I have some real issues going on at the moment with regards to clothing so am going to comment even though the thread’s a bit past it’s best before date now.

My parents, particularly my mother, go on at me about wearing the same clothes all the time when they see me, which is only on weekends. Some of these clothes have some wear and tear going on. What I’ve finally concluded about why I react so strongly to this is that it’s bullying. They are trying to bully me into wearing what they want me to wear. They don’t recognise that as a person in my own right, especially on her weekends, I have the right to dress any fucking way I want to and that includes comfortably. I am certainly able to dress to the code (eg. I would dress nicely for a family dinner or something). Also, I have an eating disorder, so I take most comments about my attire very badly, and in some cases more to heart than would someone who didn’t have an ED.

What gets me is that my parents don’t realise that, as someone who has a great sense of style, a fondness for bright colours and a decent enough face/body, I attract a fair amount of attention walking down the street on workdays in my nice outfits. I don’t say this to boast, it’s just that my parents really do not get that I don’t want to be watched, looked at, “given the eye” etc all the time. I actually don’t want to deal with any of that shit *any* of the time, but I have to dress well for work so what can you do? Sometimes I’d just like to walk down the street and be invisible and not be evaluated like a piece of meat.

My workplace is also sexist as hell and I’ve had men comment on my appearance there regularly, as they do most of the women. So yeah, on my weekends, I don’t want any of that kind of attention and I only glam up for a Saturday night out.

It fucking completely sucks being a young woman in this nasty ass patriarchy sometimes, and there are certainly times when I can’t wait to hit my later years when I get the invisibility so generously bestowed on older women in our society (note: sarcasm - I of course hate that older women become practically invisible same as I hate that young women are treated like meat.)

Anyway, I needed to get this out in a feminist realm. I am so unbelievably tired of people around me having opinions on how I should dress. I can look great with little effort and I chose my clothes to suit the occasion. So why when I chose to be a dag out of a desire for comfort or invisiblity does it have an impact on so many people. Oh yeah. I blame the fucking patriarchy.

Because men have a uniform.

Seriously. Look around your office sometime, and you will notice that the men, no matter how “creatively,” all dress alike. They have a uniform, whether that uniform is a business suit with a tie in banking or a Hawaiian shirt and shorts in computer programming. Look at Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. It’s headline time if he wears anything other than a black mock turtleneck and jeans.

Women, on the other hand, have too many options. Pants or skirts? Dresses? Jeans? Blouse or sweater? Jacket or cardigan? And, unlike men, women don’t tend to watch each other to figure out what they should be wearing so they can wear exactly the same thing as everyone else. We actually want to be a little bit creative and self-expressive.

Is it unfair that people who see a woman in ill-fitting clothes in most workplaces assume that person can’t do her job?

This made me think about something. This may be coming up only because they rarely feature men on the show, and never in this trope (it’s usually more the extreme OMG NO YOU DI’INT! stuff, for them). But do men have trouble with this in the same way women do, or in the same way women are depicted to?

One of the things I do identify with about WNTW is that, like many of the women featured, I’m at the beginning of a career, and trying to figure out how to ‘dress for success’ while still being comfortable and having my own sense of style. It’s hard for me, too, because I work in a creative field where ‘just buy 2 or 3 really fab suits’ isn’t going to cut it.

But I’ve never heard men talking about this, or visibly going through this. Why is this such a big deal for women, and not so much for men? Aside, of course, from the simple fact that women are expected to be decorative at all times and men barely even have to be well-groomed.

Do men secretly think these very same thoughts but just not have a space to air them?

They do have the chance to say “no.” It’s a bit of a false choice, because there’s obviously a lot of pressure to say yes, but simply creating that suspense for the viewer helps to take away some of the “you must do this” vibe that always comes with advice. I could be wrong, because I haven’t watched it as often, but I can’t remember watching any scenes like this in the US version.

The U.S. version includes that as well.

There’s talking about how things should be and then there’s talking about the way things are.

Yup. yup. yup.

And maybe it’s just me, but I think that the british version is much better at this. They are a lot clearer about explaining that their main focus is going to be on styles that work with the guest’s body type, not against it. How s/he will be perceived by others - at work, especially. Not as much of the trying to fit the guests into a mold.

Not that there isn’t quite a bit of that as well, it’s just also a lot more obvious that Trinny and Susannah try to work some of the guest’s personal style and preferences into their advice. They focus more on how the guests have been trying so hard to fit in (or have completely given up on doing so) that they have ended up making the problem bigger than it really is.

I think it also helps that the two hosts have very different body shapes themselves, and that neither of their bodies, while still more conventionally beautiful than the average woman’s, are cookie cutter hollywood bodies. Which means there is usually a moment (often several) where one or the other of them says something along the lines of “and you have [blank], like me, so…” Which helps to reinforce the idea that this is simply about making the clothes work for you, rather than pretending you have a body you don’t, or working so hard to make sure you are wearing the “in” clothes.

I also remember there always being a point at which the guest/victim was ambushed, but then given the chance to turn the offer down. While that’s obviously always what happens whether they show it or not, the fact that they showed the guest accepting the deal made it seem less like they were being picked on and more like they were being given an opportunity. They do have the chance to say “no.” It’s a bit of a false choice, because there’s obviously a lot of pressure to say yes, but simply creating that suspense for the viewer helps to take away some of the “you must do this” vibe that always comes with advice. I could be wrong, because I haven’t watched it as often, but I can’t remember watching any scenes like this in the US version.

You wouldn’t guess, seeing it on a wet beaver…but beaver fur is incredibly soft and luxurious.

Felted beaver hats were considered the height of men’s fashion in Europe and America for about 200 years.

But I can’t for the life of me imagine someone having a low opinion of beavers…

Well, it’s the name of Caltech sports teams. A football team with me as a lineman is a pretty pathetic sort of team.

Other than that–I’m with you.

I think it derives in the ad’s context from beards, by the way.