KEY POINTS:
Dress to suit your body shape. Trinny and Susannah, those posh, tit-grabbing style gurus, spent the past few days preaching their simple message in Westfield malls across Auckland.
They were blunt, sometimes they were downright rude. They said arse and f***ing. But only because they're determined to help.
And so are we. So we decided to discover if they follow their own money-spinning rules. They say there are 12 female body shapes, from Cornet to Brick. Accentuate your positives, minimise the negatives, and voila - your life will be transformed.
Let's see how Trinny (Miniature Pear) and Susannah (Classic Vase) got on during their whirlwind trip to New Zealand.
Wednesday
Before becoming the confident 40-something women you see before you, Trinny and Susannah were both, to use a British term, a bit minging.
Trinny suffered from serious acne until she was 29 and was so addicted to fake tanner she was bright orange for six years. Susannah, meanwhile, was a Sloane Ranger with a fondness for taffeta, velvet and pearls.
On Wednesday they flew in from LA, employed a good hairstylist and chose dresses with bold, on-trend prints to detract from jet-lagged faces. Clever girls.
Trinny was elegant, hiding her flat chest beneath a signature chunky necklace. Susannah fared less well - cap sleeves are a no-no for matronly upper arms, and plunging cleavage is too barmaidish for morning TV.
Thursday
"My boobs are the bane of my life," Susannah's complained in the past, admitting that she's a frustrated Page 3 girl. She had a shocker of a day in a clingy, too-small dress that revealed an abundant decolletage and attention-seeking bra. Does she not listen to her own advice? "Susannah looks all lumpy up top as she arrives Down Under," sniped Britain's Daily Mail newspaper.
Skinny Trinny was more successful, choosing a cheery dress that accentuated her teeny waist and hid her much-disliked thighs. The headband was slightly too St Trinian's schoolgirl - which, coincidentally, is how Sarah-Jane Woodall got her nickname.
Friday
It was beginning to look rather formulaic. Pear shapes like Trinny usually have good arms, and she continued to show hers off in another sleeveless dress. The dip-dyed hem was very new season, but the effect was ruined by last season's cropped leggings.
She doesn't like her lower limbs, probably because her husband once said she had elephantitis of the legs. So wear a longer skirt or black opaques. You're not Lindsay Lohan.
Oh, and whaddaya know? Susannah's bazoombas were out again. They're definitely a Vase attribute, but there's no need to labour the, er, points. If I was up there I'd have been seizing handfuls of her chest-flesh and stuffing it back inside her dress.
Then giving her a hug and asking for her autograph.
Saturday
The fourth day, the fourth time they wore the same necklines - deep and saucy for Susannah, high and demure for Trinny. We know one has tits and one doesn't, but couldn't they mix it up just a little? Dressing flatteringly may be about following rules, but fashion is all about breaking them.
At least Susannah's dress was bright, fell gracefully over her problem tummy, and showed off her fantastic legs. Trinny donned a designer labcoat, all the better to conduct her sartorial experiments on the hapless women of New Zealand. Instead of knees, she had another pair of leggings. Do I hear someone whisper the dreaded words "style rut"?
During their visit Trinny and Susannah told us what, deep down inside, we already knew. (If you've got a big Pear butt, don't wear tight white trousers. Duh.)
But their conviction was inspiring and they nagged us with something that felt, oddly, like love. Endearingly, they didn't always get it right - which made us all more eager to hug them to our collective Vase bosom.
Come back soon, Trinny and Susannah. Maybe next time we can give you a few fashion tips.
* Suzanne Winterflood is the Shag Pile Rug columnist for top New Zealand fashion website runwayreporter.com.
