Fashion...turn to the left... Fashion... turn to the right... We are the goon squad and we're coming to town...beep, beep

I have a confession to make... I'm an uncoordinated, fashion tragic... I shouldn't be let out of the house without a keeper... sigh...

Yesterday I was on an interview panel. Have only been at my job for 5 months, so still finding my way, and getting to know people and them getting to know me. I was the token chick on a 4 person panel, and was joking around prior to the first interview...contradicted one of the guys when he introduced me as the OH&S guru, and said no, I'm the OH&S Diva!**

Things going swimmingly until we stopped for a loo break after the 2nd interview. Washing my hands and looked at myself for the first time in the mirror and realised I had my top on inside out... the print on the inside was similar to the print on the outside, but I've got seams running down my arms and across my shoulder blades and the tag hanging out on the back...sigh...

This will teach me to wear things that don't need ironing, and to be such an undomesticated goddess that I drag clothes out of the basket of washing I've taken off the line a week ago that is still sitting in the middle of the kitchen table as I stagger bleary eyed towards the kettle and the caffeine.

But in driving back to the office afterwards I started to remember the number of times I've had a 'wardrobe malfunction'. What is it they say about humans... we're the only animal that blushes..or needs to... I do a nice shade of blush!

So here is recorded for all posterity, Miss Frou Frou's advice to avoid fashion faux pas:

Before making a grand entrance always look down - Fronted up at a party once, and didn't realise until I'd arrived and was inside that I was wearing one brown shoe and one white... same style, hence I hadn't noticed when I was walking, just different colours...as I was wearing a brown dress with white spots, bluffed my way through and said I had planned it.

If you must wear a bathing cap make sure it's not red - went to a fancy dress as Raggedy Ann once. I loved that outfit, red tights, black mary-janes, white pantaloons, with a white with red hearts smock, and a white pinafore. As my hair was short, I'd made a red crepe paper wig, and cause my hair is dark, bought a red bathing cap to wear underneath it. I looked cute as, and was having a lovely time dancing energetically. Took a toilet break and discovered to my horror that sometime on the dance floor I'd lost my paper hair, and there I was in all my bald glory... I looked like Telly Savalas with a bad case of sunburn.

Don't ever go to costume parties organised by boys - same costume, different party. Invited to a BBQ Costume Party at a friends. This time, no wig, as my hair was long (half way down my back) so I tied red rags through it. Except, only person in costume was me, and for a brief time the host, dressed as a footballer - what kind of a costume is a footballer anyway... To add insult to injury, he went and changed when he realised none of the other guests were dressing up... and I'd driven from Heidelberg to Keysborough dressed like this...

The gothic look is fine but take an umbrella - once arrived for what was thankfully a telephone job interview at an agency after being caught in a sudden downpour. I knew my clothes and hair were sopping wet, but was surprised at the look on the receptionist's face when I introduced myself and thought how nice she was when she went away and came back with a clean handtowel and a key to the bathroom and said you've got time to dry off before the call comes through. Until I looked in the bathroom mirror and realised my mascara had run to such a degree that I looked like Alice Cooper/ Marilyn Manson's love child... streams of black running down my face...

Weddings are hideous and always make sure your underpants are nice - I once walked across a crowded function room and stood with my back to the room at a wedding with my skirt tucked into my underpants. Not sure what was more embarassing, standing there with my bum hanging out for all to see, or the frantic manouevres trying to extract my dress from my knickers and stockings after the waitress whispered quietly into my ear.

Weddings are hideous, elastic is the bane of my existence and it can always get worse - picture this... my one and only experience as a bridesmaid. Bride, ex-fashion model, 5ft 9 in her stockings, slim and gorgeous. Other bridesmaid, about the same height, slim and very proud of her recent boob surgery to lift and separate. And me...5ft 2, almost as round as she is tall dumpling. Bride, in her wisdom, decides that the 'maids will wear burgundy Scarlett O'Hara style dresses, complete with wide off the shoulder flounces and multiple petticoats and pink stilletto heeled shoes (remember, for a girl who trips over ants regularly, any heel is a health hazard).

So, pick up the dress the night before the wedding. Already very anxious as I'm going to have to go braless. While the boulder-holders might be the first thing that comes off of an evening when I get home, I haven't been braless in public since I was 10!

Put the dress on morning of the wedding, only to discover the elastic in the off the shoulder neckline has gone... and I'm thinking I'm going to have to tuck my boobs into my underpants! Some needle and thread and I am literally sewn into the dress with very strict instructions not to move my arms too high or too wide.

It got worse... the bride decided to have Jaguar wedding cars. Gorgeous cars, but you try and look elegant while climbing out of a jag in an off the shoulder dress with hooped petticoats, held together with thread and a prayer, at the same time that you're trying to get a 3 year old flower girl to stop pulling her dress up over her head to show everyone her pretty knickers (heah that's my gig). I ended up flashing major cleavage at the collected wedding guests waiting on the church steps... talk about upstaging the bride.

It got even worse... wedding over, photo's taken, Toast to the bridesmaids, and I'm sitting with the now exhausted almost asleep 3 year old flower girl on my lap whose got one finger up her nose and the others clutched around the edge of my dress. As I start to stand up with her in my arms, the top of the dress starts a slow descent down... . The groomsman saved the day, with a frantic whisper from me, he wrapped his arm around me, clutching acres of cloth (and breast, come to think of it) and held on for dear life.

And then there is the whole 'if you don't want them looking at your feet, look ridiculous' school of tap dance costumes - I'll have to save that till another time, better go and organise something to wear to work tomorrow.

** Wonder what an OH&S Diva would wear? Rhinestone/Cats Eye Safety Goggles, with a orange flourescent hazmat suit with purple safety boots?