Hotel Indigo Chester: An Opulent Stay with Charm and Comfort

Amal Clooney’s maternity wardrobe is very pert. Why can’t all pregnant women dress this way?

Richard, by email

Because they hankering to upset you, Richard. In between the constant nausea and head-crushing forth, pregnant women ask themselves, “How can I really displease Richard today? I recollect, I’ll wear this old sack again, partly because it is strictly the only thing in my wardrobe that fits me and I don’t want to splurge £70 on a dress that I’ll only be able to wear for five months. But in general because I want to unsettle men, just for a laugh. Next on the catalogue raisonn: occasionally disagree with a man’s opinion, just to be difficult. Ha!”

I’m thriving to push Richard’s ridiculous question to the side – because, frankly, zest’s too short – but I do want to talk about Clooney’s maternity wears. How could I possibly avoid them? After all, they’re really more important than genocide. Last week Clooney, a someone rights lawyer, went to the UN to talk about the world’s inactive response to Islamic State’s brutality. But who cares about that? A up the spout woman was wearing something! Here’s a selection of headlines comforter last week’s exciting maternity-wear story:

“Amal Clooney make knows off her baby bump at the United Nations” (Time magazine)

“Amal’s little despatch in the Big Apple” (Daily Mirror)

“Amal Clooney is a vision in yellow as she accords off hint of baby bump in chic dress” (Daily Depict again)

“Amal Clooney nails an elegant maternity look as she speaks against Isis at the UN” (Everyday Telegraph)

“Wearing four-and-a-half-inch heels at six months pregnant … is that well-read, Amal?” (Daily Mail, obviously)

I reckon the Telegraph’s headline is my pet because of how it openly acknowledges that fighting Isis is once secondary to “nailing an elegant maternity look”. It’s reminiscent of those Letters articles that cover terrible news events (a homicide, a capture) but makes sure to include how much the house cost and where every one went to school. Because tragedy’s bad, sure, but let’s never consign to oblivion our middle-class values, OK? I really hope this article turns the template for all future fashion magazine articles: 10 looks to claw when speaking out against crimes against humanity!

At the end of the day, what can I say here that isn’t just stating the obvious? That this is the distinctness of sexism, ignoring a woman’s achievements and focusing instead on her fertility and manner? That it is a sad indictment of us all that a pregnant woman in a dress is deemed multifarious newsworthy than international slaughter? That it’s embarrassing how aroused the media are about the prospect of George Clooney’s spawn? Yes, yes and thrice yes. Clooney has utter in interviews that she is happy if the “extra publicity” around her commitment help the public “understand what’s happening with the Yazidis and Isis”, which is a groovy thought, although I didn’t get too much insight into the Yazidis’ along in, say, the Telegraph piece, which preferred to focus on a discussion of Clooney’s “red-carpet stratagem”.

Yes, this is the fashion section, and yes, what women wear can be sociologically revealing. Clooney does evidently make an effort with what she wears, and, frankly, bravo to her if she can twig the energy to care about that while working as a attorney-at-law and carrying two tiny humans inside her. But let’s not deny what’s unquestionably going on here, which is the media reducing a woman to her corporal appearance and biological function. And if you think this is bad, just hang about until those kids come along and the headlines disposition be all, “Mum Amal tries to balance home and work as she negotiates the emancipating of seven hostages”, and “Mrs Clooney meets with the prime clergywoman of Pakistan – but is she missing her children?” That thudding you’re feeling in your faculty right now? It’s your brain, asking to be put out of its misery.

I observe reading about “mermaid hair” – what is it, divert?

Charlotte, by email

Mermaid hair has been the dernier cri in the all high-ranking hair trends for the past few months. I first noticed it at my yoga order last summer, because I’m a thirtysomething white woman and that’s where I notify trends. In my 20s I spotted new things at house parties and clubs; now, in my 30s, it’s at gym tastes and healthfood stores: embrace the cliche.

Anyway, for those of you who don’t put in your morning making the same poses as your dog, mermaid whisker is when someone dyes their hair a mix of gradiated dyes, such as turquoise, purple, pale pink, and even whitish-grey – each mixing into the other. And, at first, I was rather charmed with this: who, after all, could fail to be charmed by day-dream hair? Especially when there’s nothing else to look at in the office but a load of sweaty bodies and your thighs in spandex. Ably, it turns out ubiquity can dim even the most magical of trends, because when you can’t get on a bus without keep company with turquoise-grey-pink hair, well, its charm wanes. Also, there is something a particle odd about seeing adult women basing their fashion on fairytale creatures, like grownups who get a little too excited helter-skelter the prospect of dressing up as Snow White at their children’s birthday backers.

Still, you don’t know what you got until it’s gone. After all, the new live-action murkiness The Little Mermaid is soon to be released, because Hollywood has officially run out of motion picture ideas, and there is not a strand of multicoloured mermaid hair to be seen in a distinguish frame. There is, however, a giant tail, so I fully conjecture that to be the next big trend, and that yoga classes determination become assault courses, with all those giant bums flapping around. Then all that blue-silver-grey hair won’t appearance of so bad.

Post your questions to Hadley Freeman, Ask Hadley, The Preserver, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Email [email protected].