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Home / Northern Advocate

Nickie Muir: Clothes maketh the woman

Nickie Muir
Northern Advocate·
15 Feb, 2017 01:28 AM3 mins to read

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Nickie Muir.

Nickie Muir.

Dress like a woman. Go on. I dare you to - especially if you're a man.

Mr Trump likes women to dress like women - bigly. (Is he saying bigly or is it big league - I'm just so confused right now.)

Following the #dresslikeawoman images of women activists getting arrested, doctors in surgery and women in space suits it seems there is a wide variety of things women can wear which apparently have no effect whatsoever on whether their ovaries shrivel up and blow away in the wind.

Sometimes I wonder if there is a form of fashion autism and whether or not I might be considered by fashionistas "to be on the spectrum".

I have been known to show up to a school ball in full make-up and a men's suit, to teach a whole morning of classes in an inside-out cardy and am a serial offender of the mis-matching socks kind.

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Under suspicion in a varsity women's action group for the wearing of lipstick and floral dresses, by the time womanhood was being sanctified in the form of 1950s baking shows and false eyelashes I was back to dungarees and a No1 haircut (working in kitchens and hating hairnets) which got me permanently banned from a pub in Auckland for being a skin-head.

Which obviously I wasn't.

To all outward appearances I remained a woman through the whole gamut of fashion fails that have been my life.

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What then would I wear if I ever decided to go and work for Mr Trump on his PR team?

How would I know if I were indeed dressed like a woman? Would I still be a woman if I broke the code?

Although the likelihood of me ever getting asked to join Donald's PR team is low to non-existent and given one of my favourite A.A. Gill (RIP) quotes is "PR consultants are the head-lice of the civilised world", I'm perversely attracted to the idea.

Exciting to make the indigestible, delicious.

Every waking and even sleeping hour a battle for a word warrior to transform the awkward, foul and appalling into palatable works of consumable art, without the uncreative and boring constraints of needing to stick to facts.

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What would I wear for such a marvellous job?

A ring-master's braided velvet?

A conductor's baton? A master puppeteer's black ensemble?

A Machiavellian mask? Are any of these outfits womanly enough for the ageing Donald?

I turn to Kellyanne Conway's inspirational outfits, what she has termed Trump revolutionary wear.

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An inauguration day $5000 jacket with kitten buttons in the colours of stars and stripes.

Nice. And then I remember. I should be wearing Ivanka's gear.

After consumers started boycotting it, Kellyanne told Fox viewers to "go buy Ivanka's stuff" in a moment where reality TV, product placement and political endorsements had an orgy on live television and produced one largely uncommented-on bastard of a conflict of interest.

But, hey, there has to be some perks to being hell's haute-couture handmaiden.

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