Fashion Victim: Coleen takes new direction in style stakes

Apr 24 2008 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

BARELY a day goes by when our own super-wag-to-be Coleen McLoughlin is not in the papers.

And this week was no exception. It was revealed on Tuesday that the 22-year-old had been “dumped”, as some gleefully declared, as the face of George at Asda.

Coleen’s publicist was quick to clear this up, saying that her contract with the supermarket giant had simply come to its natural end, adding that Asda were changing their campaign to go after thirty-somethings, “which is plainly not Coleen’s demographic”.

Indeed, this does look like a rare case where everyone has had what they needed from a deal and now the time is ripe to move on?

Personally, regardless of who the “face” is, I am a huge fan of George at Asda and would be without a good half my wardrobe if it were not for the genius designers there who seem to be able to knock up the most incredible catwalk cool pieces for pennies. I can’t tell you what joy I experience when I nip out for bread and milk and come home with a gorgeous little cardie for less than £20, or a cheery pendant for the price of a packet of bagels.

When they hired Coleen as their front-woman, it was perfect casting. It gave her a bona fide job and gave the supermarket a massive star who was still seen as down-to-earth and in touch with real young women.

How things have changed. These days, I can’t fathom how anyone can now look at Coleen and really imagine her heading off to a book launch or film premiere in a £30 prom dress.

At the races just a couple of weeks ago, she wore a Balenciaga number that probably cost more than the entire lingerie section in your average Asda store.

Coleen falls into the same category as Victoria Beckham – she is never knowingly under-dressed or under-designed. From her bag to her shoes to her Barbara Daley coiffured hair, she is always dressed to the nines. And the bridal gown for her and Wayne’s summer nuptials is reported to have cost in the region of £100,000.

With a magazine column, a television show and a four-day wedding expected to cost in the region of £3m on the cards, she is hardly the Croxteth girl-next-door who fell in love with her childhood sweetheart any more – she is a multi-millionaire, living in the footballer belt.

But then that is the way of the wag. I have to say I am sure this will not be the last we hear of Coleen in the fashion world – my money is on her “doing a Posh” and launching her own range of clothes soon, to go with her perfume and her book.

As for Asda’s change of direction, Helen Mirren and Joanna Lumley have been tipped as possible future faces, while one bookmaker is apparently offering odds of 4-1 that the next face of Asda will be the wife of the French President, one Carla Bruni.

George at Asda or Galliano for Dior? Decisions, decisions. But she might like to know George does a natty line in ballet flats.