Free at last

Standing on a train platform on my way home I have time to reflect on my week’s journey from Sussex Girl to the Middle East (a poor Jordan joke, but let me have it).


I am freezing in bare legs in the middle of winter - I’m not sure public transport is something that Katie has ever needed to consider - and I feel tarty as hell.

The reactions that I have received for my complete overhaul have been varied. I was concerned that most women seemed to like my look; the fake tan, hair and nails seem to be entrenched as part of a modern culture that I am clearly not part of. For a woman who made her name marketing herself to men I was surprised at how the female population has embraced the plastic fantastic look.

Surely the women of the UK could spend the hours upon hours of time it takes to stop looking like themselves to more constructive use. Cure for cancer maybe?

I’m relieved that only comparatively few men found my look appealing. Perhaps the lads’ culture of the nineties has caused a backlash which makes the pumped-up, puffed-out look undesirable. Then again, the men who did enjoy my appearance seemed to be the kind who looked like they consider heavy reading a copy of ‘Nuts’.

So, will I take any gems of knowledge away with me on my as I retire my tanning mitt and hairpiece?

The answer to that is a defiant ‘yes’. I am now of the complete conviction that Katy with a ‘y’ is much better off than my counterpart. I don’t hide between a mask of makeup and fakery, I have time to think rather than buffing, polishing and de-fuzzing constantly, and I know the impact I make on people is down to my personality, not the copious amounts of cleavage I’m showing.

Thank you Katie Price, your guide to life has shown me that I’m much better off with my own.

Day Five

As Jordan has ‘sprinkled a bit of girly glamour’ across the equestrian world with her velour based riding line obviously the practicalities of call girl style at a muddy stable needed to be investigated. I can confirm wholly and unevquivolally that ANYTHING to do with horse- holding, grooming, cleaning, riding… are TOTALLY impossible. The nails ping off, you can't grasp anything, and horses really don’t appreciate the levels of selfcare that go into being Upper Hartfield’s sex kitten. 

Next up, a trip to Sainsburys. There are, it has to be said comparitively few odd looks even though I’m tripping around in a floral mini, velour hoodie and I headbutted the bronzer before I left the house.

However I did get seranaded next to the pringles as a very melodious chap crooned that he wanted to give me some ‘good loving.’ Fabulous. I do begin to see a pattern the type of man who finds this look attract. Chavvy and brazen. I can honestly put my hands up and say that I have never found propositioning in the dry goods aisle a tempting offer.

Confusingly as I am wearing my little sister’s clothes I have to ask, is this level off interest some from of socialised peadophilia? Obvously I am old enough for it to be legal, and yet I am wearing, essentially, little children’s clothing. Deeply worrying.

Tonight is my night out on the tiles a la Pricey. Apparently on a night out she has looked at girls and thought ‘god what a slut’ before realising that she was wearing the same thing. The seperating factor, according to her, is that she doesn’t act like one. Of course.

So, curlers on, fake tan applied and I squeze myself into corset, platforms and a skirt hitched up to so more leg and tulle than I have eve shown before. My make up takes hours, with three layers of lashes, lip liner around (not on) my lips and I apply my gloss with a trowel, I also draw on my fake cleavage look with bronzer.

I feel highly over-exposed, to a level of virtual public nudity which isn't attractive. No wonder she goes on crazy diets, wearing this little every flaw is exposed, and it really isn't pretty.Ten minutes into our trip and I have been banned from repeating the phrase ‘I look like a common prostitute.’ Which I do.

Waiting on the station platform I am freezing to death- apparently I am not allowed a coast as a ‘puffer jacket would ruin’ my look as, of course, that is EXACLY what I would wear.

As it’s the Friday of Halloween I think I have been pretty lucky, but every double take resulting in me apologising, saying it’s a fancy dress outfit and I spend the entire journey loudly talking about my journalism job getting me to wear funny clothes. Just in case anyone hadn't got it.

Arriving in Brighton I discover that taxi drivers love this look. Leaning out of windows, flashing me, doing double takes. Who knew KP’s fan base could be so specific.

Walking down the road I realised that a city centre is infact the place to go where you don’t get double-takes. Girls in mini skirts, luminous tans and cleavage a-plenty and it becomes increasingly obvious to me that this look isn’t an object of ridicule, it just appears to be the norm.

At dinner, on a table of people who had been primed for my arrival, I was pretty horrified at how enthusiastic people were. My three sets of clumpy horrible lashes smothered in mascara were admired. I can barely open my eyes and to be honest it stings a bit, yet I’m not laughed at.

A staring woman in the toilet tells me how much she loves my skirt (where knickers are pretty much on show) and my eye make up which reaches up beyond my brows with a Cruella D’Ville shape.

Heading aross main roads and more enquires of where I was staying tonight were thown my way by classy looking men, but confused looks were pretty few and far between.

On the train we find a collection of drag queens, all of whom, unsurprisingly, thought my look was totally acceptable for a night out on the tiles. ‘Its great dahling’ said one titian beauty.

Moving to a bar in Haywards Heath (mmmm, I know) and I attempt to flirt by sitting on a man’s knee. ‘Sorry darling, I don’t need another girlfriend.’ I don’t bother again. Ah well, the life as Sussex’s most desirable is a lonely one….

Day Four

I went outside.

Into the real world. Well, I went out to the cosmetics section of my local department store where I work. And they all really liked my look. Admittedly this is a group of women who live in panto makeup; clearly the pricey look is not one that fills everyone with horror. ‘You need a bit more bronzer, really’ said one particularly puce lady on Mac. More? Really.

On my short sojourn I did get eyed up. By a man wearing a back-to-front baseball cap and sportswear. Superb, the only time I’ve been up checked out in the past month and it’s by a lord high chav.

The outfit did at least inspire some critique. In case you are wondering, the skirt is my sisters and the classic 8 inches ‘not too short, not to long’ according to the great lady. The ‘kiss me’ tee is appropriately crass, topped of with a diamante encrusted grey velour hoody. My mother is going to get an earful for the shit she is letting my sister wader around in it’s tight, tarty and crass. 

In the evening I engaged with my inner ‘yummy mummy’ by taking me little sister on a Halloween night at my local farm which was great as LOADS of people were in fancy dress and with my green witch next to me I just looked like an enthusiastic sibling. In fact in one queue I was positively underdressed. Apparently some people think lemon stilettos are re rigeur for queuing in a field. And they had more diamante on than me. I felt rather ashamed of myself. Although I did discover that my hair piece is a weapon of war- seductive flicking results in a sold mass of polyester hitting the next person in the face (no, I didn’t know them) but the rebound mean I got a hit too. Classy.

Day Two as La Price

Day Two

I have discovered putting makeup on is ridiculously hard- false lashes and false nails don’t mix as I stuck part of the crease of my eyelid together and now have a massive blob of sudocream on it to attempt to end the pain.

Nor can I cook. Not a massive issue normally, but I thought I should take up the mantle of Yummy Mummy (chapter 3) But you can’t do anything at a normal pace and cooking takes forever.

I am, I admit, beautifully smooth and golden brown in hue. I am officially the darkest I have ever been with limbs looking, well sort of healthy and slimmer, definitely slimmer- who knew dayglo white was so unflattering? My face, on the other hand, is orange. Which I can’t really fathom as I’ve used the same stuff all over, it’s definitely a smooth, all over colour, but a violent shade of tangerine. And my sheets are pretty unusually looking too.

I decided to start living the life a little more a la Pricey, as I realised I have received any male reactions yet. In the chapter ‘Sex Kitten’ aside from her advice to keep it in your pants for the first month (REALLY Katie; Pete? Gareth? Alex? Dwain? I’m sure the list goes on) there is some excellent advice on what to wear when meeting up boys.

“ If a guy was coming round for the evening to watch a DVD I’d make sure I got his interest by the end of the night. I’d get all dressed up in long socks with little shorts - really sexy and girlie, but not obviously trying too hard – so they’d be thinking ‘mmmm, she’s really cute…’ meanwhile I’d be thinking ‘dream on mate, you’re not getting none of that,’”

Really nice. I’m pretty sure this is how you can get in serious trouble. So I decided to try this classy style out to garner a response for my friends. Wearing some tweed shorts, knee high socks, a t-shirt declaring ‘I heart ME’ a false ponytail and, obviously, fake nails, lashes and bling I rock up to Unsuspecting of Tunbridge Wells.

To give credit where it is due, the first minute of stunned observation was incredibly polite. Once I had explained the premises of the outfit and they realised that I hadn’t just taken leave of my (limited) fashion sense the well-brought up boys dropped their niceties and the claws came out.

Andrew, a doctor, began a diatribe:“It’s hideous, can you please quote that? Hideous. But I think that the outfits are going to get worse.” He went on to request “the real Katy back now?” 

My best friend James took the insults a step further by informing me that I looked “cheap, tacky and orange…I can’t even look at you.” James refused to sit next to me, and then when he finally conceded, after 10 minutes of silence, he farts in my general direction.

Yes, you read that correctly, a boy was so disgusted by my outfit, a boy, who in eight years of friendship has never done such a thing, farted at me.

His logic? “I wasn’t farting at Katy, I was farting at Jordan.”

I think this is a definitive failure on the advice front.

All I can think about it’s the fact that more leg is on show than on a chicken in Nandos, and the fact that everyone (quite rightly) is making a judgement on why the hell I’m dressed like this. how someone enjoys this?

Day one as La Pricey

The first think to tackle is, well, everything. The self-respecting girl should be shaving. Everything. Everyday. This is going to be a long week for a girl who wears tights in June to avoid tackling the lawn on her shins. Half an hour later I’m all done I feel like Barbie’s glandular sister. Almost.

As part of the depilatory process I am also expected to shave my arms every week or so. My Arm? The bits attached to my hands? Am I also expected to shave my palms? And shaving… there there’s going to be a hideous stubbly and totally unhideable re-growth. And I was pretty sure there was nothing there to shave anyway. Compromising (yes there will be a few compromises this week, you may say cop-out, I say self-preservation) I decide to epilate an arm to prove that this is a pointless exercise. Unfortunately as I compared arms it was clear that I have created an entirely new paranoia. I have forearms like a dockworker. Hirsute limbs simply do not grow overnight and so I have to conclude that I have been butch for sometime and am honestly rather annoyed none of my so called friends have mentioned to me even once that I resemble a yeti.

Is this why I’m single? In the same way I’d never date someone who looks better in skinny jeans than me, have men vetoed me? ‘Katy? Nice girl, but I couldn’t date someone with hairier forearms than me...’ Or worse, do the ones who have dated me like the way my arms wrapped around them are reminiscent of a hug from Dad? Thanks Katie, a whole new bundle of baggage.

Next I move on to tanning. This is a must for me because acording to my Oracle ‘pale is definitely not interesting’ which tells dull old me. A daily tanning session on a sunbed gets you a ‘sexy golden glow,’ but as it would take a year of sunbedding for all my freckles to join up into one giant uber-freckle masquerading as a tan I’ve decided to opt for daily faking instead. This takes forever, and my face is a wee bit orange already so who knows what I’ll look like by the end of the week.

Nails require thrice weekly touch-ups and I shouldn’t leave the house with a chipped nail. Ever. Falsies applied and painted a luminous shade of cerise I have realised that I can’t type, pick things up or scratch my face without poking myself in the eye. They are like ten camp light sabres and I can see these becoming the bane of my life. And I have to say that if it’s this difficult to type I can’t imaging how she wrote those books so quickly…

I look, well a bit chavvy and stupid. But at least I’m comfy, and my aura is ‘glowing’ because I’m wearing bright colours. Auras are important you know. This is technical advice you get given.

Becoming Katie Price

Katie Price has launched a style guide to lead the masses into the realms of her plastic fantastic style. She captures the public’s imagination and dominates the gossip magazines. But how much of her advice is actually practical- after all as well as a glamour girl she is a mother of three and a champion horse rider? Is the Katie Price look something that women aspire to or is she just, as Martin Amis recently described her, ‘two bags of silicone’.

Nonetheless many women aspire to follow in the footsteps of the glamour model. And with £30 million in her bank to date, it’s clear that there is a winning formula somewhere. No stranger to literary success her Fourth novel, 'Sapphire', has sold more than 70,000 copies in hardback and her second novel, 'Crystal', outsold that year’s entire Booker shortlist put together. 

So I have made the decision to go from Katy to Katie. One similarly named girl’s sartorial exploration of the stylistic and lifestyle tips from a woman who can be described more as all front than front row at the fashion show. Perhaps a week of following La Price’s grooming and dressing tips will give me a chance to discover if my reluctance to sport diamante has been holding me back.