Scale Your Accessories (And That Includes Your Shoon)

Here’s “Hairspray” star Nikki Blonsky, darlings, giving us an opportunity to talk about proportion and cloven hooves:

Nikki is a heavy, beautiful young woman and this outfit is hip. No minister should wear pants that are stained and shredded at the hem, but that’s not what I want to point out here. I want to bring your attention to the fact that Nikki’s bag and belt and earrings are the right proportion for her size, and that’s a good thing. I also want to point out that Nikki is wearing a bra that gives her enough support, and that’s a very important factor in looking appropriate and pulled-together.

If Miss B. were to professionalize this outfit, she’d have to update the trousers (a darker fabric and a wider hem would be so much more flattering). Thick gals don’t do themselves many favors widening their shoulders with a boatneck collar or cutting themselves in half with a belt as Nikki has done — a long, funky necklace would have added a nice line of vertical interest — but she’s a kid at the airport, she’s not a working woman. Her outfit is fine as it is for her purposes, and she looks a far sight better than most of young Hollywood these days. At least she knows enough not to wear a tiny belt or to carry an armpit warmer.

But our Nik’s had a bit of a whoopsie in the shoe department. Don’t get me wrong, I love the shoes; they’re adorable. But as I’ve learned the hard way, an open-toed wedge heel on a heavy, short, busty girl in pants with small feet looks like a cloven hoof. It really does. And that evokes unfortunate memories of Miss Piggy.

Nikki would do much better with a boot here, or a high-heeled Mary Jane or some other shoe that better suits her proportions. She’s too plump to look right in a ballet flat (too ethereal for heavier women, and who can walk confidently in them?) or even an unstructured flat. She needs shape and heft on her tootsies to balance out her grand bosom and bottom.

PeaceBang, having much the same shape and having made the Miss Piggy error many times herself, wishes Miss Blonsky godspeed in finding more flattering shoes. She also congratulates her for an extraordinarily winning and impressive cinematic debut in “Hairspray.”