The unnatural contortions of a red carpet life.

I know it's been done for years, but recently it seems to have got more extreme.

What am I talking about?

I'm talking about the leg contortions that seems to be prevalent amongst the red carpet glitterati.

It used to be that you turned at an angle so that you weren't photographed from the full on front view. This was done so that the flattering 45˚ angle made you look thinner, and your curves were more prominent.

Which Hollywood / pop starlet wouldn't want that?

But nowadays the strange overly exaggerated leg cross seems to be in fashion. Nobody in the real world would strike this pose unless they were desperate for a trip to the ladies, but on the red carpet it is used to slim the look of your thighs, hopefully creating that Marilyn hourglass effect on women who, to be honest due to near starvation diets, haven't usually got any of their own curves left.

Some pull it off better than others. Reese Witherspoon is rarely seen on the red carpet without the crossed leg look, even perfecting it in this middle photo to seem like she has only one leg!

But there are one or two ladies who need a little more practice to get past the 'this is really not a natural pose' look.
To me Rosamund Pike looks like she may topple at any moment, and Beyoncé has got work to do, especially if she's wearing that split leg dress that magnifies any issues. She needs to have a chat with Reese.

You just have to take a quick look at InStyle's Look of the Day pages to see that more and more ladies are making the leg cross grade, but really is there something wrong with women looking like they have two legs, and showing off their curves as they really are?

I was going to use Jennifer Aniston as my example of a woman who doesn't do the leg cross, as most of the pics of her on the red carpet had her in a very natural stance, and I think she looks

AMAZING!

Could it be that she doesn't need to contort herself to create curves because she actually has some? Just a thought.

But then I came across Jennifer in leg cross mode. Noooooooo, not you too Jen!

Here is Jen in the same dress, one in a normal stance, one crossed, and I think she she looks equally stunning in both, though to me she looks happier and more natural in the uncrossed pic.
What do you think?

In this world where women have to measure up to ridiculous standards of beauty, where some even resort to surgery to achieve 'the look', could we please draw a line at having to also contort ourselves into highly unnatural poses too. I mean, would we see men contorting their bodies in this way just for a red carpet photo?

I don't think so!

Toodles
KLxx

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'The universe will provide' …curve balls!

I'm really not one of these people who think in airy-fairy terms, and I generally poo poo 'the universe will provide' kind of guff.

I'm a firm believer in getting down and doing it for yourself, but occasionally fate, the ether or whatever you wish to call it, throws me a curve ball, just when I need it.

Meeting my hubby was one of those curve balls. At the time I lived abroad, and my relationship there had just evaporated, along with the guy, but what I'd been left with was my dog Chrissie (his originally, but he up and left her too). When I decided to return to England Chrissie came too, and to pay for the quarantine kennels, there were no pet passports then, I had to get a second job. That job was working in the Ritzy nightclub in Bolton, and my now hubby was one of the 19 strong doormen that worked there.

Ta-dah. Curve ball.

If the ex hadn't buggered off, or if he decided to take Chrissie with him when he did, I would never in a million years have met the love of my life, which he is, though I don't tell him enough (oooh mushy bluurgh, I don't do mushy). So what was a pretty crushing sh*tty time of uncertainty became a blessing.

I've thought of this a number of times over the past 21 years, especially when I hear Garth Brooks' song Unanswered Prayers, which is about how if he'd had his prayers answered about a certain girl when he was younger, he'd have never met his wife (yes, I know he now has different wife than the one he originally sang about, but that's beside the point).
In the song he clocks this up to God, but I prefer the vagueness of something that we cannot comprehend like power, fate, destiny, ether, spirit etc.

A couple of other times curve balls have come my way, and yesterday I'm pretty sure another one appeared (I can't be completely sure until the future becomes as I imagine) that I hope will send my life off into a different direction, and like the last ones it has arrived just at the moment I was giving up on dreams, and getting disheartened with my future.

Maybe there is something to this 'the universe will provide' kind of guff, hmmmmm.

Toodles
KLxx

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