Style Icon: Connie, Lady Keeble, of Blandings

jennifer saunders blandings 06Is anyone else completely hooked on Blandings, The BBC’s version of PG Woodhouses’s books? For those of you who haven’t been watching, it’s like a mad cross between Downton Abbey and Faulty Towers, with added pigs. It makes me giggle uncontrollably and I am in love with Jennifer Saunders as Connie, Lady Keeble. Connie has the best wardrobe, a mix of marvellous pearls, sensible shoes, the odd fur and some great tweedy capes.

What makes the look come together is the injection of glamour, Connie is always made up as if something exciting is about to happen, so it’s always ‘lipstick and powdered cheeks at the ready!’, with old-school pin curls finishing the look. And she has some lovely lace trimmed blouses.

jennifer saunders blandings 02Connie is of course, a barking mad aristocratic, but she is never less than perfectly suitably dressed. She often says ‘If no one strongly objects I think I might go to my room” when things get a little crazy, which I might start to copy, it seems an excellent way to cope in chaotic circumstances.

She quite terrifies her brother Lord Clarence Emsworth who is even madder than she is and prefers the company of his prize pig, The Empress. Clarence is played, pitch perfectly, by Timothy Spall, another pretty dapper dresser in his cravats, country tweeds and trilby. In fact the whole caste is pretty sharply turned out.

jennifer saunders blandings 01Jennifer Saunders can do no wrong in my eyes, but with Connie she’s offering us up a new style icon, not one that we really want to emulate, but one we can admire for her stylish take on country chic, don’t you love the knitted pine-green beret? And there are pearls – regularly clutched at in mock terror – with everything.

jennifer saunders blandings 03Her diamante headband, worn slung over her forehead is a teeny bit Miuccia Prada…

connie lady keeble blandingsBlandings, on Sunday nights if you are UK based, well worth making time for and is the perfect replacement for Downton, which, let’s face it, had started to bore.

jennifer saunders blandings 04All images from BBC website

2 Comments

  • Belinda says:

    New Blandings! I hadn’t realised. How excellent. I love Blandings more than any other PGW, the one where Lord Emsworth shoots Baxter in the bum makes me cry with laughter every single time I read it.

    Pig-hooooooooo-ey!

    B x

  • amanda says:

    It is remarkably silly but completely irresistible, made all the better by brilliant clothes. A

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