It’s safe to say that men can absolutely get away with wearing the same few suits and have that decision go virtually unnoticed. This is especially true with celebrities on red carpets and news anchors, whom many of us see on television every day.
Unfortunately, women anchors aren’t awarded the same privilege. In some cases, the public pays more attention to what the woman behind the desk (or in front of the green screen) is wearing than what she’s reporting.
An anchor in Australia challenged that double-standard after the Daily Mail reported her wearing the *gasp* same blouse floral blouse several months apart on Monday. “Today Show's Lisa Wilkinson Sports Same Floral Blouse, Just Four Months Apart,” the headline partially read.
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I am sooo busted! Seems I've been seen hosting breakfast TV wearing same blouse with "strategic cutout above the bust" just 4months apart!!! pic.twitter.com/hx1AaQw2b2
— Lisa Wilkinson (@Lisa_Wilkinson) April 11, 2017
Not one to run and hide after a sexist headline, Wilkinson, co-host of Channel Nine’s Today Show in Australia, tweeted out a response to headline. “I am sooo busted! Seems I've been seen hosting breakfast TV wearing same blouse with "strategic cutout above the bust" just 4 months apart!!!”
She then took it a step further. The journalist appeared on television the next day wearing the "thrifty" burgundy floral-printed top. Wilkinson, who is also an editor at large for Huffington Post Australia, wrote an essay on the ordeal, titled, “I Want To Thank The Fashion Police For Airing My Dirty Laundry.”
“I did something incredibly brave today,” it began. “In fact, I did something that has never been done before by a female presenter in the history of TV news broadcasting — at any news desk, in any studio, anywhere in the western world..." she said.
“...From this day forward perhaps my greatest legacy to the annals of female news broadcasting history will likely be that I dared to wear the same outfit two days in a row on national TV.
“That's right: same outfit, consecutive days. On national TV.
In Wilkinson’s lengthy HuffPo piece, she the then went on to describe the idea of her wearing, washing and re-wearing the same top as being revolutionary.
'Atta girl. Check out the rest of the story here, it's absolutely worth a read.