Fashion Victim: A courtroom makeover maketh the woman

Mar 20 2008 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

THERE has been no getting away from one story in the press for months and months and this week it finally came to its full and very public conclusion.

I am talking of course about the Mills-McCartney divorce. After all the fuss and bluster Heather Mills walked away from her four-year marriage to the world’s most famous Beatle with £24.3m and a pasting from the press.

However for once in this sorry story Heather Mills found that she was not the star of the show. While it was hard to get past Heather’s ranting, the overriding memory of the divorce finale for many will be the sight of Sir Paul McCartney’s lawyer leaving court with her previously bouffant hair, plastered, sodden to her face.

The real goings on inside Court 34 will presumably never be known – it was reported that Heather Mills said Fiona Shackleton had been “baptised in court” – but she refused to say whether she had thrown any water.

Whatever actually happened, I have to say full marks to Ms Shackleton for her conduct in all of this.

When Heather was hoping everyone was hanging on her every word as she went and vented on the court steps, photographers were sidetracked by Ms Shackleton’s appearance as she exited the courts.

Here was a woman who presumably could have had her pick of London’s finest stylists shoot over to the court to blowdry her hair in minutes, but by calmly walking out behind Sir Paul, as she did, her hair obviously damp, the world’s press knew something had gone on behind closed doors without her having to utter a single word.

I can’t help thinking that the impeccably-groomed Fiona Shackleton actually looked better with her slicked back wet hair, coming out of court, than she did going in. The sodden curls softened her face and made her look years younger (the wry smile also helped).

But then Ms Shackleton’s hair as she entered the Royal Courts of Justice was just the sort of hair we have come to expect of strong women. It was big and blow dried. There was definitely more than a whiff of hairspray about it and without the water could probably have withstood a force 10 gale.

It was the sort of power hair that is fitting for someone charged with protecting the interests of multi-millionaires like Sir Paul McCartney and Royals like Prince Charles.

It bore more than a passing resemblance to the Duchess of Cornwall’s current coiffure but then Ms Shackleton is hardly likely to turn up for work sporting tousled boho curls a la Sienna Miller is she?

Margaret Thatcher was the queen of power hair – the lady was not for turning and nor was her barnet. Over the pond, power hair is even more prevalent. Could you imagine Condoleeza Rice turning up in Iraq with Tyra Banks-style tumbling extensions? No. But the US Secretary of State’s ultra-sleek bob immediately tells foreign leaders “I am not a woman to be messed with”.

The saying goes that hair maketh the man, well wet hair may yet maketh Fiona Shackleton the most famous divorce lawyer in history.