This week, a lovely 44 year old lady who's spent years sunbathing. Oddly, instead of looking like your typical perma-tanned, orange leather visaged Majorca matron, she looks like a lady who's spent her life rambling about the Cornwall countryside, getting the sun on her face and mud on her boots. She's got lines and wrinkles, slightly stringy blonde hair - and a really kind looking face. That's the first thing you notice - how kind she looks. She has a face you could paint, all history and expression and character, with pretty pale blue-green eyes and a sweet smile. The lines look like laughter lines and smile creases - hardly the worst thing that can happen to a face over the decades. She pads about in pale, baggy clothes - long skirts, boxy fleeces.
The five children she's spent her life bringing up say they're 'embarrassed' to be seen with her, in her quite ordinary, fleevy oversized beige jacket. If she was Mad Hippy Mum, resplendent in violent tie-dye, or I'm Just Like You Gals Mum, bandaged in skintight Topshop, maybe their embarrassment would have some basis in reality.
An hour later, they've stretched her skin, squeezed her into tight purple clothes with constrictive - and horribly cliched, already dated - waist-cinching belts, high heels that obviously hurt her from the outset. They ignore her skintone and obvious colour preferences, and dress her up in colours that just make her look like the stereotypical older woman, trying to look younger.
She does look older than her years, and some simple changes would have made a great difference. If they had any sense, they'd have picked up on her warm skin, gold hair and outdoorsy nature, and stayed with the white and cream she's used to, livened up with gold, nut browns, marigold, tan, burnt orange, and maybe the odd safari print. They'd have put her in soft, flowy summer dresses with light gold jewellery rather than the cheap, tight satin monstrosities they decide are necessary.
But then I suppose that wouldn't make good tv. Changes must be made, and they must be drastic.
The haircut they give her is pretty, but the colour is dubious. Her skin, lined before, now looks like it's been stretched like a balloon - the texture's unnatural. No-one's skin is like that! Even before they put makeup on it, it shines like rubber. The colours they put her in... ye gods. The only really good thing they did for her was improve her teeth. The rest would have been far more effective if they'd taken it only halfway.
At the end of it, her children are finally proud of her. It's good to see that after 18 years of bringing up your brood, it's your new-found 'stylish' [read: high street of the traddest, least personal nature] look that will make your children express their pride in you, their mother.
Christ.
