Undomestic Goddess

Regular UNDOMESTIC GODDESS

KIA ABDULLAH SERVING UP LIFE, WITHOUT THE SUGAR COATING The rise of trashion Is ‘sexy but stupid’ this decade’s hottest trend so far?

t’s hard to make the tabloids for My choices then were threefold: I could go if we’re not au fait with the latest acronyms doing something smart.” This with the Daily Mail response (these promiscuous (fyi, fomo is our fave atm). Colloquialisms have astute observation from singer witches are meant to be role models – this become the preserve of not just the uneducated Pink is perhaps truer today than in country’s gone to the dogs!), the post-feminist but also the cool. In fact, where ditzy women were 2006“I when her single Stupid Girls raced towards response (you go, girl! If you’ve got it, flaunt it!) once ridiculed, it seems they have now become the top of the charts. An incisive look at celebrity and the sensible aunt response (those poor girls, endearing, be it X-Factor’s Stacey Solomon or culture, the song’s video lampooned singers what is going to happen to them when they lose TOWIE’s Amy Childs. Stupid is no longer just like Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson their looks?). sexy, but somehow also sweet. But how can who seem to enjoy slathering their bodies over I tentatively chose the third option until I saw we explain this sudden shift? Surely Christina soap-sudded cars wearing itsy bitsy bikinis – an something more pernicious taking place. ‘Vapid and Jessica can’t be blamed for our languishing extreme caricature of what is deemed ‘sexy’. vogue’, or ‘trashion’ as the girls in the office call culture and language too? I understood it; it was giving the masses it, slowly became du jour not only on our screens I suspect there are two culprits at play. The what they wanted in order to turn a dollar or and magazines but on our streets as well. The first and most obvious is the advent of social two million. It was young women playing networking and electronic communication. the game; writhing against men in airplane When one is forced to communicate in 140 toilets to secure their financial future. It “It’s hard to feel smug characters, it is prudent to use ‘TTYL’ instead of was acting stupid to double the sexy. I ‘talk to you later’ or chastise someone for sharing accepted it. In these very pages when these so-called ‘TMI’ instead of ‘too much information’. These I have acknowledged how a well- colloquialisms then naturally enter the vernacular, placed giggle or subtle touch on even taking root in an office full of journalists an arm can gently manoeuvre stupid women are signing where words are supposed to be sacred. someone in a certain direction. The second likely reason is the current financial The Christinas of the world 7-figure endorsement deals” climate. In the 80s, the age of beemers and were just taking that to the yuppies, it was cool to be ostentatiously wealthy. extreme in order to reap the juicy benefits; money, checkout girl at my local Tesco would scan my Don Johnson with his flashy suits epitomised the fame, the best seats at expensive restaurants, vegetables with her glittery nails, lashes caked in zeitgeist. Now we associate these things with that Emilio Pucci dress I saw in Stylist magazine mascara, hair extensions down to her navel. And the public’s enemy number one; the ‘bastard a few weeks ago and just couldn’t afford. then I would notice the girl on the bus speaking in bankers’ who hung a whole country out to dry. The airhead act then spread from the upper text-speak. “That’s TMI, babe,” she would giggle These days, it’s not okay to drive a Porsche, echelons of celebrity to the glamour girls and vacuously. “OMG, I’m at my stop. I’ll TTYL.” and if you are, then you damn well better have a WAGs of Britain. Jordan and Jodie Marsh began Trashion spread from mere appearance to localised accent. We don’t mind the Essex-born to compete for who could say the most gormless language and culture itself. It became clear that wheeler dealer who accrued his wealth though thing while being papped wearing the least whether you are stupid or just choose to appear backroom deals but the trader with the tailored amount of clothes (I’d say Jodie won with her that way, stupidity had become very ‘now’. Or suit? Well, he can burn in hell. The temple of three-belt ensemble). rather, it had become passé to disapprove of trashion permits wealth but only if you favour It was hard to know how to react to these stupidity, which amounts to the same thing. Where diamante over diamonds and velour over Vera. women. Smart females are supposed to despise women once fiercely endeavoured to prove their Personally, I would always choose ‘smart’ women who pretend to be stupid because they intelligence, it seems one now has to dumb down over ‘sexy and stupid’, but it seems the tide has ‘let the side down’ but it’s hard to feel smug when to remain relevant. The schoolyard mentality of turned against this way of thinking. The rise of these so-called stupid women are signing seven- the ‘cool kids’ skipping class and failing exams trashion has manifested into a living, breathing figure endorsement deals, peddling their own has somehow permeated our ‘grownup’ psyche. phenomenon that has spread its tentacles over perfume and writing bestselling books, not to If we’re speaking the Queen’s English, then we every part of popular culture, dragging us firmly mention their wardrobes full of Chanel (and, yes, must be out of touch. Take the Asian Woman into the Age of Stupid. my Pucci dress in every colour). magazine offices where we tease each other Kia