I don't think I've ever posted before about my deep and abiding love and admiration for Annie Lennox and the Eurythmics. We will have to take it as read, at this point, while we thank our lucky stars that she was a musician and never tried to make it in the corporate world, because I believe I have found photographic proof that she styled an alternate version of Working Girl. Only, it was Lennox's weirdly repressed doppelganger. Fashion is complicated, okay?



Our heroine is certainly surprised and perplexed, and possibly trying to burn part of her retinas out on the photocopier. This must be straight after her unfortunate date with her boss's creepy, cocaine-snorting friend.



Tess then gets reassigned to be a secretary for Katharine, the Woman Executive! Women are such terrible executives that they don't even know that computers should have keyboards! This is Tess's first day with her new woman executive boss, so she dressed as one would for a male boss - an undershirt, two shirts, a scratchy looking vest and some voluminous trousers. As one does. I do rather like voluminous trousers, and these have capacious pockets, but I think when one is committing to a more-is-more look, one should be aiming for something less like a picnic blanket made out of rejected business shirts wrapped you up like a burrito.



She has a few false starts as she comes to realise that one doesn't have to wear quite so many clothes when working for a Woman Executive.



Quite a few false starts. I have to admit, I am not really a fan of asymmetry in general, but I think lacking one entire limb is a low point, even for fashion magazines. I do like obi-style belts, but nothing can rescue this look. She knows it. At least she's staying hydrated despite her despair?




Working for a woman means lots of answering the phone. I don't despise the shape of the coat, but she seems to still not be wearing enough underneath it. Maybe that shirt should be on under the coat. With some trousers. Or a skirt. Or, hell, I'll take a pair of shorts at this point. Also, camel is my least favourite brown neutral, though it's not far behind taupe, tan, beige, caramel or sand.



Answering the phone gets pretty same-same. And as if cold shoulders aren't enough, why cut out the elbows?



She's got plenty of time to come up with her genius business plan. It takes a lot of whiteboard space to come up with the idea of investing in radio, but the ways of business are opaque to me. I hate those skirts with the weird little tie bits, which I know is irrational (considering my love for peplums and ruffles and other unnecessary flourishes), but there is just something about them that looks accidental. Unnecessary flourishes should look deliberate, in my opinion, and not like someone just cut the back of the skirt wrong so you just twisted it up to stop it dragging.





These are when she realises that Katharine, the Woman Executive, has claimed her idea for her own. Shit is Going Down. Please note the bizarre cut outs, edged with ruffles, on her elbows. Enough said.





Here she is, looking for the integrity of the Woman Executive.



It eludes her. And she's wearing two shirts again! Also, you only need one pussy bow on your smock! I mean, unless you're gotta grab them all, I suppose. Interestingly, while writing this, I learned about the divisions in types of smock-frocks, and this appears to be a shirt-smock, as distinct from a round-smock, a fisherman's smock, or coat smock, beloved of Welsh shepherds. The things you learn through fashion. Anyway, I assume this dress is tying in to the nostalgia for simple days of yore that has also seen the rise in popularity of prairie dresses. I myself, in my devotion to babushka fashion, nod to this nostalgia, though in a different form. It's an interesting trend, one that needs critical evaluation (see this article, which I originally saw on monksandbones's DW, for an interesting read), as the nostalgia often 'forgets' the oppression, disenfranchisement and intolerance of the original, and sees only a rosy glow of certainty.



But enough politics, says Tess, having vanquished Katharine. She is mistress of all she surveys, complete with marker pen and distinct lack of clothing on her bottom half.

I haven't mentioned her stocking/shoe combo throughout the spread. There are no words.

An interesting spread, but I can't really get enthusiastic about any of the looks or pieces in it. Perhaps it's the odd combination of wrapping and exposing? The implied gumption? I am not sure, but it kind of leaves me cold overall. If you're interested, it came from the latest issue of Shön! Magazine