I let my dad style my look for the day

So my dad often makes comments about how I’m dressed or how I’ve done my makeup on any particular day. You know the kind, I’m sure your dads make similar critiques. I decided to turn the tables and let him decide how I should look for a day to see what he thought would be better.

It went so much worse than I could have possibly imagined.

We started with outfits. My wardrobe organisation system of shirts by type proved a little confusing but he eventually settled on an outfit of my oldest baggiest jeans, a not-quite-white-anymore blouse that I hate and a fur gilet. He changed his mind immediately when he saw it on. The highlight of this outfit was the conversation he and my stepmum had about it:

SM: “Why have you dressed her like a prostitute?”

Dad: “She doesn’t look like a prostitute. Looking like that nobody would pay her.”

Great start.

Eventually he swapped the tops for an old beer-festival t-shirt that I keep in a pile of shirts designated for “sports and not for public wearing”, after briefly considering an old t-shirt from Wicked but rejecting it as “defying gravity” written across your boobs “sends the wrong message”. He topped the look off with a black blazer. He wanted to go with a leather jacket instead of the blazer, but all of mine are at my student house so we went with the blazer. It was an interesting combination. I would never pair those things together or wear that outfit again, but it could have been a lot worse.

Then things got worse. We did makeup. Initially, I did let him actually do the makeup, and that was a mistake. We gave him a list of the order you would usually apply things and briefly defined words like “concealer” and “foundation” because he got a little confused.

After an all-over layer of concealer and a heavy, but not uniformly so, layer of foundation with clear cut edges, things got really bad. I have, admittedly faded, burgundy-ish hair at the moment, and the t-shirt he chose was also burgundy. This inspired his decision to make burgundy the only colour used on my face. Or as he phrased it “burgundy is a natural face colour”. Hmm.

So burgundy eyeshadow applied up to the eyebrows, burgundy eyeshadow applied as blusher with an eyeshadow brush and then to top it all, a dark red matte lipstick applied, without liner, to my general lip area and teeth. He declined to use eyeliner for fear that I’d end up blind and after the lipstick-teeth situation, I stand by his decision there.

Later, we discussed what he was actually intending the makeup to look like and I touched it up appropriately. However, I was still left with burgundy eyes, matching burgundy blush and a dark red lip. It looked OK, but it was honestly a little much, and that’s coming from a girl who uses three different eyeliners in her standard makeup routine.

We finished the outfit with accessories. He chose my black DMs, a chunky gold necklace and a large brown slouch handbag that I rarely use because it doesn’t really go with most of my wardrobe.

Looking like this I went about my day. We went down to the supermarket, where the look didn’t receive any unusual stares which was a nice surprise. It felt a bit formal for Morrisons though. Later, I took my sister to the pub, where the look went down as if it were normal. Although a woman at a nearby table did keep frowning in our direction, I can only assume because whilst my sister’s face was covered with sunburn, it was my face that had the greatest proportion of red on it.

But on the whole, this look didn’t raise many eyebrows from the locals. We used a lot of clothes that I wouldn’t usually wear and did confirm why I don’t wear them, but they were not as bad as expected. There was minimal clashing of colours as well, which is surprising given how my dad dresses himself.

The makeup surprised me, given that it was a very strong look, from a man who has suggested on several occasions that perhaps I’m wearing too much makeup. I’d considering colour matching eyes-lips-hair again, but I’d add in black eyeliner and more importantly, I will never again use a sparkly burgundy eyeshadow as a blusher.