Appearances can be...whatever you feel like

I need to be nicer to Miquita Oliver, because she always looks like she slept in a skip. Not that she has the intentionally filthy clothes of Frank Gallagher or Sir Digby Chicken Cesar, or the effortful hobochique of the late Amy Norwegian-Massacre Winehouse. She just looks a bit scruffy and confused.

She's a counterpoint to all the shockingly blemish-free faces that saturate film and television, outfits so painstakingly styled to match and coordinate. It takes an effort that causes physical pain to produce and maintain such a constructed edifice in the real world. Sitcom stars get their hair retouched and their shirts re-ironed between takes, while you look like a tramp after popping out the door for five minutes.

Miquita doesn't mind if her makeup is smudged, if she stands a bit off-centre, or looks like a can of Relentless is all that's holding her up. She wants us to know it's ok to look like you slept on the floor and ate breakfast out of a cold saucepan.

And we should be nicer to her for it.

Nick
xx