  urlLink Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Year of the blonde bitch : "Women, to paraphrase David Brent, the most popular philosopher of our time, are not always all that easy to get a grip on. Long ago in the winter of 2003, it looked like this year would be a jolly nice time to be a woman - or, at least, a girly girl. The discernible fashion trends from designers for summer 2004 were frothy, frilly dresses, and everything else in colours as sugar sweet as a pick 'n' mix counter, floral patterns scattered about willy-nilly. Sure, this would be tricky for the high street to copy (aside from the occasional fantastic Marc Jacobsesque jacket, mass retailers are understandably better at Girls Aloud-alike pelmet skirts than Great Gatsby-style one-off dresses), but it would be perfect, we were told, for that secret layer of femininity that allegedly lurks inside women across the land, just waiting to be unearthed from beneath all those Ugg boots and hipster jeans. Ideal, in other words, for women like me who, in the deepest part of their soul, didn't think Barbara Cartland was such a bad dresser.
Simply smashing, for those of us who would still be playing with Barbie dolls and My Little Ponys if it was socially acceptable. Oh yeah, this was going to be my year. Yet something has gone wrong. Maybe it's a feminine whim, maybe it's just the weather, but somehow, things haven't quite followed the plan. The fact is, all that girly-twirliness (a style I had long championed anyway, despite urgings to the contrary from friends and colleagues) is already looking a bit irrelevant, as tired as a wilting daisy.
Instead, I find myself possessed by the urge to dye my hair platinum blonde (and wasn't brunette supposed to be very in this year? ), hoik myself into a micro-mini and halter top (replete with Gossard, naturally), and to punctuate snappy one-liners with clicks from my stiletto heels. Frankly, as I do for many problems in my life, I blame the television..." 
