REMEMBER ‘WHAT NOT TO WEAR’?
Stacy LONDON and clinton KELLY are back With a new series, revamped for modern times. 👢👔👗
As someone who sewed, knit, and thought endlessly about clothes, I was a die hard What Not To Wear fan in the early 2000s. Couldn’t get enough. I would scour racks at the mall whispering Stacy’s mantra of ‘colour, pattern, texture, shine’, hoping the perfect garment would materialize at my fingertips. The show fascinated me, and not always in an inspiring way, but in a mortified-for-the-contributor-but-not-enough-to-change-the-channel kind of way. I’m ashamed to admit it now, but I was there for all the messy moments.
THE ORIGINAL ‘WHAT NOT TO WEAR’:
What Not To Wear aired for 12 Seasons, ending in 2013, and was definitely a product of its times. In the early 2000s, I was a woman in her 30s, and completely immune to society’s penchant for shaming poor, frumpy, middle-aged women, who had simply ‘given up’ on being attractive. Because that is clearly what they had done, right?! They weren’t busy, or tired, or suffereing from anxiety, or just f*&#ing fed up, they had ‘given up’ and that was a sad state of affairs for us all. While we had to suffer their disheveled appearances in public, this was a time when beautiful celebrities were labeled by the media as fat, and talk-show hosts were making their guests step on the scale after giving birth. Every woman yearns to disclose her post-birth weight to a late-night audience, amirite?
This was all completely normal to me. When I was a teenager in the 90s, my aunts would declare a public assessment of my body during Christmas brunch. I would enter the room after a year of growing and changing and they would decide collectively whether I ‘looked lovely’ or had ‘gained a few pounds’. The compliments I received were mainly about my body or clothing, and every adult had the right to chime in with an opinion. It’s no wonder that the only problem I had with a show thats main premise was to tell people the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to dress their body, was that it only aired once a week. As much as I coveted the advice, for me, the show was like watching a train wreck. I had sympathy for the participants but, at the same time, I was glad it wasn’t me who was so shamefully unkempt. At the time, I could never pinpoint exactly why the show made me so uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it deeply, but the love was mixed with an uneasy feeling of ‘ick…this isn’t quite right, but I’m not totally sure why’.
Years have passed, and now that I’m in my mid 40s and the mother of two teenaged daughters, I sure as h*ll know why! The show was SO MEAN! Allow me to summerize an average episode:
You look super shitty and your friends and family have not only noticed, but are embarrassed to be seen with you.
Looking out for your best interests, they enlist the help of a popular TV show.
The show secretly FILMS YOU AT YOUR HOME AND PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT, and interviews YOUR BOSS, all unbeknownst to you.
You are ambushed in public, usually while doing something sticky like eating an ice cream cone.
You are side-hugged by strangers who tell you that you look real bad and have caused shame. You are expected to look sheepish.
You are given a sum of $5000 to replace your entire wardrobe (which is unreasonably low because Stacy makes you buy a few expensive jackets that you’ll only wear twice).
You are forced into a small mirrored box wearing the worst your wardrobe has to offer, and made to justify the deranged fabric covering your body.
Your clothes are thrown into an absurdly large garbage can.
You are given rules with limited explanation, and told to buy clothes that look like the ones displayed on a mannequin that does not match your body type.
You must try on unflattering garments in front of the TV viewers of North America while the host points at your problem area.
Your hair is cut whether you want it or not, into a style that may or may not reflect your personal tastes or ability to maintain it.
By the end of the show, you either love your makeover or hate it, but if you hate it, you are wrong.
You reveal your new look in a rented out party room at a local pub where your family and co-workers are assembled. Everyone says you look way hotter and you pretend to be happy, but are still super pissed that they nominated you.
After that humbling summary, I’m happy to say that I have moved on from seeing public humiliation as a form of entertainment. Hopefully, the rest of the world has too, and is willing to give the revamped version of What Not To Wear a fair chance?
THE NEW ‘WEAR WHATEVER THE F YOU WANT’:
Firstly, kudos to Stacy, Clinton and the producers for evolving with the times and giving this premise another shot. The old show did have some great content; the hosts had chemistry, exchanged cheeky banter, and did seem to genuinely care about the contributors. What Not To Wear featured some truly touching moments, which, in combination with the right intentions, sets the stage for a real gem of a rebrand.
According to CBC Canada, the new show is focused more on inclusivity and body positivity, empowering people to live out their fashion fantasies in real life. Rather than following generic rules and outdated notions of style, the contributors are in control of the entire process, with Stacy and Clinton acting as supportive enablers, or ‘mom’ and ‘dad’, as one contributor called them.
If you are interested, all 8 episodes of the new show are currently available on Amazon Prime. I can certainly vouch that the aftertaste of this show is much more palatable than the original. After watching a few episodes, I no longer came away feeling icky, but at peace with the world, reminded that empathy does still exist. In this climate, it is much nicer to see tolerance and inclusivity promoted rather than shame exploited. In conclusion, I found Wear Whatever The F You Want entertaining in a way far more humane than its predecessor. 🧥 👕 🧣 👚 👖
