanwhile our Prime Minister wrung his hands and avoided pronouncing on whether the US was in breach of international law, even though HE IS AN ACTUAL LAWYER. The word pusillanimous is too kind.

On Monday, the malignant foetus that is Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, confirmed that the US was intent upon taking Greenland, one way or the other, because it needed it strategically and no-one could stop them, and anyway, who says Denmark even owns Greenland? (Answer – everyone who isn’t a 47 madman). This time, Starmer had to take a stand, given that the UK is a member of NATO and quasi-European. But you could see that he was terribly uncomfortable, because he does not want to upset the Donald – who knows when he might fancy annexing Scotland to save himself the council tax on his golf courses?

Yesterday, an innocent woman, Renee Good, was shot in the face by ICE agents in Minneapolis. The culprit was Jon Ross an agent of ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose employees roam masked and unchecked around the US in search of illegal immigrants to assault and deport. Good was not an immigrant, or from an ethnic minority; she was a white woman who might or might not have been observing ICE swarming her neighbourhood in search of Somalis, and whose car was parked across one lane of the road. She was ordered to ‘get out of the fucking car’ whilst also told to move on. An armed ICE agent attempted to open her door, whereupon, clearly scared by these maruading thugs, she did a slow three-point-turn and drove off slowly – at which point, Ross, standing near the front of the vehicle, shot her through the windscreen and  then twice more through the open car window. That incident was captured on various iPhones. Ross then fled the scene with ICE cars still blocking the road and the ambulance which later arrived on scene could not get through, its paramedics forced to pick up Good’s bloodied corpse and carry it uncovered along the street. And then the lies started. Kristi Noem, the plastic-faced Barbie who heads the Department of Homeland Security, fetchingly attired in a large stetson because she was in Texas at the time, informed the world that Good was a ‘domestic terrorist’ who had tried to ram ICE agents with her car – a blatant lie. Noem claimed that the agent had shot Good in self defence – another blatant lie. President 47 weighed in, also calling the deceased a ‘domestic terrorist’  and asserting that Good had ‘run over’ the ICE agent so that it was a miracle that he survived his injuries. Except that anyone with a functioning retina could see that he had no injuries and that there had been no imminent threat to him or to anyone else. Both have since doubled down while the disgusting Vice President JD Vance said that the ICE agent had no choice but to defend himself against the ‘deranged leftist’ who tried to run him down – another blatant lie. In the face of videos showing the exact opposite of the official story, the official story is being trotted out. The only ramming here is the attempt to ram lies down people’s throats. And meanwhile, the FBI had taken away the investigation from Minnesota, because who would not have faith in Pam Bondi and Kash Patel?

You see, the truth does not matter to these people. They grab Maduro for drugs, but actually it is about oil. They say they need Greenland, but actually it is about power. They say Renee Good was a domestic terrorist who rammed and ran over an ICE officer, but actually it was untrammelled and untrained use of force and possibly a case of PTSD as Ross was dragged by his arm by a different car last year, suffering serious injury. They say these things because they can and they do not care whom they hurt as long as it benefits them.

********************************************************************************

Our review of the week’s ghastly garments is all from the first of the big Film and TV award 2026 ceremonies, the Critics Choice Awards. WTF just loves Awards Season, because all of her week’s work selecting the worst dressed gets done in one evening. Bliss! We start with Kate Hudson, presenting the award for Best Actor, wearing Stella McCartney.

Regular Readers (what do you mean that does not apply to you – for shame!) will know that WTF’s view of Stella has always been that she is taking the piss. Bigly. And if this dress is not proof positive for that proposition, WTF does not know what is. It is both too short and ill-fitting with a stupid train, and WTF is going on with those bunnies’ ears masquerading as a bodice?

Nicole Behari, nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a TV Series in The Morning Show, wearing Sebastian Gunawan Signature.

If this is Sebastian’s signature, he needs to go back to school and learn how to write. Younger Readers may not know about the phenomenon of the candlewick bedspread. Every home in the 1950s and 1960s had them, WTF’s included. Indeed, WTF Père’s cousin was married to a bloke who manufactured them, and so the house was full of swirly pink, purple and white candlewick. This dress is the blue version of WTF’s childhood, worn over Spanx. And gosh, it’s ugly.

Amy Madigan, winner of Best Supporting Actress in Weapons, wearing Dior Man.

Those jeans may be Dior but they are manky, not to mention wanky, while the heavily embroidered waistcoat and jacket make her look like Sgt Pepper.

Actor Jessie Buckley, winner of the Best Female Actor award for Hamnet, also wearing Dior.

Jessie is dressed as a proscenium arch with curtains. Why, WTF cannot say.

Erin Doherty, winner of Best Supporting Actor in a Limited TV Series for Adolescence, wearing Louis Vuitton. 

The colour is pretty, but she looks like a perfume bottle. Meanwhile, the last time WTF saw shoes like that, her mother was wearing them to a family barmitzvah in 1958.

Patricia Arquette. No designer has owned up to designing this. Good call.

Not only is the dress fussy and ugly, but it seems to be cutting into her boobage like a meat slicer. Ouch!

Ethan Hawke, nominated for Best Actor in Blue Moon, wearing Bode.

WTF does not know what this outfit would cost, always assuming that anyone would actually buy it, but if anyone did, they could save themselves an awful lot of money by visiting Amazon’s fancy dress section and purchasing this Mexican Day of the Dead outfit for £30.

And finally, we have Britt Lower, nominated for Best Actress in Severance, wearing Bottega Veneta.

Blimey. It’s Shaun the Sheep.

This week’s It’s Got to Go comes from WTF aficionado Louise from Gloucestershire who alerted WTF to the goings-on at the National Trust.

Apparently its website is positively littered with errors – not just typos (WTF is guilty of those all the time, sadly) but truly ignorant errors by people who clearly do not know what they are talking about, even though they are supposed to know what they are talking about. Admittedly, WTF is a grammar Nazi and stray apostrophes send her into an absolute fury. But the National Trust’s website errors are egregious, including ‘bridal way’ for ‘bridleway’, ‘heard’ their sheep for herd their sheep, ‘forrest’ for forest, ‘Nissan huts’ for Nissen huts, ‘tree routes’ for tree roots, ‘ewe trees’ for yew trees and ‘wattle and dorb’ for wattle and daub. It is not good enough and It’s Got to Go.

OK Readers, that’s your lot for this week. Keep those comments coming through and your excellent suggestions for It’s Got to Go, as WTF is prone to pine without them. Let us meet again next Friday. Be good x