Deborah Ross: New clothes are a ticket to nowhere fast

If you ask me...

If you ask me, enough with the TV make-over shows already, as I've certainly had my fill. It started, I suppose, with Trinny and Susannah – Your business has gone bust? Your husband has left you? Your kids are on crack? You're clinically depressed? What you need is a wide-belted shirt dress from Principles! Let's go, Sooze! – and progressed with that Nicky Hambleton Whatsit woman; the one whose name I can't even be bothered to Google because, as far as I am aware, no suffragette ever threw herself under a horse and totally ruined the line of her dress (damn!) so I could waste my time doing that.

All you need to know is she's the one who would appraise some frizzy, frazzled woman as if she were Freddie Kruger and although she never said: "Wow, you are seriously common, aren't you?", you always knew she desperately wanted to. You could have put Iris Murdoch in front of her and she'd have looked on pityingly although, fair's fair, I always did think Iris needed a good hair-cut, and that a pencil skirt teamed with a tucked-in shirt would have better flattered her hips and her bosom and would have somehow brought more depth to The Sea, The Sea.

And on and on and on it goes, and now? Now it's that funny little Gok fellow, with his own particular shtick which, sigh, involves squeezing women's breasts and calling them "bangers", herding them into emptied swimming pools to judge their body shape – what shape are you?; look in the mirror, love; it's not rocket science; it's not any kind of science – and then saying "nice arse, girlfriend!" even though it's the sort of arse that rightly belongs on a hippo.

And the premise, as always, is that new clothes are somehow "empowering" and a new pink top from Reiss, for example, will take you on some kind of fantastic journey, but I once bought a new pink top from Reiss and it didn't take me anywhere. "Take me to the Maldives," I instructed it, and? Nothing. OK, I told it, just take me to Brighton for the day, and we'll say no more about the Maldives. And ? Nothing. It didn't even bother getting out the wardrobe. It just hung here, like the bloody useless piece of schmutter it is. Seriously, if you want to go on a journey, you're better off getting a Green Line bus. They even have videos these days! And toilets! And snacks! A new top is not a ticket to anywhere. It is only that: a new top. Or, as your Auntie Gok won't tell you, but your Auntie Deb will: Get over it, love. Move on.