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It is so old-fashioned to think that a clever woman should be badly dressed to boost her intellectual credibility. So many clever woman love fashion and good luck to them. I am personally more inclined to listen to a well-dressed woman as opposed to the opposite.
If any pregnant women are taking note of Amal Clooney's wardrobe I hope that they are not thinking of copying her in wearing very high heels in the sixth month of pregnancy.
Other than that, perhaps now she is more high profile having married Mr Clooney, more people may be aware of what she says about women's rights around the world (after admiring her clothes, of course.)
as well as .
Yes.
I'm with you bags We've had generations of women having to be just pretty faces but now it seems you can only be a successful and intelligent woman if you look like the back of a bus. Is she supposed to shuffle around in a bin bag in the hope that no one will notice she's married to George Clooney?
She may get a lot of publicity as George's wife, but he is known as a humanitarian so it will be no bad thing.
Well, it might matter if and when other countries start to charge us more. We will have lost all our skill base and equipment. We would have to start from scratch. Also, I think it would be nice to take pride in what we can produce here. A machinist was a good, quite well paid job at one time, for someone who did not want to go to university. There is a lot of talk about apprentiships at the moment which I think is a good thing.
Anyway, I am sorry if I have taken this thread off at a tangent, we were supposed to be discussing sexism and Amal Cluney!
Does it matter? Money is made through retailing and I don't think anyone would want to pay the price of goods manufactured here. British Manufacturing (yes I know about sweatshops) have been priced out of the market. This is just a fact of life and until China charges us higher, will remain so.
Very few clothes are made in this country anymore. M&S used to be proud to say their clothes were made here, but they stopped manufacturing here many years ago. My friends who still work in our much reduced garment industry also go on buying trips abroad, mainly to China or Bangladesh. There is still some design in this country but that is a very small part of the industry.
But how much is manufactured in this country?
My DD is a buyer for a very well known chain in this country. Buying trips? Hong Kong and China twice a year. Eastern Europe too. Not the Midlands or North of England.
This Country has a huge fashion industry! From Burberry to Top Shop we export all over the world via the internet. I could run you a list but that would be tedious. John Lewis, M&S and Debenhams export fashion all over the world, and with the £ being low, it is a good time to buy British.
I just wish we still had a fashion and clothing industry in this country. Fashion used to be a big part of our economy. I know it's a luxury, but then so are so many things.
Yes, I find the interest in her pregnancy and the clothes she wears annoying.
However, if publicity highlights her work as well, then I know she would not object. At a post UN interview last week, she agreed that her cases benefit from the "Mrs. Clooney" profile and, because of her husband's celebrity, reach a greater audience.
I admire her work immensely. Let's ignore the clothes horse image and look at her actions.
I feel for Amal Clooney; after years of hard work and study, years of establishing her professional career, she is now being talked about by (some) of the media in her role as Mrs Clooney, and as a pregnant woman. How frustrating.
I was not impressed by the headlines proclaiming "Amal shows off her baby bump" the other week.
Is it crude to suggest it is on a par with trumpeting " George's or DT's erection"??
I couldn't care less about Amal Clooney's wardrobe or even her chest of drawers and much as I may enjoy fashion, I find this obsession with celebrity preganancy and ALL the attendant detail,invasive at best but mostly prurient.
I don't agree with anything you've said, bags.
There is an article by Hadley Freeman in today's Guardian with the header: "Amal Clooney's maternity wardrobe:more important than genocide?"
I think Freeman's argument is wrong-headed on three counts. The first is the assumption that it is sexist to talk about women's appearance. Women's appearance matters. We are sexual animals and, in our species, for ancient biological and evolutionary reasons, it is the females who are the more flambuoyant in their appearance than the males. In many birds it's the other way round. And in both cases it is the result, so animal behaviourists argue, of sexual selection. In short, women's appearance matters for propagation of the species. This may not be as important now as it once was but it's still there in our psyche, 'our' referring to both men and women.
The second count of error is that Amal Clooney's role as a human rights lawyer is not reduced in any way by talk about her clothes and general appearance. Hadley seems to think it does. No. Talk about her fashion choices is in addition to her role as a human rights lawyer. Half the world is talking and writing in newspapers about Islamic State's brutality. We're allowed to write and read about other things in tandem, especially in the Fashion sections of newspapers, which is where the article appears.
Thirdly, if women really objected to their fashion choices being commented upon there's an easy solution: wear boring clothes, like men do; have boring hairstyles, as men do; wear boring shoes, as men do. In other words stop feeding the sexual selection meme. Stop behaving as if our appearance mattered by being colourful and interesting and attractive to look at.
I think people ranting about sexism and the objectification of females have a point but I think they stretch it too far in not recognising that the fact that women spend a good deal of effort on their appearance is not necessarily a bad thing. Plus, people like talking about fashion. People are interested in clothes. Female beauty and attractiveness matter to us all, women and men.
You can enjoy a description and a critique of a woman's clothes as well as appreciating her talent in other areas and her intelligence. When men start dressing with as much colour and flair as women do, we'll talk about their appearance and their clothes too.
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