Plum Attends Council in Bare Skin: A Crime Against Couture
I have covered many seasons. I have endured the Mock Orange phase of wearing citrus rind as a brooch — decoratively, she insisted — and I have survived Durian's brief, catastrophic flirtation with asymmetric silhouettes. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has prepared me for what Plum wore to the council on Thursday.
Plum wore her skin. Just her skin. That deep, unbroken aubergine, completely unadorned, without so much as a sprig of something seasonal tucked at the stem. She arrived, she sat, she opined on matters of public record — shamelessly. The audacity of a fruit who considers her own epidermis a finished look.
Now, I am aware that none of the so-called workers at the rival rag own clothing in any conventional sense. I consider this a challenge I have risen to nobly for six columns running. But there is bare, and then there is studied, intentional bare, presented with the confidence of someone who believes the absence of effort is itself a statement. Plum believes this. I can tell by the way she was sitting.
A belt. A ribbon. A single pressed leaf at the clavicle — if she has one, I refuse to check. These are not extravagances. These are the minimum courtesies owed to a room. The citrus cabal as a whole treats self-presentation as optional, but Plum has elevated negligence into what she apparently considers personal style. It is not personal style. It is surrender with good colouring.
Seven out of ten for the complexion, which is frankly unfair on everyone else. Zero out of ten for the rest. Do better, Plum. Or at the very least, do something.