TV Anchor Trolls Daily Mail by Repeatedly Wearing Same Blouse, Proves Important Point About Sexism


Breaking news: An anchor in Australia wore the same shirt a few times within the same amount of months. The horror!

We’re joking, but the Daily Mail was not when they called out Lisa Wilkinson, co-host of Channel Nine’s Today Show in Australia, for wearing the same blouse months apart. “Lisa Wilkinson looks to have a preference when it comes to attire, seen sporting the same floral shirt, just four months apart,” the Daily Mail reported Monday, after Wilkinson appeared on-air in a burgundy blouse with a keyhole neckline and floral pattern just four months after she debuted it in December. The nerve.

In good humor, Wilkinson had the most amazing response to being called “thrifty” by the website.

“I am sooo busted!” the journalist and editor at large for Huffington Post Australia wrote on Twitter in response to the Daily Mail’s story. “Seems I’ve been seen hosting breakfast TV wearing same blouse with ‘strategic cutout above the bust’ just 4 months apart!!!”

To further troll the publication, Wilkinson did the unthinkable: She wore the same shirt again the very next day. Don’t worry — she washed it. She explained herself in a piece for Huffington Post entitled, “I Want To Thank The Fashion Police For Airing My Dirty Laundry.”

“I did something incredibly brave today,” she wrote. “In fact, I did something that has never been done before by a female presenter in the history of TV news broadcasting — at any news desk, in any studio, anywhere in the Western world.” Wilkinson poked fun at the attention placed on her attire when there are more important things going on in the world by saying, “It didn’t involve a live cross to Bashar Al Assad in the Syrian war zone. Or an exclusive interview with Donald Trump on Air Force One. I didn’t manage to make Sean Spicer sound good. It wasn’t a journalistic scoop, or even a hard-hitting editorial. No, from this day forward perhaps my greatest legacy to the annals of female news broadcasting history will likely be that I dared to wear the same outfit two days in a row on national TV.”

“That’s right: same outfit, consecutive days. On national TV,” Wilkinson hilariously declared.

She added: “Dang that dastardly, eagle-eyed investigative team at the Daily Mail [that] had already gone and blown my fashion recycling cover! As they so accurately and exclusively reported in breaking news yesterday morning, shortly after our show went to air, the top in question was one I had worn on air before.”

Wilkinson sarcastically said she believes there was plenty of time in between wearings, stating that she originally wore the top in 2016. “Or, let’s just work this out for a sec… oh yeah, about 125 outfits ago,” she wrote.

We think 125 outfits is safe space to re-wear something. If Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, can wear the same coat three times and a queen can wear the same dress twice, we think it’s OK for a news anchor to recycle a blouse four months later.

And Wilkinson did exactly that, trolling the Daily Mail by wearing the same blouse yet again. “The only thing this (stubborn) girl could do under the circumstances… wear that baby again!” she continued. “So this morning I did. Hence my claim to fashion-broadcasting fame.”

Of course, Daily Mail took the bait. “So nice, she wore it thrice!” their headline read. It was a test, and the Daily Mail failed.

While Wilkinson seems to have laughed the whole thing off, she’s also proving an important point: Women are still treated differently than men in media. “Today I am thanking the Daily Mail,” she wrote, “for proving once and for all what we know to be true. You see, I’m the gal that sits next to the guy who wore exactly the same suit on air every weekday for a whole year. Every single day. And no one noticed. But let a woman try that on… twice? Not on your Nelly!”

The best part is that her comeback has inspired several supporters: News anchors are speaking out in support of Wilkinson and are even putting on the shirt themselves.

David Campbell, Wilkinson’s co-host, threw on the blouse and posted a picture to Twitter with the caption, “I stand with @Lisa_Wilkinson.”

Then another Today anchor hosted in the blouse.

And they aren’t the only ones.

“Meanwhile, in Syria…,” she so pointedly concluded her essay.

Read more from Yahoo Beauty + Style:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty.

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next