Beware: 'What Not to Wear' is on the prowl

By Pat Clark
pclark@modbee.com

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Watch out, folks, TLC's magnificent makeover television show, "What Not to Wear," is eyeing your fashion sense — or, actually, your possible lack thereof.

In doing so, the producers at TLC are asking co-workers, friends, family members and neighbors to rat out the "Worst Dressed American."

Don't let it be you. Heck, I might not leave the house, myself, until the episode airs in January.

Fact is, bad dressers throughout most of America don't have to worry about the "What Not to Wear" secret cameras watching their every too-short top and ill-conceived peg-legged pant. That's because the show generally travels only to the nation's largest cities to root out its dressing disasters.

So Modestans who don too-tight T-shirts or oatmeal-colored caftans don't have to worry about having hosts Stacy London and Clinton Kelly descend upon them with a filming crew and bevy of nasty — and always brutally true — remarks.

Until now, that is. Keep an eye on your neighbors.

I've been a fan of "What Not to Wear" for years and it may be one of the most altruistic shows on TV. Not only do people who dress really, really, REALLY badly get $5,000 for new clothes, a new haircut and a new lease on their fashion lives, it also removes their offending fashion aesthetic from the streets of their cities. Everyone wins.

Stacy and Clinton are making America more beautiful, one hot mess at a time.

Almost weekly, the chosen disaster will invoke either the "I just want to be comfortable" or the "who cares what's on the outside, I want people to love me for what's on the inside" defense.

Oh, please.

Stacy and Clinton never — EVER — let anyone get away with those lame excuses. Comfort, they'll say, doesn't have to equal hideous. And how people present themselves on the outside actually says far more about who they really are on the inside — and how they really feel about themselves — than most people want to believe.

I'll be the first to admit, my lazy shirt-and-jeans "uniform" speaks volumes about my inner laziness and body issues.

Hence, my possible self-inflicted house arrest until the new year.

Almost without exception, the show's weekly badly dressed subject du jour comes not only to agree with Stacy and Clinton, but to benefit as much emotionally as fashionwise from the makeover.

Let's face it, Modesto, plenty of us look like heck on a regular basis. Too many people have no idea just how huge those peg-leg pants make their hips look. Too many think skintight is right when it's clearly showing folds and ripples that no one needs — or wants — to see. Too many think wearing oversize clothes hides their weight, when all it really does is make them look heavier than they really are.

Why? Because we don't step back and look at ourselves in a full-length mirror — first, in what we mistakenly wear and then, second, in clothes that actually fit correctly. We just keep deluding ourselves into thinking we know what looks right on us.

It's easier to lie to our mirrors than to face them.

So, gang, don't say you weren't warned. TLC currently is accepting fashion train wreck nominees on the "What Not to Wear" Web site. If you see your neighbor taking a longer than usual look as you walk out your front door in that faded old hoody and those pleated pants from 1984, you might want to go back in and rethink your outfit.

"What Not to Wear" airs Fridays on TLC.

After writing about locals making it good in the entertainment industry last week, we got a couple of e-mails from folks suggesting other people deserve mention, as well.

A cousin of singer/actress Chelsea Costa let me know the Modestan just finished a nationwide tour in "Dora the Explorer" and that she'll be leaving for Shanghai this month to appear in a new show, "From Hollywood to Broadway."

Also, Modesto resident Michael Stein is a graphic designer on the Fox TV show "Bones" and did work on the big-screen film "GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra." He also has done similar work for the television shows "The Sarah Conner Chronicles," "Criminal Minds" and "Shark."

Reach Pat Clark at pclark@modbee.com.