Mariella looks different but the same. Kathryn looks different and not the same. The Observer Magazine has had a mini makeover and so have its women. They may not have had a makeover in the way that we have come to understand makeovers. Entry level - belt cinched. Top end - being put out and under. But they have been liberated from photo booth sized snaps and now stand tall on the page - columns within their own columns perhaps.
Kathryn Flett has a hint of The Hamptons about her. The glimpse or suggestion of a chignon, a few glints of restrained jewellery mixed with fresh Gapesque cottons, off set by double stiched, riveted jeans less we forget the edgy,heady days of The Face and Arena .The exorcism of the Christine Keeler in black look is a success.
Mariella Frostrup is a full length study in elegant grey slouchiness. Texture,the substitute for colour. Her past seems only just there - peeking out in deep red nails and the white toe caps of what would formerly have been known as daps.
Both look good and their columns top and tail the magazine with a relevance and wisdom that surely demonstrates the poster children of the 80s were always absorbing more than hair gel.
