Brown uniforms are just so ugly!

9:39am Monday 5th May 2008

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It helps to have a sadistic streak if you're going to design uniforms for a living.

You really do have to enjoy making people suffer. Why else would you make them wear navy blue crimpolene slacks with a jaunty red and white neckerchief, or a fetching mustard waistcoat over a khaki shirt made of nylon so pure it could draw sweat out of a cream cracker?

I never had Bruce Oldfield down as a sadistic type. But his designs for the new McDonalds' uniform certainly seem to indicate a penchant for punishment. Either that or he just has a wonderfully wicked sense of humour.

I won't go into too much detail. Let's just say fluted hems, Mary-Jane shoes and scarves resplendent with the double arches logo and let your imagination fill in the full hideousness of it.

Is there a rule that all uniforms have to be repulsive? I've worn two in my life and both of them were brown. And uncomfortable. And ugly.

The first was my Brownie uniform, so perhaps the colour choice shouldn't have been such a major surprise. But it was a bog-awful shade of brown and had to be worn with a deeply unflattering belt and woolly pom-pom hat that made us all look like halfwits.

This was before Brownies became Trendy Wendys with their sweatshirts and their baseball caps and their Britney Spears-style crop tops (all right, so they don't actually wear crop tops, but give them time).

In my day, we were so far from trendy we were in a different time zone. We all looked lumpy and bumpy and brown - a look that even Kate Moss wouldn't have been able to pull off.

I encountered my second pug-ugly brown uniform when I got my first Saturday job at a well known high street store. Most of the staff wore blue and white A-line frock horrors, but I worked in the homeware department (or "the seventh circle of hell" as we affectionately called it) and had to wear an even more abominable crime against style in an alluring shade I can only describe as "baby poo brown".

It really was a hellish creation. And it hardly added to my already flagging teenage street cred to be seen wandering round the shopping centre at lunchtime in a below-the-knee brown dress, woolly flesh-coloured tights (also compulsory) and drab, flat shoes (heels were a sackable offence). I'm sure some of my school friends thought I was a part-time member of the Amish community.

But at least I didn't have to serve burgers to spotty Herberts while wearing a neckerchief. As if the McDonalds' staff don't get enough stick already, now they look like the cabin crew on CheesyJet.

Sometimes a news story leaves you slack-jawed with amazement. But never fear, Dr Michael Salzhauer will soon tighten up that jaw for you and, as if that was not fabulous enough, also provide you with a book to help explain to your children why your face now looks a bit off-kilter.

My Beautiful Mommy, by the aforementioned plastic surgeon, is apparently the latest must-have for any woman considering a - get ready to cringe - "mommy-makeover".

This full-colour, kid-friendly tome guides families through the plastic surgery process and helps children understand why they can no longer recognise their own mother when she picks them up from school (maybe it comes with a badge saying "I'm your mommy").

The lovely "Dr Michael" makes an appearance in his own book The father-of-four looks particularly buffed in the drawings, with huge, granite-like shoulders, biceps that would make Popeye blush and a six-pack that Angelina would like Brad for.

In his real life author's photo, however, he looks more like a Blue Peter presenter.

It's a similar story with the mommy undergoing the makeover. One minute she's a sad, saggy, mousy little thing and the next - kapow! - she's Cameron Diaz.

Talk about a grim fairytale.