The horror ...

I’m so sorry to do this to you. I hate to worry you … but truly, I can’t fight this alone and time is of the essence. You see, I’ve just unearthed a disturbing new pestilence lurking in Villageville. If my research is correct, it should hit Australian shores in about six months and will prove infinitely more deadly than SARS, bird flu, and the Black Death combined. What’s a girl to do? After checking my sources and doing some quantitative analysis (read: serious googling), I’ve spread the word; WHO is onto it, quarantine measures have been put in place, and the good people at Border Security are on red alert.

Be warned: it comes in spandex form.

You see, I have just discovered a disturbing trend in the world of what I'll generously call ‘fashion’. While shopping today I unearthed what can only in the taste stakes be considered an anomaly. No wait, I was looking for that other ‘a’ word – I meant abomination. Perusing some new summer ensembles, not once, but twice, did I come across a garment that I was certain had gone the way of the cast of 90210. Well, just as Luke Perry’s eyebrows are apparently set for a small-screen resurgence, it seems that a small rip in the time-space continuum has allowed other, infinitely less amusing remnants from the early 90s to come back and say hello.

We’ve had the 80s revamp, and this I understand. It was cool. There was that whole David Bowie ‘Goblin King’ aesthetic going on that was definitely worth another look, even if it was just to see if I could try once more to wish my brothers, aged 20, 21, and 28, forever into the labyrinth. But the early 90s? Cardigans. Shoulderpads. Julia Sawalha in Press Gang. Need I say more? The penance was the offence. However, not everyone, it seems doth concur. Thus, it’s my sad duty to inform you that someone, somewhere, and for some ungodly reason, has decided to resurrect that most heinous of all 90s fashion trends … the bodysuit. Yes. The outerwear bodysuit.

For those of you either not old enough, or not stupid enough, to have let photographic evidence of yourself in a white leotard, novelty earrings, checked shorts, hiking boots, and scrunchie socks, into the wrong hands, I salute you. For everyone else, I think now is definitely the time for a Kevin ’07-style, one-piece related think-tank. Ladies of the world, we need to get philosophical. We need to start asking the big questions: Is it possible to create a garment that could be more unflattering? Who needs to be that streamlined to run to the shops? And why, of all the challenges facing the modern woman, do fashion designers believe it is the ability to wear a top and a bottom which is most in need of elasticised attention?

Furthermore, on a more basic level, what exactly is the point? There is but one job I can think of where having a press-stud crotch is guaranteed to grease the wheels of the working week. One. For everyone else, convenience isn’t perhaps aligned with the ability to divide their own zygotes when they reach for the top shelf.

I know it’s distressing, but I’m showing you this for your own good: know thy enemy.

Be alert. Be alarmed.