wtffashionshark

Hallo Readers,

Narcissus was a youth of legendary beauty, the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. The blind seer Tiresias prophesied that Narcissus would live to old age only if he never came to “know himself” by which he meant not staring at himself in the mirror. Sadly, Narcissus caught sight of his reflection in a pool of water and fell madly in love with himself; from that moment, he was in thrall to his reflection and remained by the pool staring at himself until he died.

It is perhaps only a coincidence that on the day of the US Midterms on Tuesday, the Rancid Kumquat made his final pitch to the Nation standing at the Reflecting Pool he claimed to have renovated to the highest standards, although it had to be redone within weeks after the coating started peeling off and algae turned it greener than the Chicago River on St Patrick’s Day. It was, he told us, “a massive piece of pool”. He even produced photographs of pipe work and filters as he burbled on for half an hour. It was like being stuck in the corner of a drinks party with someone you barely know subjecting you to their holiday snaps. Except much more boring.  Disaffected voters, red and blue, were complaining that the President seemed far more interested in turning Washington DC into a cross between a tart’s boudoir and the set of Springtime for Hitler than he was in bringing down the price of groceries and the gas they need to put into their tanks, not to mention stopping the war in Iran, which seems to have gone back to being a war from not being a war, and finally releasing the Epstein file. Nor were they happy about reckless expenditure on gold geegaws and the eye watering corruption. In such circumstances, you may think that giving his version of Henry V’s famous speech at Agincourt in front of a massive piece of pool was, to put it mildly, something of a high risk option. In the event, it was not a risk worth taking. WTF was mentally prepared to hunker down in the armchair, as she had done in 2020, and watch John King from CNN talk excitedly about Yeehaw County in Texas and Deliverance County, Georgia, for days on end. But within a few hours, it was all over. The Democrats romped to victory, capturing 7 Senate seats with perhaps two more to come; Alaska and Mississippi are still being counted and will probably still be being counted on the 300th anniversary of Independence Day. They also won a massive piece of majority in the House of Representatives. This was a massive piece of thumping for the Rancid Kumquat and his weaselly Vice President, and his craven God-bothering Speaker of the House, and all those supine cowardly massive pieces of shit, Christians all, who put their hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the constitution of the United States, and then did nothing except enable the President to line his pockets, cover up the Epstein files, and start a ridiculous war. And one by one, formerly ruby red states toppled like dominoes. Texas. Kansas. Iowa, for heaven’s sake. North Carolina. South Carolina. It was beautiful. In The Importance of being Earnest, Ms Prism explains to Cecily that she had once written a three-volume novel. When Cecily inquires how it ended, Ms Prism replies, “The good end happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means”. Well, in this case, the good did end happily and the bad unhappily. Those candidates, who had spent months being slandered as jihadists and paedophiles and alcoholics and liars whose own mother had disowned them, cantered home, while the xenophobes, racists, misogynists and bigots got exactly what they deserved and were humiliated. It would of course be foolish to think that it is all plain sailing from now on. The Rancid Kumquat has taken the defeat so calmly that one can only suspect that something is up. But let us rejoice while we can that Miss Prism was proved wrong, and that sometimes, just sometimes, people really do get what they deserve.

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We start our review of the week’s gag-making garb at the Airbnb Gala in Los Angeles. Who knows why? It is possibly one of the silliest thing that WTF has ever heard. Did they spend the night talking square footage and ensuite bathrooms? Anyway, a gaggle of celebs were in attendance in their borrowed finery, including actor Charlize Theron wearing Givenchy.

The dress is a lovely colour, but it looks like a halterneck fly screen. The sandals are a preposterous £1,860 and they give startled onlookers the distinct impression that a pair of miniature poodle puppies have fallen asleep on her feet.

Actor Emily Bader was also there, wearing Elie Saab.

It is pretty, but it is so sheer that you can see her Bermuda triangle. Or you think you can. Frankly, either is disturbing.

We are now in New York at the premiere of Club Kid with one of its stars, actor and model Cara Delevigne, wearing Erdem.

It is as if the Emcee from Cabaret got himself entangled in a joblot of tinsel…..

Here we have actor Sarah Paulson strolling around New York in a most remarkable pair of trousers.

Since when was Dopey a fashion icon?

Still in New York, we pop into the Hirshhorn Gala at the Lincoln Center, where we encounter actor Emily Blunt and Schiaparelli creative director, Daniel Rosebery. 

There is something quite silly about wearing a well-cut DJ with jeans, particularly where the jeans, which Rosebery presumably designed himself, are a trifle snug around the unmentionables. But not as silly as dressing Emily to seem to be standing behind a cardboard cutout of Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch.

Still in New York, we go to the Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards, starting with fashionista Alexa Chung, wearing Tory Burch.

This is a chenille dressing gown, worn with ugly shoes and an uglier pendant with trailing pubes.

Here is actor Cole Escada wearing Luar.

If a bellhop went to a fancy dress party as Cherubino from The Magic Flute, this is what they would look like. Except one would hope that the bellhop would remember to remove their trousers before putting on the pantaloons.

Finally, meet model Esther McGregor, daughter of actor Ewan McGregor, wearing Thom Browne.

Waitsorrywhat? The top is cute but the shoes are weirder than weird, and she seems to be emerging from the head of a Russian matryoshka doll.

This week’s It’s Got to Go comes from WTF aficionado Ben from Bromley, who is extremely unimpressed by the return to Hull of British explorer/adventurer Karl Bushby after he walked around for the world for 28 years. Odysseus was only away for twenty years, but he was fighting a war, and then kept captive by Calypso, and all sorts. This bloke just went for a walk, expecting to be away for 12 years. He certainly got that one wrong.

Bushby only saw his son Adam, now 36 years old, a few times in that period; the last time was 2014, when Adam joined him in the US for a visit. He had never met either Adam’s partner or his granddaughter Hayley, who is now 12. You can see that neither Hayley nor the grimacing gentlemen with the moustache seem to be thrilled at the reunion. With reason. Ben takes a poor view of Bushby’s odyssey, describing him as “a plonker who left his young son and his parents for 28 years. He’s hardly a fucking hero”. He’s got a point. It’s Got To Go.

OK Readers, that’s your lot for this week. Keep sending in your excellent suggestions for It’s Got to Go, and do not stint on the comments either. Let us meet again on Friday 4 December, after WTF returns from the Indian sub-continent. Be good x