On channelling your inner ‘Frazzled English Woman’
1 part heartbreak to 3 parts lovestruck and a bouquet of 2000s fashion, empty pints and sisterhood, is proposed the perfect recipe for ‘The Frazzled English Women’ another tag society deemed upon a niche group of women, one that has surfaced repeatedly in the media. However rather than a trend to marginalise women or subject them to low standards, this character is one often written by woman or at least for them to celebrate that of a mid-life crisis or a lifestyle untamed. We know her as the clutz who finds herself in the most inconvenient of situations and the heroine who pioneers her way to the top.
Circulating December of 2022, amid the northern hemisphere's winter season, came about the surge of numerous articles, style guides and posts regarding the iconic trope of the frazzled English women.
Most often seen in cinema, this trope is portrayed through British rom-coms featuring a leading lady facing a dramatic and usually low-point in her life, just fighting through it with the help of her unconventional traits and inconveniently-skinny scarf. Perfect examples of these are envisioned through the likes of Bridget Jones: All in the same movie she finds a naked woman in her boyfriends bathroom while wearing a playboy bunny costume and later finds herself running through snowy England streets in tiger print underwear to ‘snogg’ Colin Firth. Ultimately the women’s lives of this trope are anything but simple. Hence the term ‘frazzled’. But that doesn’t mean this guide has to be. If a craving for a 00s rom com directed by Nancy Myers or Richard Curtis is what your life is thirsting for, here’s a not-so-serious but ultimately truthful guide.
1. Style Guide
The appearance is quite doable, though in Australia, December falls on our sticky-sunny season. It’s a look best replicated in winter (though with our up-and-down forecast, might just work now too) . The key is simply layering. On top of granny panties and woollen stockings, the frazzled English women can be caught in a thick skirt, knee high boots, a coat and the infamous 2000s skinny scarf. Of course paired with a hat or claw clip to string back dishevelled or unbrushed hair (having pulled at it all night upon great stress). Think of pairing earthy tones or cool tones to match that cold English weather but have some spontaneity with patterns.
In reality, notions of this style and the references needed to recreate it, are often pulled from early to mid 2000s street photography of Keira Knightly: a definite style icon of our time. It’s the effortless ‘rolled-out-of-bed-looking-like-this’ look that demands the attention of pinterest style-fanatics.
2. The Lifestyle
This trope of woman does everything at once, therefore can balance nothing at all. She can throw a dinner party and not know how to cook a single thing, but she gives it a shot and that’s all that matters. Try new things, do it badly, do it wrong. The home is a large slice of her life. Its her headspace replicated through room. Take all that mess in your head and complex relationships and fuzzy friendships and thoughts and manifest that into womanhood in a space: Half washed clothes dumped on the magazines that hide the floor, or however your wellbeing can be translated into real world. Good or bad the Frazzled English Woman has seen it all, and as has her space.
3. The Love-life
As the Frazzled English Women is most often seen through rom-coms it is a sort of given that a central point in her story is her love life. Though by no means should this be neat, let alone linear. Her love life entails comical relations with ex’s, often an unattainable or unexpecting crush and more often than not, that is Colin Firth. The frazzled english women is appealing to others in her authenticity and problematic in her clumsiness, though maybe that’s exactly what’s charming about her. She has flaws and that’s what’s exciting to her about others, she doesn’t feel the need to be cookie cutter. She isn’t looking to fit into a stereotype other than herself, she finds someone who likes her “just as [she is]”. If you know, you know.
4. Her Epiphany
Whilst this iconic trope is well-loved and is channelled now to keep us warm in winter months as well as stressful plots of our lives, the ultimate importance of the ‘frazzled English woman’s’ resurgence is her personal journey. Sure her awkwardness stays consistent, but the baggage that keeps her held back from so much is dropped at the end and she always realises something about herself. Take ‘The Holiday’s,’ protagonist Iris (Kate Winslet). Led on by a noxious ex lover she waits on for years, eventually to end up in a caring relationship but most importantly learning to prioritise her needs when just ten minutes into the beginning of the movie she was inhaling the gas from the stove of her petite cottage to Christmas music in the background. Even our beloved Bridget Jones finds someone who likes her ‘just the way she is’ but also takes charge to triumph a new career move and pick herself back up after being beaten by heartbreak countlessly.
Ultimately the Frazzled English women can be emulated through looks and style inspiration, but the real catchiness of this trend reemerged is with the freedom to make stupid mistakes and be a little messy. It tells women to relax and let what we want come to us all whilst rocking an excellent cable knit sweater and listening to Joni Mitchell on CD.
Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones (Bridget Jones’s Diary 2001)
A (side) note from the author
This recipe is perfected with: a messy and utterly honest narration and/or word vomit by protagonist; a healthy dose of Colin Firth obsession + references; the constant use of British slang like ‘knickers’ and ‘bugger’ and ‘snogging’ and the making of ‘blue-string-soup’ .
For more on ‘Blue string soup’, See: ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ 2001