What’s shiny and sharp and beautiful beyond reason? No, not a vintage piece of weaponry – I’m talking about a fringe, specifically the one that belongs to television presenter Claudia Winkleman. Hers is an onyx scythe of a fringe, cutting through the screen and directly into your heart. And it is an object of lust among the many women I’ve discussed it with.
It disappeared briefly – did you notice? – as did the dark, kohl-rimmed eyes. Winkleman hinted that the BBC had asked her to update her look for the new series of Strictly, but it took one show for her to see sense. “No fringe = bad. Fringe = good,” she tweeted. Damn straight.
Claudia is a genuine “girls’ girl”. She looks like the kind of woman who laughs at other women’s jokes, or who would smile at you if you were the only other woman in a room full of men – as if to say, “Hi! Look at us, eh?” Brucie leaving Strictly means she gets to bounce off the energy of another female presenter, and I think she adores it.
She’s good at playing to the two audiences – the studio crowd as well as us at home. She acknowledges the absurd and transmits it back. Back in her It Takes Two Strictly spin-off days, she would talk quite seriously about footwork and “the frame” with the judges – before looking at the camera as if sharing an inside joke. She did it on Liquid News (BBC Choice, remember?) back in 2002, too. This was before her ascension – fringe first, obviously – into prime time, hosting the main show with Tess Daly. It makes me want to yell “GIRL POWER!” like it’s 1996.
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