Beer gut and no bum...mmm mmm!!!

I really love Jess Cartner-Morley. Really.

Now, to wear something because it's fashionable when it doesn't suit you is about as bright as buying a pair of Jimmy Choo stilettos and poking yourself in the eye with them. Fashion is supposed to work for you, not against you, silly.

With her fresh face beaming down from her column, she is one of the only fashion writers who pretty much demystifies the source of trends in fashion and has a laugh about what everyone should be wearing. Perfect for people like me, who want to know whats in fashion, whats really in fashion, but aren't so keen on being admonished for being lazy about it and not taking it seriously enough.
There are two things however, that I disagree with. Her take on "city" shorts, they are great. Secondly, her latest article is promoting the wonder of the pencil skirt, worn with high-heeled court shoes. Pencil skirt? Please don't try to pretend we have waists. I don't have a waist. I don't think many women have the well defined waists of our grandmothers so wearing a pencil skirt would be near impossible. This takes me neatly to another article in the Guardian which confirms what I always thought:

We are increasingly tubular; less pear, more sausage. You'll know this if the old romantic in you has ever tried to cram itself into your grandmother's wedding dress. You'll know it if you have ever picked up a little Dior dress at a vintage shop and felt like Gulliver in Lilliput.

The waist-hip ratio has changed over the past 100 years because of a change in the macronutrients in our diet. Our intake of carbohydrates and sugars has grown rapidly, which increases insulin production. This in turn aids fat-cell deposits on the torso rather than anywhere else on the body.

Researchers at Yale University found evidence that abdominal fat develops when a person is under long-term stress. (...) In other words, stress turns women into apples, just like men. It also, adds Stiles, "increases insulin and decreases female hormones".

Does this also mean that the traditional female form is desirable because it symbolises a stress-free happy-go-lucky person and not because it is the opposite of the tradtional male body shape? Men who are apple-shaped, i.e have a larger amt of fat around their midriff aren't really that appealing to me.

That bollocks about how women are naturally pear shaped always made me feel a bit like a male impostor; so its nice to know that it is probably due to lifestyle, not how long my hair is, or if I wear enough pretty dresses.