Casual Cosplay: Ugly Betty's Betty Suarez

I get ready for work between around 6:40 and 8:00 depending on what time I catch my train to work. Now at 7:10, E4 has been showing re-runs of Ugly Betty. This is a show I watched a lot of back when it was originally aired but it is a show I still like to watch today. I think it has a lovely level of silly fluff mixed with real life serious dilemmas (okay, perhaps more fluff than the other stuff but anyway) and I always find it cheers me up.

I had a bit of a weird Betty style crush back in 2006 and I think that's because I'm such a fan of a good ol' print dress and cardigan combo although I have to admit I think Betty occasionally over-did the frump a tad but I thought it had a great look about it. Although to be honest this isn't really surprising since costume designer Patricia Field was responsible for the shows look, and heck that mismatched print thing is pretty typical of Carrie in Sex and the City too.

So naturally when one morning last week I woke up with giant frizzy hair from sleeping in plaits I thought, Hey! You know who has this hair? Betty Suarez. So I decided to attempt a days survival in an outfit inspired by Ugly Betty herself. 

As I've said before Betty's look is a mix of clashing colours and prints AND textures...

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Here's my look inspired by Betty. I perhaps kept it a bit too toned down, perhaps that dress as a blouse with a stripy skirt would have nailed it a bit more, but I think you get the idea. I did need to go out in this outfit and I didn't want to scare the people of Tunbridge Wells I thought the frizz festival of hair was scary enough.

For a sort of outside look I decided to team the same dress with a blazer, as inspired by this picture (note the giant hair also!):

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I have a sort of grey/browny blazer that came from next via a charity shop that I wore, since I thought adding another colour clash could only help the situation, but I think it actually ended up matching quite well :S Obviously carrying a file as Betty is a hard working assistant!

Dress: French, via eBay £4

Tights: £3 Primark (they do the best tights!)

Cardigan: £8 M&S via eBay

Blazer: £6 Next via charity shop

Belt: £1 charity shop

Scarf: Free, Beyond Retro

Then there was the face...

Poor Betty, her grinning face was plastered everywhere as part of the marketing for the show. Now I'm doing the same, only I don't have a show :(

Here's my Betty inspired face. Excuse the braces, I tried using an app but it worked so badly this is the best I could come up with, but you get the idea... The glasses are my husbands, and they are BROKEN (see the Harry Potter style tape holding them together?) and I wasted at least one use of my Mac brow setter getting my eyebrows to stick up like that. But anywho, its all just a bit of fun. I would recommend Betty as a Halloween costume though as its pretty inexpensive to cobble a look like this together with some charity shop trawling!

Did you like Ugly Betty's style? Or did you think it was just, well, ugly?