Starry Night: Inside Kylie's hot pants

Sunday Mirror, Dec 1, 2002 by Anne Celine Jaeger

It's a cold evening in November. There are no paparazzi outside my flat and no fans. The red carpet has not been rolled out. I have no bodyguards and no rock star boyfriend on my arm. Tonight is a night like any other, except that I, a non-celebrity, will be stepping out in London in four notorious celebrity outfits, risking humiliation and hypothermia.

Kylie's hot pants

It doesn't take me long to slip into Kylie's hot pants outfit, but it takes me forever to get up the courage to leave the house. Never have I worn an outfit that could easily fit into a Kinder Egg. It's all right for Kylie. She gained kudos by wearing that spangled tea cosy in her Spinning Around video - so much so, in fact, it started the whole 'fake or real' bum debate. The only debate I can hope to spark is the liposuction one.

I'm a picture of elegance: the gold not-so-hot pants barely cover my bottom, the heels are making me walk like a newborn giraffe and the cold has turned my legs into speckled salamis.

A peek into my first chosen venue, the Eagle Bar Diner, is enough to tell me I'm going to stand out like a crack whore on a trading floor in this outfit. People have come straight from work and are mainly in suits and other full-body attire.

As I head to the bar, the crowd parts - not because they think I'm a goddess, but because they want to keep well away from the nutter in the gold spandex. I overhear one guy say, 'Here we go again, another E-list celebrity trying to make the front pages.'

As people start to realise my dress sense is not contagious, they shuffle back. Most ignore me, but one woman decides to get to the, er, bottom of it all. 'Excuse me,' she says. 'Why are you dressed like this?' 'Oh... I just wanted to go for the Kylie look tonight,' I sheepishly answer. 'Have you actually seen the Kylie video?' she continues. 'You look nothing like her.' But before I have time to answer, her friend gives me the thumbs- up. 'I love it. You look f***ing great. Shake it baby, shake it!'

In a moment of vodka-induced insanity, I clamber onto the bar (think salami giraffe) and attempt to pout and flick Kylie-style. It's all very sexy and seductive - not. I discover entirely new heights of embarrassment and realise that without the aid of collagen, my pout is looking a bit meagre. As I writhe around, a bloke at the bar checks his watch to see if he's still got time to catch the 53 bus. At least he'll be able to get me out of his head.

Christina Aguilera's bare-bummed chaps

I pop off to the pub toilets to struggle into my Christina-like chaps. We get off to a bad start - I can't sit down in them. I'm sure Christina wasn't walking like John Wayne when she wore this little number - and I'm certain she wasn't displaying the fact that she's long overdue for a Brazilian when she writhed around in her Dirrty video. So why then do I feel like my legs are in a cast and my bits are on display? Then it dawns on me - I've got them on back to front. Oops.

As soon as I hit the streets, I'm struck by what feels like a Siberian wind around my crotch area. Trust me, you have not felt cold until you've hit town in a bikini-cum-chaps ensemble in mid winter. Quite why Christina wears sweatbands with this outfit I don't know. It's so cold, I'm almost relieved to walk into the next crowded pub... Well, I said almost. As I swing open the doors of the Green Man, everyone stops what they're doing and, like a scene from a bad Western, they eye me up and down. Granted, it's hard to look inconspicuous when you're standing in the doorway of a pub in a bright pink bikini and leather chaps, but still, give a girl some slack. When the freeze-frame becomes unbearable, I make my way to the bar and say, 'Make it a double.' With that, the hustle and bustle resumes, but everyone's talking about one thing: that crazy chick in the chaps.

Behind me two women launch into a design diatribe. Strangely they don't stop to think that I don't normally dress like a barnyard hooker. 'I wouldn't be seen dead in that. And what's with the "Nasty" sign on her bum?' says one. 'She's got such a saggy arse, she really shouldn't be wearing that,' says the other. 'I mean, I could pull it off, but what on earth possessed her?'

'They're just jealous,' says a bloke standing by a pinball machine with his mates. 'You're a crumpet,' he says, adding, 'Can I get you a beer?' Then, pointing at my bum, he says to the barman, 'I'll have three of those please.' Chortle. His mate chimes in with, 'When I get home, I'm going to draw a picture of you and tell my missus that's what she should look like.'

Knowing I need to slip into even less for my next outfit, I accept the beer and chat with the pinball boys, making sure my saggy arse is pointing at the wall.

Britney's fetish gear

Unlike her former Mousekeeter colleague Christina Aguilera, Britney normally manages to pull off her sartorial experiments. But when she recently stepped out to the MTV Music Video Awards in a scary fetish-cum-biker outfit to present an award with Michael Jackson, critics were undecided who looked more frightening - him or her.