Not to be confused with the early 90s R&B girl group SWV, although it wouldn’t be unheard of to make a post about them here on Mayorettes.
No, I’m talking about style biters. Copy cats. Single White Female shiz. You know the type. You meet a girl (or a guy), maybe they’re a friend of a friend, a new work colleague, or someone from uni (hypothetically, of course). They seem nice enough but you do notice that their style is pretty nondescript, perhaps even daggy. You also notice that they compliment you A LOT. Like kind of annoyingly – ‘I love your earrings!’, ‘Where did you get that watch? I love it!’ ‘Oh I love your shoes!’. At first you think maybe they’re just trying to be nice, after all, you have just met and compliments are a great ice-breaker. But the next time you see them, they happen to be wearing an item of clothing or jewellery that looks suspiciously like something you wore last time you met. Then you notice their hair is starting to look more and more like yours. And their outfits. And the music they listen to. And the guys (or girls) they date…and so it goes until this person has gone the full Jennifer Jason Leigh on you.

This was a pretty common occurrence during the old school days – that dorky person who was always just on the fringe of the group, who stated copying everything you did until they eventually pushed you to the outer edge! And it was you who they were emulating in the first place! It always used to bug me when my parents or teachers would say something like ‘you should be flattered that you’re such a trendsetter!’. Yeah, maybe I should be, but you know what? It’s hard work to be stylish! It takes years of bad choices to attain a certain level of, for lack of a better word, ‘pizzazz’. Yeah, I just used the word pizzazz in a sentence. It looks like pizza. Mmm, pizza…                                                  

Anyway, back to my story. I know in a world of trillions of people that I’m hardly an individual, but I’d like to think that there are enough different kinds of interests out there that I can create my own unique blend of these. Oh, by the way, I’m not talking about good friends that you have these things in common with already, or cool chicks that you meet who share the same interests and tastes, but those freaky people who when you first meet them are completely different to who they are when you meet them next time because they’ve been stalking you on Facebook and stealing all your best material.

Style biters, get bit!

* For the record, The Mayorettes are totally the kind of girls to whom this would happen to all the time. And here’s some SWV since I know you have this stuck in your head now.