She was a frumpy Brit with permed hair and stereotypical teeth, until a move to the Big Apple forced a transformation Vicky Ward
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AFTER: Now Vicky is a size-zero Sienna Miller-alike
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Before we begin, it’s essential I explain that I was asked to write this article. I did not look in the mirror recently and think: “Wow! You look incredible. So incredible, in fact, that you should pen an article on how it is that at 40 you look so much better than you did at 20.”
No, a “friend” (is that what you call them in England? Here in New York, attractive, intelligent females are usually referred to as “the competition”), who is an editor on this paper, suggested I explain my apparent transformation from a frizzy-haired (permed) brunette, who had front teeth that crossed, wore permanently laddered tights and scrunchies in her hair, and had a slightly plump physique, into, well, whatever she sees me as now. Who knows what that is? Sex goddess? A slightly smaller-breasted version of Paris Hilton? Or a dead ringer for Sienna Miller (I have actually been called that)?
Anyway, whatever it is she sees, she wants me to explain how I went from being a real-life Bridget Jones to ... It. Oh, and did my soul acquire a hardened shell of gloss as well as my outer parts?
Well, that’s a lot of ground to cover in 1,000 measly words. First, in 1997, I took a plane from London to New York, where I have resided ever since. A few weeks later, the most important part of my makeover began: I visited the dentist. He was no fancy Park Avenue practitioner, but the professor of dentistry at NY university (in other words, he’s downtown). He looked inside my mouth and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “What is wrong with that country?”
“But I had braces,” I replied lamely. “Yes,” he said. “On the bottom teeth.” He handed me a mirror. “If you’ll notice, the teeth that are moving and are crossing over are your front top teeth.” Zoikes.
So my teeth were encased in braces from my late twenties pretty much until my late thirties. (Fortunately they invented Invisalign — plastic invisible braces — for the latter years.) Even so, I met Rupert Murdoch with railway tracks on my teeth. Then I met his son Lachlan (and silently prayed I did not have spinach in my tracks as we ate dinner). I felt hugely relieved when Lachlan opened his mouth and, lo — he had braces too.
So, after three sets of braces to realign my jaw, about eight root canals, and so much gum surgery I’m not sure that much of my original gum is even in my mouth, I now have gleaming white movie-star teeth; and I am still paying off the dentist’s bill.
Then there were the hair and weight to deal with. First, the hair. For years my mane manager has been an Irishman named Kieran McKenna. He works at Oscar Blandi on Madison Avenue.
“Cut it all off,” said Kieran when he saw the frizzed mess. I loved the frizzed mess. I thought it gave my hair “body”. “Look around you,” he said. “This is not London. This is New York. Here hair moves. Here hair is healthy. Unhealthy hair is not sexy. Men hate unhealthy hair.”
So I was bald for about a year. Then my hair grew back. Then he highlighted it — gently. “Never over-colour your hair, it can’t take it,” he told me. But then I committed a hair crime he had not warned me against: I swam in a chlorinated pool. The hair was cut off again. I watched it fall on the floor. I cried.
“Only swim if you pour soda water over your hair first, apply conditioner and wear a cap,” said a cross Kieran. He added: “And you can only swim once a week, max, unless you swim in the ocean, but if you swim in salt water, you need to rinse before and after. Immediately.”
So I quit swimming (well, wouldn’t you?) and started jogging five miles a day. The hair — trimmed religiously every six weeks (“That’s the secret to having long hair,” according to Kieran) — was shaping up, so it was time to sort out the figure. I was an English size 10-12, which is normal by average American standards, but definitely “fat” in that thin-person-only zone known as New York.
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