hilkat

I do love a good bit of festival clobber, not because I am a regular to Global Gathering or Reading or even the Isle of Wight, which is a mere ferry ride away for me, but because I love, love LOVE to see how people cope with the rain, and the wind, and the mud and then five minutes later the heat, and the flies and the grass stains. So praise be to Style.com who have featured Glastonbury in their latest round of Style Notes.
Personally, when the going gets tough, my fashion inclination gets going. When I see rain, all I can think about is a nice big hoody (NOT to be confused with the sort that the teenagers wear to shelter their identities when egging peoples cars outside the Co-op on a Friday night) and comfy boy-fit jeans. So full marks go to the lady in the (faux?) fur coat, who in my eyes has got it totally right and a special mention to the girl sporting the rather fabulous metallic jacket and biker boots. I do love a good welly alternative, and have always been a fan of the biker boot teamed with something rather inappropriate.

It was the second photo from the end that really caught my attention though - a vintage floaty dress had been matched up with a similarly delicate looking cardigan, then topped off with Hunter wellies, a large camera and a little Louis Vuitton bag. It wasn’t a rock and roll look, far from it, but for some reason it was my favourite. As time goes on my style seems to be evolving, and while I do love the weird and wacky (God bless Viktor and Rolf and Susie Bubble), my personal sartorial choices seem to be changing to fit in more with my newer lifestyle. I’ve done the whole indie “scene”, complete with trilbys and skinny jeans (I hate how cliched this is, but I spent months channelling Kate Moss), and I do still love to see what’s going on now and then.
My musical tastes haven’t changed much either, it’s on a more personal level than that. I find myself wanting to live in the country, and spend my days with my little boy (thirteen weeks to go!) painting and, shock horror, cooking. My reading tastes have changed, I seem to have left Dazed and Confused by the wayside and abandoned Vogue for Elle, preferring to pick up a good book than a vodka and coke. Some people say this is what ageing does to you, but I am in fierce denial of any physical changes - I do still look the same after all. I just seem to have developed a new laziness about me, everything is slower and more relaxed.

But, as they say, a change is as good as a holiday - and with the imminent arrival of our little one, we certainly can’t afford to jet off to sunnier climes. Still, even Kate Moss has a house in the country……

No matter how serious you are about your fashion, everyone loves to see even the most sartorially gifted person fall flat on their backsides occasionally. It’s what makes us human, after all. So imagine my joy when I discovered that two women had dedicated an entire website to the style downfalls of the celebrity world.

Heather (right) and Jessica are the proud owners of gofugyourself.com, a hilarious book and the sharpest wits in the fashion industry - if its been caught on camera and its less than fabulous, its on their website. Repeat offenders include the Simpson sisters, Tara Reid, and my personal favourites, Britney and K-Fed - and those who are usually impeccably dressed don’t escape being ripped apart every now and then either (step forward one Kylie Minogue…).

I caught up with the First Ladies of Fugging to ask them a few questions about the site, the fashion industry and their own personal style.

HILKAT: Were you always this mean? I mean, were you the Plastics at school? I bet people ran and cowered, desperately grabbing at their clothes to try and hide what they were wearing when they saw you, didn’t they?

JESSICA: I went to a tiny tiny school which involved uniforms, so we all looked the same to begin with — and goodness knows, none of us looked that fabulous in the nineties! I was the head of the drama department, so I certainly wasn’t a Plastic. Although my hair was full of secrets.

HEATHER: I had uniforms, too. So if I was making fun of their kilts and ties, it would be a classic case of the pot calling the kettle a shiny round mess. Plus, I wasn’t born a fugger; for better or for worse, it’s just something I became. I’m sure people at my high school would be like, “Wow, she makes a living being a bitch? That… actually makes sense,” but I’m sure none of them would’ve thought I would be writing about clothes. I lived in Canada at the time. I was all about sweaters and Doc Martens.

HILKAT: How is it possible that you are this funny?

J: I give all the credit to beer.

H: Whereas I would like to give a shout-out to the team of Prada-clad monkey typists I keep in my garage, churning out copy. They are special to me.

HILKAT:Whose celebrity style do you actually like?

J: I actually like loads of things. We just don’t feature those looks as often because the website isn’t called I Love Your Outfit.com, you know? Maybe that will be our next project, though! To answer your question, lately, I’ve been loving Rachel Bilson’s wardrobe.

H: Jennifer Garner’s been looking really cute whenever she’s out and about on the red carpet. Of all people, I think Hilary Duff has also done a really nice job of growing up into something a bit more sophisticated; I don’t always love everything she wears, but she feels more like a young lady to me now, whereas a few years ago I felt like she was trying to underline the fact that she was a Teen Star. Which makes sense, as the march of time has not stopped, and therefore she is no longer a teen. It’s just nice to see her allowing herself to mature quietly.

HILKAT:Dont you ever get in trouble with celebrity agents and big bodyguard types for writing bad things about people?

J: Not yet! I truly think most people realize that if two random blogger girls think your pants are ugly, it isn’t the end of the world. And most big deal celebs hopefully have bigger fish to fry!

H: I would sort of love it if someone’s ginormous bodyguard came up to me and was all, “You know, it hurt my heart when you said you hated Jennifer Lopez’s boots.” But for the most part, I think the old adage holds true that any press is good press for a lot of these celebrities. One girl we fugged as a “random” got mad at us not for what we wrote about her clothes, but for not mentioning her name. I found that hilarious. Another girl on an American soap called ‘One Life To Live’ put a link to our fug on her personal site’s media page — alongside interviews and flattering reviews. Genius.

HILKAT: Has anyone ever fugged you two?

J: I have no doubt that my neighbors fug me two-thirds of the time I leave the house! But overall, I don’t think people pay that much attention to us personally.

H: One guy did, once, a long time ago. He found something we’d written on a Heatherette fashion show, and somehow incorrectly concluded that we.. ARE Heatherette? So he found a photo of us from a magazine profile and fugged it and then sent us the link, and it was all about how Heatherette sucks and so do we because we are ugly, or something. The only thing that bothered me about that experience was the fact that I just could NOT wrap my brain around how he thought that Jessica and I are the dudes behind Heatherette — especially since we do not look like them, and are not in fact dudes at all. In general, I feel like nobody cares about who we are, really, but I’m sure plenty of people hate what we’re wearing if they ever bump into us. That’s just life.

HILKAT: Where do you buy your clothes from?

J: I get mine all over the place — Target, eBay, Bloomingdale’s, the Barney’s warehouse sale, random small boutiques here in Los Angeles, and J Crew. We’re lucky enough to work from home, so most of my clothing allowance just goes to jeans.

H: I don’t have a huge clothing budget, so I am definitely more of a mall shopper. I own one pair of Louboutins that I bought on eBay at a significant discount, and I still almost got hives from the expense.

HILKAT: What designers do you like?

J: Proenza Schouler, Catherine Malandrino, Tory Burch, Phillip Lim, and Diane Von Furstenberg (whose clothes I can actually occasionally afford).

H: My list is pretty much the same. I also saw an Alexander Wang dress the other day that I fell in love with — and did not take home, as it cost $500, and that is just so NOT my life. I like Derek Lam, too, and I love Vena Cava.

HILKAT: Have you met any of the celebrities you fugged? Was it dramatic? Did they get all huffy?

J: No dramatic stories here, sorry! I have definitely been in the same room with people we’ve fugged, at Fashion Week, and thought to myself, “Eek, I think I might have said you looked like a hooker once,” but as yet, no one has thrown a drink at us. One day!

H: That will be a fun day. I will totally end up with martini olives in my hair, and I will be thinking, “I hope somebody takes a picture of this, because I will want to show my (currently nonexistent) children what happened the day Jessica Simpson found out I called her an oompa-loompa once.”

HILKAT: Congratulations on the book! How long did it take you to write and arent you afraid of being sued?!

J: Thanks! We’re really thrilled about it. We sold it in June ‘06 and it came out in February ‘08, so it was definitely a long road. We’re not too worried about being sued — everything in the book is just our opinion, after all.

H: Which isn’t to say legal didn’t vet it — you know, to make sure there aren’t any implications in there that can’t be backed up by fact. Stuff like, instead of saying, “And here, she is clearly a Russian hooker with a glue-sniffing problem,” we’d instead write, “And here, she clearly looks like a Russian hooker with a glue-sniffing problem.” That is not a spoiler, by the way, just in case you haven’t seen the book. We did not liken anyone to a Russian hooker. YET.

To see the girls in action, attacking the heels of the unstylish in the manner of two Portuguese Men of War, visit Go Fug Yourself: Because Fugly is the new Pretty. To purchase Go Fug Yourself: The Fug Awards by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan go to amazon.co.uk.