Emer McLysaght: Can we please send the Kardashians some big knickers and a slanket?

I’ve been to many weddings where my day has been borderline ruined by the bride’s decision to go strapless. All it takes is one incident of her hoofing and heaving it up over the crest of her bosom and I’m done for, worrying away about her discomfort. Would she not have put in a strap? Why would she choose something that requires constant adjustment? Did she really hand over three grand to Melanie in Belles and Brides to be tortured by a corset?

I feel similarly when I watch The Kardashians on TV. The number one family of reality royalty are well into their 21st season on television with a new look and a new name – they’ve ditched “Keeping up with” and now they’re just “The Kardashians”. Kim Kardashian, the show’s linchpin, was recently quoted as saying she’d wear a nappy if it meant achieving peak fashion. She’s appeared in a succession of outfits that clearly didn’t have built-in flaps for wees. She showed up to the Balenciaga fashion show wrapped from neck to big toe in heavy-duty sticky tape and one can only assume she had slipped into a slinky little Tena Lady before getting “dressed”.

More sterile

Kim’s style has evolved massively along with her family’s wealth, surroundings and appearances since Keeping up with the Kardashians first aired, in 2007. We’ve seen Kim, her mother Kris and sisters Kourtney, Khloe, Kendall and Kylie move through their Stripper Pole in the Bedroom era into the Constantly Eating Giant Salads period. Their homes got bigger and more sterile, the faces and bodies changed and the only thing that remained was the giant jars of biscuits that sat sadly uneaten in the kitchen.

The fashion choices have often been tortuous and bizarre. Kim’s style was heavily influenced by her ex-husband Kanye West during their marriage and her sisters and mother were all under West’s spell to some degree. It has always struck me how uncomfortable they all look. Always cinched and nipped and battling with a demented neckline or a preposterous shoe, mincing along a precipice of acclaim and ridicule.

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Kim was slagged to high heaven when she attended the 2012 Met Gala – New York’s infamous fashion event – in a fitted floral dress while heavily pregnant with her first child. I remember thinking the dress had a decent bit of stretch and she looked quite comfortable but the couch comparisons were ruthless and she says she cried all the way home afterwards. Her Met outfits since have included a cripplingly uncomfortable-looking dress designed to appear soaking wet, and a black body stocking which covered everything including her face. I almost expected her to flare her hands to reveal eyes where her palms should be, Pan’s Labyrinth style.

As a writer with a responsibility to promote my work, the public-facing aspect of my job is the most difficult

She’s determined to push the boundaries of whatever fashion is, comfort be damned. For the 2022 Met she controversially wore the dress Marilyn Monroe wore to sing Happy Birthday to JFK, and crash dieted irresponsibly to not quite fit into it. It didn’t close on the night and she had to cover her arse with a fur stole. That’s no way to survive a red carpet!

Even when the Kardashians film in their homes and are relatively casually dressed, they exude awkwardness. They constantly smooth their hair and rearrange their bodies and hold their faces that way people do when they’re wearing a lot of make-up, as if their cheeks might crack. If they’re wearing $10,000 tracksuits you just know there’s shapewear underneath.

Shapewear company

Kim actually owns the hugely successful shapewear company Skims, which are reportedly very comfortable. Kim often opts instead for full-length body suits with the boots already attached, reminiscent for some reason of horses hooves. I feel a rising panic when I see her in the get-ups. The only sister who manages any air of convincing comfort is Kendall, a literal supermodel who looks heavenly in a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt (although I have seen photos of her in underwear and swimwear that makes me concerned for her pH balance).

Middle child Khloe Kardashian has been on television since her early 20s and her body image struggle is unfortunately well documented. Her appearance has changed drastically over the years and she endures constant criticism. I long to scrape her hair into a bun and give her a huge pair of knickers and a slanket to binge watch her own show on the couch in a kind of cruel vicious circle.

Constant scrutiny

As a writer with a responsibility to promote my work, the public-facing aspect of my job is the most difficult. I hate being seen, being assessed, being discussed and even when what comes back to me is overwhelmingly positive, I let my mind set up camp on the negative jabs I create for myself. Being under constant scrutiny must be absolute hell.

I’m part of the problem, of course. I’ve seen every single episode and in a tense hostage situation with a gun to my head I could easily name every grandchild in the Kardashian cinematic universe. As long as they keep making them – the children and the episodes – I’ll keep watching them, fretting all the time about the heat inside Kim’s comically huge puffer jackets which, to be fair, I’d take over a strapless bride any day.