As a 133kg, mixed-race, gay teenager Gok Wan learned a lot about bullying and self-hatred. Perhaps that is why the TV fashion expert is so ‘absolutely, massively’ committed to making women feel better about their bodies, writes Hadley Freeman
All gorgeous girls should have a great pair of jeans. All luscious ladies should have a pair of classic riding boots. Thus spake Gok Wan, the latest and most successful TV fashion expert, in his hyperbolic book, How to Dress. Well, I have a fashion rule of my own: all women should spend an afternoon with Gok Wan.
How does a man who has a penchant for banging on about “bangers” (breasts in Gok Speak) fill the women of Great Britain, including, to my enormous surprise, this one, with such warm and fuzzy feelings?
Well, after our time together I can reveal the secret recipe — one part self-exaggeration to three parts palpable sincerity, a dash of a sympathetic personal story and a final helping of empathy — which attracts public fondness the likes of which I’ve never seen before.
To those who have somehow avoided Wan — and, given that the 35-year-old has made three programmes in three years, as well as writing various magazine columns and launching a range of lingerie, that would take some effort — it is fair to call him, to use another of his favourite words, a “phenomenon”.
When it was announced that Trinny & Susannah were losing viewers with their Undress the Nation programme, newspapers blamed “the Gok factor”, a theory he doesn’t deny, saying simply that he “felt quite sorry for them. I mean, they were just doing a job and at the height of their fame people wanted that TV bitch thing. Then the climate changed.” He makes a point of adding, not entirely accurately, that “we did two totally different jobs — they’re TV presenters; I’m a working stylist”.
Women can generally take personal criticism better from a gay man than from two posh women. “I think that’s probably true. There’s no competition and no fear of me getting too close to them sexually because that’s not going to happen. Also I think the language gay men use can put women at ease quicker — the overuse of ‘darling’, ‘sweetheart’, all the new words for breasts — it helps break down barriers quicker.”
Moreover, one need only look at his co-presenter, Myleene Klass, on the upcoming Miss Naked Beauty, to see how hard it is to tread the line between “sympathetic and motivating” and “cloying and annoying”, and how cannily Wan manages it.
He has recently brought out a pair of control-top knickers, so isn’t he doing the same thing as his predecessors — making women feel that their natural shape is wrong? “Well, there’s a huge social argument: should we just be complete puritans and let it all hang out, or should we conform to the silhouette that the fashion industry has created for us? Well, if you want to wear clothes you have to conform to that shape because that’s how the clothes are designed. So all I do is get the bodies that are slightly out of proportion and get the clothes that are right for that shape, and, um, whether that’s a good or bad thing is up for debate. But ultimately, it’s about getting women to feel good in their own skin,” he concludes, bouncing in his seat.
Wan was a stylist before becoming a presenter, so it is a touch ironic that most of his programmes are about getting people to take their clothes off. As is the way with most makeover programmes now, the stylist isn’t expected to style but to act as a psychologist.
“I know! But I like to believe these shows prove that clothes are massively about psychology. Well, that’s how I justify it to myself,” he says. In fact, he has simply picked up what Trinny & Susannah eventually learned: TV viewers are far more interested in nosing round a person’s life and seeing a happy, cod-psychotherapy conclusion than learning about which trouser shape goes with which heel height.
Quite where making women get naked — as Wan does — fits into any of Freud’s theories is debatable, but his shows are unexpectedly affecting.
In person, Wan is predictably hyper, bouncy and fast-talking, but far less OTT than he is on TV — thank heavens. He still peppers his conversation with “absolutely” and “massively”, words that crop up like nervous tics, as in, “My family are absolutely the most massive thing in my life. Oh, and fashion,” he adds, with a bounce in his seat. “Absolutely. Massively.”
Wan was born and raised in Leicester, in central England, the son of a Chinese father and an English mother, who ran a restaurant back then and now runs a fish-and-chip shop. He also has a sister, who is a lawyer, and a brother, now a martial arts expert, “so quite a varied family, really”. Clearly a very close one, too, and his mum often comes to watch the filming of his shows.
But it wasn’t an idyllic childhood: it would have been hard enough being a mixed-race child on a Leicester housing estate in the 1970s “but chuck in that I was obviously gay, 6ft 1in and 21 stone (1,85m and 133kgs) back then and I may as well have had a yellow arrow pointing at me.” He was mainly bullied about his weight: Wan was hugely overweight throughout his childhood and teenage years, which is probably why he’s so much gentler with the women on his show than his predecessors, because “I know what it’s like to look in the mirror and absolutely hate what’s looking back at you, and to pick up a fashion magazine and think, why can’t I look like that?”
When he was still overweight, he went to the Central School of Speech and Drama but that was a pretty miserable experience. So he returned to his parents. When he was 20 he dieted, lost 11 stone, and promptly had a minor personal crisis. He soon moved into fashion styling, making a name for himself styling celebrities until he was eventually noticed by TV executives.
It’s hard not to feel that Wan sees being famous as akin to being fat: it makes him the centre of attention, both good and bad, and requires the invention of a more flamboyant personality. “I don’t regret having been fat,” he says. “I know how to throw jokes at myself and I use humour before anything else, and those skills allow me to do the chat shows. So I’m thankful for that.”
Although Wan is nervously averse to the usual side-effects of fame, “I would never just be friends with other celebrities.”
What should British women do to change their attitude to fashion? He perks up visibly: “I’m just fascinated that so many women in this country have never dealt with their low-level dysmorphia. British women need to learn to love their bodies. We are all beautiful — we are! We need to tell each other that every day and I hate those bastards out there who say otherwise. The revolution’s begun!” And he makes a final bounce. —