WAGS - or it's AFL finals season

Here in Australia it's the finals season for Australian Rules Football with the AFL Grand Final next weekend. This means, of course, that it's also time for the annual awards. For Aussie Rules the big national award is the Brownlow, which is awarded to the player who accumulates the most points given to the fairest and best players after each game over the season by the officiating umpires.

For a long time the Brownlow Medal presentation ceremony was a black tie, male only event but those days are well gone - and so they should be. The wives and girlfriends make considerable sacrifices to support their menfolk and to shut them out would be churlish.

That said the Brownlow Medal presentation ceremony has become more and more of a fashion event with players showing off their partners on the red carpet before they go inside for the real business of the evening, the counting of the votes. This is all good but with the red carpet comes competition with fashion designers vying for their chance to dress these women - and the majority of them do a great job providing flattering, glamorous gowns.

But - and you knew there was going to be a but, didn't you - there is a growing tendency for a certain percentage of the women to wear more and more outrageous dresses. They are certainly not gowns. With plunging necklines and backs and splits up to the thigh they seem to be chosen without any thought of whether they are flattering or not, only how much skin they can expose. Now don't get me wrong. I have no objection to a bit of boob or leg showing - or both - as long as they enhance the appearance of the wearer. The trouble is these don't. The number of sagging, droopy or flattened breasts that posed on the red carpet was ridiculous. As one twenty something said to me 'If you've got sagging boobs, why wouldn't you want to have a decent bra to improve things?' and she's the same age group as these women.

The thing is it isn't bare skin that makes a garment sexy. It's how a dress emphasises the wearer's best points and minimises the others. Sometimes less really is more.