By Gillian Ralph
From the sublime to the ridiculous, Russell Brand’s ex has walked a very choppy fashion path. Like fellow pop princess Lady Gaga, Katy Perry isn’t afraid to wear whatever she feels like. The difference between the two is that while Lady Gaga is extremely fashion conscious and keen to impress the style police, Katy Perry doesn’t seem remotely bothered about her often brutally unattractive outfits.
She’s looked stunning in little black dresses but also awful in jumpsuits and hideous hair dye. It’s all part of the act though and the 27 year old Californian slips from serious siren to cartoon character as easily as an Oscar winning actress might.
With nods to 1950s fetish model Betty Paige and burlesque star Dita Von Teese to the garish American West Coast styles of the swinging 60s, Perry is a real magpie when it comes to picking out her outfits. By definition though, almost everything she wears has a feel of retro Americana about it. You could say that nobody has done as much to empower women who fancy looking like a character from a 1970s airline advert!
In all seriousness though while few of us would ever dare dye our hair blue, slap on the highest platform heels we could find and head out looking like we just had a fight with a rainbow, there are unique aspects to Katy’s style which we can adapt and incorporate into our own dress sense. Whatever she’s wearing, no matter how ugly the colours she never fails to make the most of her figure and features when it comes to cut and shape. Think less about her cleavage and more about her penchant for elegant strapless dresses. Her full blown vampy lips are another Perry trademark worthy of imitation. Yes, even a conservative dresser can take a hint or two from Katy Perry.
While we might not like her brand of sugar sweet pop, we can’t help but be charmed by her. In interviews she comes over as fun and doesn’t like to be taken too seriously and those sentiments shine through in the way she dresses too. This of course makes her easy fodder for newspapers and magazines (like this one!) that might not feature her music but won’t say no to a couple of images of her latest get up.
So here’s to Katy Perry and her intriguing yet flawed sense of style. She’s at least interesting!
