Sweet as candy
In Defence of Candace Owens
Looking at one of the Daily Wire’s most dire hires from another angle
First things first. My title is *partly* clickbait.
Oh, don’t flash me such a wounded expression! You’ve been on the internet long enough; you know how it works. You’re no little virginal bride, with your trousseau packed, typing, “Do babies come out of your butt?” into Google. These are the mean streets of Internet Content Creation, where we’re all vying for 2 seconds of attention like the 6th child in a family of 10. The house is loud and crowded, and we have siblings so much bigger than us (who get to be the golden children, even though it’s obvious they aren’t that talented.) We’re even jockeying with the damn dog for a better position in the pecking order!
No, I am not sorry for this (ultimately very minor!) betrayal. I’m playin’ the game — well, trying to, anyway — and I encourage you to do similarly. We’re on Medium, ok? Here, the title of an article is akin to regalia on a King. Sure, he’d still be royalty without a sceptre and a globus cruciger, but he wouldn’t grab your attention in quite the same way. If, in his official portrait, he hadn’t been painted as 6 feet tall, with diamond buckles on his shoes and a wang outline in his satiny breeches that bordered on humongous, he’d just seem like some…guy.
Now, with my cynical actions justified, I can share the actual intent of this piece. Indeed, it is a defence of Candace Owens — but not her political or personal choices. Merely her sartorial ones.
Candy O is many things — a grifter, an embarrassment, my 12th most hated conservative talking head, a long-time sufferer of Dumb Bitch disease, unemployed — but what she is not is a bad dresser. It gives me no pleasure, of course, to speak up for her in any context. I was, however, pushed into writing a pardon on behalf of her fashion proclivities after hearing a particular exchange in a clip from The Majority Report.
Around the 2:09 mark, in reference to clothing Candace wears in the video segment they’re critiquing, my girl Emma Vigeland declares, “No amount of Little Bo Peep outfits that you put on are gonna make people forget you’re a woman, Candace.”
“Yeah, what is that?” demands a scoffing Matt Lech, off-screen.
“It’s always something that looks like it’s from the Victorian era!” Emma exasperatedly remarks.
Prior to watching this clip, I had reluctantly — secretly, privately — admired a few items Candace Owens donned. It’s a real kick in the cooch to admit because, while I frequently relish a well-dressed fictional villain, I’m loath to compliment a real one for whatever reason. No one I generally hate, be it a podcaster, a C-list reality TV star, a member of parliament, an annoying individual on the bus or a Daily Wire host, should be allowed to wear something I would wear, do something I tangentially relate to, or make any comment I can’t immediately dismiss. It ought to be a rule: People who I think are shitty like things I think are shitty. (God damn moral quandaries!)
I probably never would’ve gone public with this confession if Emma Vigeland hadn’t unwittingly hit me where it gravely hurt. When she was a sass-quatch about Candace’s devotion to high-neck dresses/blouses and puff sleeves, she attacked my style!
For years and years, my Prefered Aesthetic has been Lady Living In the 1800s, Probably The 1880s-1890s, But With Fewer Hats Because, To Be Honest, Hats Don’t Suit Me.
As an aside, I still wear plenty of jeans, graphic tees and (mostly) regular sweaters. This is because:
A) Victorian-lite/Victorian-esque is not my sole aesthetic. It’s just my favourite one. I do contain multitudes.
B) I don’t want to stand out like a sore thumb everywhere I go
C) Vintage can be expensive/high-maintenance/hard to find, and —
D) I’m 34. Sometimes, however uncool it might be, my self-consciousness overwhelms my love of self-expression. I have moments wherein I feel too old (or simply not famous enough) to be exceedingly experimental and flamboyant with how I dress
But these points don’t negate my original statement! I’m a sucker for an 1800s aura, and if there’s a cure, I don’t want it!
Emma and Matt are wrong to poke fun at Candy’s clothes. Her clothes are literally all that’s good about her. Her clothes, as painful as it is to type out, are often sorta great.
I decided to peruse her posts on YouTube to prove it.
I skimmed through months of her videos, collecting relevant screenshots that would support my case. All the while, I was forced to listen to snippets of her voice and opinions.
The afternoon required much perseverance.
The following is the result of my sacrifice. It’s a presentation of Candace Owens’s Best Looks (or, if I’m to steal from drag culture, which straight, cis women like myself are always eager to do: her best lewks.)
Some of her looks communicate the niche/weirdly specific vibes I hope I project with a lot of my own garments. They suggest characters, settings, scenarios and moods that are really attractive to me. Other looks appeal to my personal taste less, but I appreciate the seeds they plant in my imagination.
This look is giving…
- Apple-cheeked heiress who is newly engaged. (She calls her dad “Papa” and writes very zealous letters to her best friend across the country about how excited she is to be married to her handsome darling. She’ll be honeymooning in the south of France on a boat called The Naiad)
- Unmarried woman who travels from a big city to teach in a rural schoolhouse with one of those big bells. (It’s quite the adjustment. She starts to wonder whether she’s made the wrong decision but is then drawn to a hulking-yet-soft-spoken bachelor. He speaks very little and is rumoured to have a troubled past. She’s warned to steer clear of him, but one day she helps him deliver a breech foal, granting her a glimpse into the true gentleness of his soul. She patiently brings him out of his shell, learns the details of the dark incident in his past, and heals his trauma with pure, chaste love and pumpkin pie made from scratch. In the end, she can’t imagine life without the man or the simple, unsophisticated town.)
This look is giving…
- Sinister housekeeper who’s smugly full of secrets about the family she’s looked after for decades
- Governess to some creepy kids whose mother died under mysterious circumstances, and they always refer to her by her first name (the housekeeper knows what really happened to her!)
This look is giving…
- Italian widow who probably poisoned her husband
- Raven cursed to live as a human
- Mary Shelley being deflowered atop her mother’s grave
- Oil painting of an aristocrat’s beloved, ethereal wife who died of tuberculosis. (The broken aristocrat weeps before the painting every night on his knees upon a richly-coloured Turkish rug. “Return to me, my love!” he cries out. He dramatically sweeps his glass of cognac off a small, nearby table. Alcohol cannot quell his demons and his grief eventually puts him in an asylum.)
This look is giving…
- A bottle of Flora Gorgeous Jasmine Eau de Parfum by Gucci
- The lush, leafy backdrop to a seduction between Caribbean folklore demi-demon, La Diablesse, and some poor sap she’s definitely going to get killed.
This look is giving…
- 62-year-old woman in the 1970s who reads palms and keeps two doves in a cage in her apt. (She has a glass beaded curtain you pass through to get to her sitting room. Also, she would be able to tell you what assortment of herbs to use if you wanted to trigger a miscarriage.)
This look is giving…
- Stay-in-the-barn tradcow who loves nothing more than nurturing her little bovine family.
This look is giving…
- Girl from a German fairytale who has to chop off her hands for some reason
This look is giving…
- Disapproving Grandma always complaining that she’s cold
This look is giving…
- Vampiric woman about to shape-shift into a giant cat-thing and slink into the boudoir of a beautiful burgeoning lesbian
This look is giving…
- Young, cocky female aviator
- Cool coach of a girl’s soccer team who takes everyone to Pizza Hut after a victory
This look is giving…
- Delightful daycare teacher who makes the best ants-on-a-log
- Host of a children’s TV show
This look is giving…
- Townsperson hissing and booing at Hester Prynne as she approaches the scaffold to receive her scarlet A
- An Ethel Cain concept album
- Novice nun
This look is giving…
- Vicar in the English countryside
This look is giving…
- 1980s businesswoman defying the odds and climbing the corporate ladder even though it’s a boy’s club. (She sometimes cries when she’s home alone, but she isn’t about to give up!)
This look is giving…
- That one clever woman in an 1800s murder-mystery/occult detective novel. (The male heroes doubt her at first. They are made to eat crow, however, when she cracks a code which requires the ability to read Latin or possibly unearths a clue that only someone with a vast knowledge of Babylonian mythology could understand.)
This look is giving…
- An archivist in a dystopian sci-fi movie where citizens of the future are only allowed to wear black and white. Everyone has sworn allegiance to the all-powerful White Cross of the Black Field. (The archivist is very reticent to give you access to those records you’re asking for since she knows how severe the punishment will be for you both if you’re caught. You’re persuasive, though, and she finally rolls her eyes and tells you, “Fine! But you owe me.”)
This look is giving…
- One of the backgrounds in Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain
- A night out with Hunter S. Thompson
And thus concludes my defence of Candace Owens(’s wardrobe.)
Hopefully, no one ever claims Based, Conservative Zoomer Brett Cooper (who will totally cancel you for your high body count!) wore something that reminded them of Mrs. Havisham. Otherwise, I’ll be right back in this awkward position all over again!
