The 2006 Baden-Baden WAG Look Was Actually Brilliant – And Here’s Why

It’s been 15 years since the World Cup was held in Germany. I can’t tell you who scored, who missed, even who won the tournament – although I know it wasn’t Eng-ger-land. What is permalined into my memory, however, was the scene off the pitch. Summer 2006 belonged to one squad only: the English players’ wives and girlfriends, newly crowned by the tabloids that year as the WAGs. Transforming the sleepy spa town into a month-long hen do on steroids, striding out formation-style in front of the paps, their possession of column inches was unimpeachable, if not entirely welcome.

So, yes, I remember every bouncy blowdry, blinding smile and French manicured nail. I remember the status handbags dangling from sinewy arms and the saucer sized sunglasses, the perilously high wedges and the dangerously low-slung jeans. I remember (then Queen WAG, don’t tell Nancy Dell’Olio) Victoria Beckham’s ‘England Rocks’ vest top and micro hot pants (good sport VB posted a flashback of that very look on her Instagram stories last month, complete with crying laughing face) and Cheryl Tweedy’s baker boy cap and boots. I remember Coleen McLoughlin’s endless parade of all-white and peep toe platforms, and Alex Curran’s boho-via-Cricket get ups. I even remember Carly Zucker’s vest tops and the fact that she was a personal trainer – despite the fact that I have absolutely no recollection of who she was actually attached to. Baden-Baden was Instagram before Instagram.

But of course those outfits are scorched forever in my memory – they were epic. I say that without a glint of irony. I couldn’t get enough of the WAG circus and neither, judging by the tabloid real estate they were given, could anyone else. And yet the bulk of the coverage surrounding them was mocking (at best). That summer, football didn’t unite the nation –slagging-off the WAGs did.

The Baden-Baden WAGs became the unwitting poster girls of an ‘everything that’s wrong with this country’ jibes. Acres of press were dedicated to their supposed vulgarity, but you could summarise the thrust of it as this: they weren’t the ‘right’ type of women. They were loud. They guzzled jeroboams of Champagne. They smoked. They stood on tables and sang karaoke. They were the ‘Brits abroad’ caricature manifested in glaring technicolour and surround sound.

And the WAGs biggest ‘crime’? They shopped. Oh, did they shop, with such unrelenting vigour and athletic stamina that Spanish newspaper ABC infamously blasted them as ‘hooligans with visas’. There were reports of tens of thousands of euros being dropped in less than an hour in Baden-Baden’s high-end boutiques. But you didn’t need to know the numbers to get that memo; every bowling ball of an engagement ring, mortgageable handbag and dinner plate-sized watch told you all you needed to know: being a WAG is an expensive business.

Such conspicuous consumption was widely considered gauche, vulgar (newsflash: it was! But so are a lot of celebrity spending habits). As was the WAG look. It was tacky, pundits said, tasteless. But, taste, of course is subjective – something that is too often forgotten. I can’t even begin to guess how many born-into-wealth socialites I’ve seen breathlessly fawned over for their supposedly natural, effortless style, which is, at its core, no less contrived or reliant on status labels and injectables than the WAG look – it’s just a stealthier version of it. And anyway, I don't always want my celebrities - which the WAGs quickly became - pretending to be Just Like Us. Sometimes I want them beamed in from another planet where spray-tanners are always on hand and heels always worn.

Undeniably, much of the mockery and disdain volleyed at the WAGs was rooted in snobbery and classism; as the WAG circus has quietened down (though not disappeared, see how hungrily we lapped up WAGatha Christie-gate), much of that vitriol has been redirected at reality TV stars and influencers (remember it took Kim Kardashian a long time to be 'accepted' by the fashion world). Most of the Baden-Baden crew were working class girls ‘done good’ who had had unimaginable wealth bestowed upon them (and not always courtesy of their paramours – see Victoria and Cheryl). ‘How dare they?’ was the subtext. How dare they with their Scouse accents or ‘normal’ bodies have the nerve to enjoy high fashion? If that’s not snobbery, I don’t know what is.

There was something liberating, empowering even, about their unapologetic glamour and the fact that they made absolutely zero effort to appear ‘natural’? Ironically it was the artificiality of the look that made it innately authentic. They were so obviously trying. They were making an effort – that breed of effort might not be to your personal taste, or mine – but wouldn’t we all do the same, thrust into the world spotlight?

And, besides, right now don’t we all want to make a bit of an effort with clothes again? Surely, a year of trackpants and closed beauty salons can coax the inner Coleen, Alex and Carly out of even the quietest dressers among us. You don't need to mimic the parts to play into the spirit. Your WAG look needn’t involve a radioactive tan or logo-screeching looks, but it’s just about enjoying getting ready again. Dressing to be seen. The fun unbridled joy they took from fashion made them ridiculously fun to watch. I miss the Baden-Baden WAGs. I miss their look. And I will never forget them – which is more than I can say about the rest of the 2006 World Cup.