Here’s the deal: the Olympics have nothing to do with fashion. With that bombshell well and truly dropped, here are some things that you don’t have to worry about. At all. Ever.
Painting your nails gold, silver or bronze
Beauty companies have been going in for this in a big way. Probably because nail polish is the only cosmetic that is conducive to most sporting activities. Have you ever tried running 1,500 metres whilst wearing shimmering smokey eye make-up? Neither have I, but I can’t see it working out too well.
Fear not! You nails can join the Olympic party. The problem is that these metallic polishes rarely deliver on their super-shiny promises. The desired effect is mirror shine, the end result is more like the shine you get from the rusting chassis of a 1995 Renault Espace.
Sports Inspired Hair
This comes in two varieties of extreme fugliness:
Slicked-back pool hair: beauty editors have been trying to make this one happen for years. Oddly enough, women of the world are resistant to voluntarily making their hair greasy in the pursuit of a look that's more spiv than sporty.
The inexplicably high ponytail: Let's blame Mel "Sporty Spice" C for this one. Her high-kicks and high-hair have inspired a generation of hairdressers to use the Croydon facelift ponytail as a form of style shorthand for athletic prowess.
Fortunately, you don't have to bother with either. Because your hair has nothing to do with the Olympics.
Sports-luxe
A.K.A overpriced jogging bottoms. There is a school of fashion marketing that decrees anything made out of cashmere or silk to be “luxe”. A baggy hooded jacket becomes a “luxurious lightweight silk blouson” and slobby jogging trousers become “relaxed loungewear”.
As Stella McCartney’s Team GB kit has shown, there isn’t fat lot you can do with sports kit to make it more “fashion”. You can add a belt to that tracksuit top, but it is still a tracksuit top. Much like the church and state, function and luxury are best kept apart.
Wedge heel trainers
Heeled trainers are one of those try-hard trends that return to taunt us on a five-year cycle. They are unspeakably stupid, even if they are by Giuseppe Zanotti and boast snazzy patent zip detailing. Trainers are for running, heels are for looking hot. May be the two together will give us superhuman abilities to look hot and run really fast?! Then again, there is always the chance that they will make us look like ridiculous Edina Monsoon-style fashion victims who keep falling over. Who knows?
Image via Polyvore