After a good three weeks of looking (and feeling) like garbage, I paid a long overdue visit to Beyoncé of Brows in a bid to make myself feel more like a human again. I timed the appointment so that afterwards I could try out a new fitness class at a nearby gym. Gushing that she hadn’t seen me for too long (and tutting as she looked up at my forehead), Beyoncé set to work on taming my eyebrows. After she put the tint on, she left the room to go check on another client assuring me that she’d be back in a few minutes to remove the excess tint. I waited patiently, but then I started dozing off. Obviously, because of my unscheduled disco nap, I lost track of time, so I am not really sure how long the tint was left on for, but I have concluded that that is the only logical explanation to why my absolute go-to-queen-of-taming-eyebrows, has managed to gift me a pair of distinctly extreme Arabic looking brows. (Before everyone gets all offended, Arabic women have amazing eyebrows that are well suited to their features. Strong eyebrows look striking on the right structure, but not when you’re super pale, with blue eyes and light hair… )
Anyway, to cut a long story short, as if it’s not nerve-racking enough going to a new gym, I had to stroll in with what looks like two black hairy caterpillars sitting above my eyes. You could see my eyebrows before you could see me! Of course my mother offered absolutely zero moral support when I told her; I sent her a picture of them on whatsapp looking for sympathy and all she offered was laughter – she even started sending me memes about eyebrows! When I asked her for a solution on how to remove eyebrow tint, her reply was, “a razor”. Ha bloody HA! (FYI Australian Vogue has an online feature called ‘Bad Brows: how to fix a bad eyebrow tint’ and you can read it here, resting in the knowledge that it’s such a common occurrence that it warranted an article in Vogue.) I mean, undeniably, I did want fuller eyebrows, but I meant more like Irina Shayk and less like Frida Khalo sans join in the middle…
So, after yet another “WHY DOES SHIT LIKE THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME???” moment, I started remembering a whole bunch of my other fashion and style related mishaps and I began questioning why stuff like this never seems to happen to other people??? I feel like I am over here having multiple wardrobe malfunctions on the daily, whilst everyone else seems to pull off personal style and current trends almost effortlessly. I’m glad I’m not famous; I’d be some sort of hybrid of all the worst fashion faux pas, (the time Janet Jackson’s boob popped out on stage; the time Naomi Campbell decked it, the time Beyoncé got her hair caught in a fan…) Is it really just me? Or is it that everyone else is just better at hiding these moments.
Maybe you’re like me and can secretly relate, or maybe you’re one of the effortlessly cool girls who’s most embarrassing moment was that time you smiled and had lipstick on your teeth (GOD FORBID – insert eye rolling emoji here – ps if that’s you then I hate you but tell me all your chic secrets!). Either way, here’s a list of blooper reels from my every day occurring fashion faux pas that didn’t quite make it to social media until now.
- The time I wore a white shirt dress to an outdoor day time market in Dubai, thinking it would look classy while keeping me cool – how wrong I was. After sitting down to eat lunch on a plastic chair in the desert sweltering heat, by the time I finally finished and got up to move, there was a giant imprint of my arse on the back of said white shirt dress, and I had to walk around like that until it dried in. NOT COOL. (However, a nice sympathetic man at he Market told me that he’d had a similar embarrassing moment earlier in the week when he wore a pale blue shirt to the office but forgot to put on deodorant. Thanks, you hero!)
- The time I tripped and full on decked it outside of my building when I was rushing for the only taxi around for miles (there was a woman trying to beat me to it, and as usual I was hurrying because I am late for pretty much everything in life except work). I got my foot caught in my old favourite-super-long-floaty Zara pants that were reminiscent of Beetlejuice, and the fall was so bad that a car full of girls stopped to see if I was okay, as I lay spread eagled on the pavement. I cut my knees, ripped the trousers and I still missed the taxi, and my subsequent appointment. If you look at my knees, you can still see the marks from where I hit the concrete. Those trousers were literally a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen.
- I was on a FIRST date wearing these ridiculous new shoes with a super slippy sole. (I knew they were slippery but they looked good). We arrived at the bar for drinks and as just as we were about to walk in, I slipped on the tiled flooring and absolutely face planted the floor. Trying to laugh outwardly, whilst crying internally, he was frantically trying to rub the dust off my knees in front of EVERYONE as the hulk of a bouncer dragged me back up whilst laughing hysterically. (TIP. Score the soles of your shoes if the sole is slippery – it’ll make the sole have more grip). Or just don’t wear stupid shoes on a date. Or out in public anywhere for that matter…
- That fateful New Year’s Eve party where I wore a cream lace top and went braless. It looked fine IRL* however, it 110% didn’t look fine under a camera flash, of which there were many flashes. (unfortunately for you all, but mercifully for me, I can’t find any pictures of this night).
- The time I ended up with practically a number five on the haircut scale, two days before a wedding. I’m not joking, I went in for a trim and a root touch up and somehow I left looking on the wrong side of butch. It didn’t help that I’d went into the salon wearing an oversized Carhartt shirt and a pair of Doc Marten’s either… I slept with a hat on for the next two nights, and was inconsolable prior to The Big Day. I couldn’t even look in a mirror. The only saving Grace to this story was that it happened in October, and this meant I was able to wear a hat until it grew a bit longer without looking like a weirdo. I even considered not going to the wedding, but, I was told that a bad haircut was not a valid enough reason to decline a wedding invite. I just drank lots of Prosecco and sucked it up instead.
(One of the only few photographic evidence still in existence of THAT haircut)
- The time I dyed my hair bright pink, and my mum cried when she seen it. Actually cried! She was sat sobbing in the middle of Cafe Nero asking, what her baby had done to her beautiful hair. Enough said.
(me, centre, thinking I looked cool.)
- The rare sunny day in Glasgow that I strolled the entire length of Buchanan Street with my skirt tucked into my pants, wondering the whole time why people were being extra smiley to me that day. (Reasoned that it must be because everyone’s in such a better mood when it’s sunny.) Eventually a really nice lady told me that my skirt was tucked into my pants, but I think it’s safe to say that she told me after half of people on the street had seen my knickers.
- The time my feet swelled up like Kim Kardashian’s while she was pregnant with North, because my friend insisted that we sit outside for drinks in the middle of a Dubai Summer – no joke, I think the temperature was in the 40’s – because we had just moved here and in her opinion, should embrace hot weather, fully taking advantage of the summer nights! Yeah right, when I took my shoes off I fully looked like I was still wearing them because THE STRAPS WERE STILL IMPRINTED ON MY FAT FEET!
- The time I got stuck in a dress that I had tried on in Topshop. The zip had jammed and as I tried to force it back down, it burst and I had to be CUT OUT of it. Using SCISSORS. I was actually mortified.
These are honestly just a few of my fashion faux pas, of which there are many, many more, but I’ll save that for a later post. Right now I have more important things to be doing, like fixing my eyebrows because their current level is definitely not on fleek, and their game is verging on the way broader end of the spectrum.
*IRL – in real life
GLASGOW GIRL GONE GLOBAL 