Return of the fashionistas

Trinny and Susannah Undress the Nation, showing Wednesday July 30th on ITV1 at 9:00pm

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Shopping for clothes is a national pastime. For some it's a passion, for others it induces confusion and upset, and many shopaholics are now on the verge of financial ruin. The current credit crunch means Britain is facing the fallout of out of control spending habits.

But for some women, the thought of shopping for clothes is enough to strike fear and panic into their hearts. Too much choice on offer and a lack of confidence to buy what suits them can be overwhelming.

In the first episode of a new series, Trinny and Susannah (pioctured) want to redress the balance and train British women how to spend their money more wisely, combat their fear of clothes, and stop them buying things they will never wear.

And to do this they open up their first ever shop.

Every year the nation spends £30 billion on buying clothes, a huge amount of which is never worn. Trinny and Susannah take their pink pod on a tour of the country's shopping centres to find out why we're such bad shoppers.

They are inundated with women who want to share their particular love or hate for buying clothes - from the shopaholics who describe it as a "rush", "addiction", and "a compelling need" to women who hate it for "too much choice", and think "where do I start?"

One lady in particular, who likes only expensive things, tells the girls she's almost bankrupt thanks to her expensive mistakes. Retired widow 67-year-old Grethe admits her shopping is out of control.

"I go shopping nearly every day," says Grethe. "When I get home it makes me feel sick. If I carry on like I am, I suppose within ten months to a year I'm going to run out of money."

And to make matters worse she never tries anything on before she buys it.

Trinny and Susannah were so shocked by Grethe's situation they've invited her on a shopping trip with them to monitor her habits and see how they can convince her to control her compulsive need to buy.

In contrast to Grethe, 34-year-old shopaphobe Karen joins the girls on the same shopping trip to see if they can help her face her shopping fears. Visibly shaking, Karen has no idea what to do when she arrives at the store.

Karen explains her fears: "I won't find anything that fits me, I won't find anything that looks feminine that fits me, I guess I just got married and slumped into some sort of pit somewhere that I can't get out of."

Trinny and Susannah challenge Karen to find a dress for a summer wedding. With the girls' guidance and gentle encouragement Karen selects a strapless floor-length chiffon gown and a sequinned bolero shrug, and is astounded to see that it fits and she looks stunning.

Susannah says: "To your huge credit you have put yourself in a dress that Trinny and I couldn't better. Cinderella is going to go to the goddamn ball."

Meanwhile serial shopper Grethe revels in her heaven and gathers up armfuls of items she wants. But her behaviour is being scrutinised, and Trinny makes her go and try on the items she had selected. As expected, half the items she has chosen do not suit her and she soon realises that trying on clothes will save her a lot of wasted money.

But she is defiant and still goes to the till with a cardigan, a pair of shoes and a swimming costume. Susannah challenges her on her desired purchases. Grethe admits she hasn't even planned a holiday yet, so why is she buying a swimming costume?

Susannah to Grethe: "You don't even know if you're going on holiday yet. You've decided that you're going on holiday so you can buy this haven't you? You've thought, 'I really want this bikini so I'm going to go and spend three grand on a holiday.' You do it the other way around, you decide you're going on holiday then you buy the swimsuit."

After a day of observation, Trinny and Susannah know they're in for a tough challenge to break women's bad shopping habits, both with the shopaholics and the shopaphobes.

Susannah says: "Many of the issues women have around shopping are psychological, so we want to scientifically test the way women shop and see what's actually going on inside their heads."

To do this, the girls enlist the help of Dr David Lewis, a cognitive neurophysiologist who has pioneered technology that actually analyses the way women shop by reading their levels of brain activity.

The girls want to test this out on three different women who all love or hate to shop. The shopaholic is 52-year-old book keeper Caroline Burt. She is a compulsive shopper massively in debt with nine credit cards, and totally in denial about her situation.

"I just think, 'I'm on my own, in ten years time I'm going to be in the Nora Batty brigade with nylon stockings, and I could be dead before then'," says Caroline as she tries to defend her actions.

Shopaphobe Ellen, a 49-year-old nurse never shops for clothes, and only buys clothes in the supermarket along with her weekly shop. Her sister who lives in Ireland buys clothes for her because Ellen hates shopping so much.

"My husband loves me because I don't like shopping," says Ellen. "I just cannot see beyond my big belly and my hips."

Their third guinea pig is 29-year-old Danielle, a mother of two from Kent. She is a compulsive shopper for friends and her children but hates buying things for herself. "I don't try anything on, I normally just buy, take it home and then if I don't like it, it stays in the wardrobe," says Danielle.

The results from the neurological testing are surprising, with the shopaholics not necessarily getting the joy out of the experience that they thought they were. But will this encourage them to change their ways?

Next up Trinny and Susannah invite 40 ladies they met in the pink pod to a masterclass in how to create a capsule wardrobe - in an attempt to prove to them they can get plentiful outfits from just a handful of carefully selected items.

These 40 ladies are then entitled to a day's shopping at Trinny and Susannah's first ever specially designed shop. But there's a catch - they have to buy what the girls term a 'cornerstone item' something that can be worn many times alongside many of their existing clothes, or something that will symbolise the revamp of their wardrobe. So no shoes or pretty party dresses allowed - sensible flattering items only.

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