Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
People are always asking: how do I look so stylish?” trills pristine uber-mum Amanda, played by Lucy Punch, in the second season of chaotic parenting sitcom Motherland. “Where do I get that amazing thing, this amazing thing?” she adds, emphasising each question with a flick of her immaculately coiffed blonde hair, the sort of creamy shade that requires regular upkeep and a Goldilocks approach to purple toning shampoo (not too much product, not too little, just the right amount).
She sounds insufferable, but she’s also entirely correct. Because when this episode aired, all the way back in 2019, my immediate thoughts were: where did Amanda get that navy blue high-necked blouse with the polka dots? And what about the provenance of the chunky knits she wore earlier in the series? What colour reference does she give to her hairdresser? More than five years on and Punch’s character has her own spin-off show, Amandaland, on BBC One. She’s now divorced, dealing with life as a single parent to a pair of teenagers, trying to carve out a career as “the face and brains and body and hair of a rapidly growing Instagram startup” – and I regret to report that she is still the best-dressed woman on TV.
How does she do it? Amanda’s overall aesthetic is very much “yummy mummy who takes regular city breaks to Scandinavia (but also keeps tabs on whatever Kate Middleton’s wearing, too)”. For weekday pick-ups and drop-offs, she tends to dress in long, structured coats in light colours (lending a sleek silhouette that instantly makes her stand out amid a sea of puffas in highlighter-fluorescent shades).
These are layered over jumpers in complementary neutrals – dove grey, ecru, any beige-y tone with a Farrow & Ball-worthy name – and there’s usually some kind of expensive-looking cashmere pashmina involved too. It all screams: “I don’t care about the dry cleaning bill.” For a case in point, see the utterly impractical, but very fabulous, ensemble she wears to watch her kids play football: trench coat, oatmeal knitted jumper and skirt set, sandy heeled boots. You can imagine her pain at having to drape a blue and burgundy football scarf over her 50 shades of beige (when she inevitably topples over into the mud, it’s fine, because the coat is “last season”).
For mums’ nights out and PTA parties, though, Amanda wants all eyes on her, and usually abandons her minimalism to wear something as OTT and attention-seeking as her constant demands to her long-suffering sidekick, Anne (Philippa Dunne). Think of the lacy Self-Portrait mini dress in icy blue for the disastrous “auction of promises” fundraiser in season one, or the floral and animal print midi dress from upscale brand Saloni that she donned in season three.
How do I know where these outfits originated from? Because I ended up trawling the depths of Mumsnet in order to track them down, obviously (I should add that I do not have kids, and therefore have next to no reason to be exploring those forums, aside from my fashion fixation on a made-up posh woman). My favourite Amanda-related Mumsnet thread begins with a screenshot of the character wearing another gorgeous patterned mini dress, and reads: “Anyone know where this dress is from? The navy one on the snooty b***h mum on the right.” Nothing better sums up Amanda’s push-pull appeal.
Essentially, Amanda dresses like the fictional dream customer of the sort of boutique you tend to spot tucked just off the high street of a well-to-do town, the kind of place that’s nearly always entirely empty, and immediately causes you to think: “How the hell have they survived the cost of living crisis?” Appropriately enough, she also had her own, cruelly brief stint as the proprietress of such an establishment. Her Chiswick boutique, Hygge Tygge, opens in season two, selling ridiculously priced scented candles and other prestige homeware bits along with a few fashionably sparse rails of Amanda-esque clothes.
Nothing about her is effortless, in the way that we’re so often told that true style is supposed to be
The whole point is that she’s selling her own aspirational life, and so whenever anyone asks her where her clothes are from, “now I can just say, ‘my shop … store!” Unfortunately, it doesn’t last long: soon she’s pivoting to a digital storefront before eventually winding down the whole “vanity project” (as Anna Maxwell Martin’s Julia puts it) altogether.
Once Amanda is forced to swap the bougie delights of Chiswick for “So-Ha” aka south Harlesden (it’s a nickname that surely only she and a few especially unctuous Foxton’s managers would ever try to style out), her fashion tastes shift ever so slightly, as she tries desperately to fit in with what she would call an “edgier” crowd. So we see her wearing wide-leg jeans and cropped cardis as she desperately tries to win over cool restaurateur Della (Siobhan McSweeney) and her wife Fi (Rochenda Sandall). And when she finally has to get a proper job to supplement her Instagram efforts, she’s forced to wear a burgundy branded T-shirt. The effect is quite disconcerting, unnatural even.
Ugly corporate tees aside, though, what’s the appeal of Amanda’s look? Wealth certainly plays a big part, at least in the earlier seasons – part of the allure is the monied lifestyle that allows her to look so good. Plus, Lucy Punch has the sort of striking beauty that means she would probably appear radiant even if she was wearing a hessian sack.
But what really wins me over is the fact that Amanda is at once aspirational and achingly try hard. She looks like someone who lays out their outfits the night before. Nothing about her is effortless, in the way that we’re so often told that true style is supposed to be. Instead, you can see her toil written all over her face, not least in her slightly maniacal grin. For all her studied breeziness, no one has ever had less sprezzatura – and that makes this still very rich, still very annoying woman a touch more endearing.
I’ll never have an Amanda life – my blonde hair goes too yellow too fast, my vowels are too short, and I can’t find anyone to fund my own Scandi store – but just maybe, if the Mumsnet sleuths are on the case, I can buy the same jumper. In the sale, obviously.
Amandaland is available to stream on BBC iPlayer now
Source: independent.co.uk
