style hug #1

Fossicking through the BBC website this morning when who should I stumble upon but the wondrous Helena Bonham Carter, promoting the latest instalment of the Harry Potter juggernaut, in which she plays the deliciously monikered Bellatrix Lestrange.

I realise, stylewise, she isn't everyone's cup of tea. The Edwardian ingenue-meets-steampunk-meets-Goth-meets-Tim Burton interpretation simply doesn't suit everyone, me included, to my deep regret (maybe if I hadn't cut off all my hair... sigh). But I can't but help love and applaud the way HBC wholeheartedly embraces her look.

And it's not confined to the red carpet. She's the one at the school gate looking the antithesis of your average Mum.

I don't love everything she wears, but that's not at all important. What I do love is her self-confidence, her innate understanding and acceptance of who she wants to be and how she wants to look, without reference to anyone but herself. I never get the impression she's trying to be defiant, or push people's buttons by shocking them. I see a woman at peace with her identity. And this is tremendously inspiring.

And of course, it doesn't hurt that she is a luminously beautiful woman and becomes more so with every passing year. Aspirational and inspirational stuff.