Ab Fab Fabulous

Edina and Patsy,  forever fabulous

With trepidation I look forward to the return of Ab Fab on BBC America with three 20th anniversary celebratory episodes. By all accounts the women are as gritty, funny and— well— ab fab fabulous as ever. Has it really been twenty years since Patsy threw herself down the stairs into Edina's kitchen, high on something and non-plussed at her entrance? Is it possible Edina still does not have a clue there really is a difference between fashionable and wearable?

For those of you not familiar with Patsy and Edina (could you not be?), the two are on the periphery of London movers and shakers in the worlds of fashion and PR respectively. They think they are the cat's pajamas and way cooler than in fact they are. No matter how many times the two best friends are snubbed or mocked or how often their shenanigans fall apart, they pick themselves up (or more likely hoist and plaster themselves together) to begin anew.

Patsy dresses in fashion-editor-stereotypical all-black, is thin as a rail with a plastered blonde beehive and way too much makeup (though artfully applied). She is supposed to look like an overdone minimalist, but there is indeed something classic and sophisticated in the look. She dresses as if she is so sure of herself she hasn't needed to change a thing since the '90s. In any case she's been too busy with the business of debauchery to bother. Edina, on the other hand, gravitates to any and every fashion trend Couture sends down the runway. We're never sure of her shape as she is the Mistress of All Layers. She doesn't know how to edit, and that puts it mildly.

I am a little fearful this time around as I hope their un-pc behavior and remarks never pass beyond satirical into the mean-spirited. And I hope Edina in particular does not remind me of how I may have looked one day last week. How many of us fear just a little, and maybe only in moments of the wildest bouts of self-doubt, that we may fall victim to the woman who refuses to see what everyone else knows— that she hasn't changed her look in eons or that she changes it at warp speed and willy-nilly to boot? Patsy and Edina's saving graces are that they are totally unaware.

Because we love them, and all their inappropriate behavior, we are happy for the bliss of their ignorance. I never want Ab Fab to end with the two of them waking up and realize what fools they were. Ignorance is bliss, and for sure Sunday night BBC America will be home to 40 minutes of bliss.