Ok, fess up, who of you out there has had a
girl crush? No, not that sort. The innocent admiration and adoring type.
I can trace my first girl crush back to the
early 80’s with Lady Di. I was a young and innocent “braceface” of 13 years of
age when she burst on the scene all pie-crust collars and shy looks. From that
point on I had my Princess Di scrapbook full of pictures cut from Woman’s Day
and New Idea, styled my hair in her trademark layered fringe (just for the
record – verrry hard look to copy) and had a very bad rip off made of her green
taffeta ballgown for my Year 11 formal. Snigger if you will, but I thought she
was the bee’s knees.
For your viewing pleasure and because we
all need a midweek laugh here is a picture of me in the home made version of
the gown in blue. Note the very flattering puffed sleeves and what the hell was
I thinking with that hair!
Part envy of the apparent fairytale life,
part admiration of her looks and style she had a charisma and quality that was
hard to deny. Of course we all know now how that fairytale played out. Saint or
demented manipulator, I’m not sure we will ever know the real woman behind the glossy
pictures. Like the rest of us, she was both of these things and more.
Complicated, and dare I say it many shades of grey?
In more recent times I moved on to Jennifer
Aniston. Again, I loved her style of dress and natural (well, as natural as
exercising like a madwoman and eating very little can be termed natural) girl next-door
beauty and charm. The real crush began when she spilt from Brad. I have been
Team Jen all the way and given my own marriage broke up around the same time I
was pretty sure if we just met we would have so much in common and you know,
like, be BFF’s and I could go on holidays with her gal pal gang to sunny
Mexico. Sigh. Not to be but I did notice that as I was getting more mature the
girl crushes tended to be more about women overcoming the up and downs of life
rather than the perfect fairytale stories.
But I’m not all about the superficialities.
I like to hear what Elizabeth Broderick, Australia’s Sex Discrimination
Minister has to say and although I am not a traditional Labour voter I can’t
help but have a grudging respect for Julia Gillard, earlobes and voice and ill
fitting jackets and all. Despite her minority government she is getting things
done. She puts up with a lot of crap about her appearance and innuendoes about
her love life and past and she keeps on fighting and giving it her best shot.
And I’m not convinced she is dead in the water at the next election. When the
only other option is Tony Abbott as PM I’m not sure it will be the whitewash
that is expected. Watch this space.
At the moment, I’m really liking Sarah
Wilson. You can read about her here. She got my attention from her “I Quit
Sugar” program but after reading her blog realised there was a lot more than
meets the eye. She was editor of Cosmopolitan for a few years and hosted
Masterchef but is not a fashion victim airhead or vacant media type. She writes
a lot about simplifying life and taking time to smell the roses, she loves food
and travel (preferably together and done without a set itinerary of places to
go and things to see – very appealing to me who once got through the Musee
d’Orsay in 30 minutes flat) and has also battled an autoimmune disease,
Hashimoto’s. On top of that, through her blogs you can tell she is evaluating
her life at 38, single and childless, given she’s not where she thought she
would be – I can definitely relate to that headspace.
So, come on people, don’t leave me out here
on the ledge of embarrassing revelations. I’d like to know which woman does it
for you, so to speak? Maybe your mum or best friend, perhaps Victoria Beckham,
as one well groomed friend once told me. Let’s celebrate the fact that as women
we can talk about how much we like and admire other women. Somebody? Anybody?
