Inside Style - by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner - May 19th Richard Blackwell would be proud. This week I made it onto a Worst Dressed Lists (of sorts) – compiled by a woman in West Cork. Let me explain. Sandwiched in my usual An Post delivery of bills and bumph was a handwritten missive ripped from a spiral bound notebook, sealed in an addressed envelope – stamped and all.
Inside lurked an inky diatribe detailing my own sartorial misgivings recommending that I, said purveyor of such atrocities, should not be dispensing style counsel when in so desperate need of it myself. Jeez lady, say what you mean.
Once the reproach had subsided, I took pause to consider the advice which had passed (unsolicited) over my threshold. Could my clothing choices be that divisive? Granted I do possess a glad eye for tectonic-plated tailoring but Lady Gaga I most certainly am not. It was time to capitalise on the advice of friends ‘so Frank they could be a family of Butchers’. Move over Pat.
“Ha! You’re controversial. Who’d have thought?” sniggered one. This is the same guy who thinks Nicky Minaj pedestrian. Time to get a second opinion.
“Frame it! You’ve arrived! Only the truly famous get hate mail,” quipped another. Although flattering, I’m pretty sure my gal-never-about-town status occludes me from the fame moniker.
“Why don’t you just make yourself a nice cuppa and use the flaming thing as a coaster. That’s all it’s good for really,” bid the third. True but I’d rather not have phrases such as ‘disgrace’ and ‘the state of you’ interfering with my caffeine buzz.
I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed. After all that effort, the jibes were rather lacklustre. How I longed for a Blackwellian caustic quote or the poetic chutzpah of Joan Rivers. Would it be too much to call me ‘Hulk Hogan in sequins’? What about a soupcon of consonant rhyme or alliteration? Celine Dion gets to be called ‘a profusion of confusion’ and I simply get ‘how dare you’. I felt hard done by; more like a naughty child than a sartorial rule breaker.
Had she left a forwarding address, I would have returned the sub-par panning with a ‘could do better’ comment. It seems that everyone’s a critic but only few are truly cut out for the job. Go hard or go home missus! I only accept truly lacerating lashings.
