Cheryl Watch: ‘It’s just a dress’

Uh-oh. It was Cheryl Dress Gate on Saturday night following her appearance on The X Factor in an unusual LBD by recent St Martins graduate David Koma, who we met last week. As the TV audience twittered a tirade of abuse – ‘what is Cheryl Cole wearing???’, ‘OMG, is that a dustbin lid'… you get the general idea – we took a different spin on it. Yes, there is the JEdward debate, and the horror of them throwing out Rachel (our personal favourite), and how does Dannii create that many looks with so little hair; but other than talking about how naff the opening group song is, X Factor could become quite boring quite quickly. Thankfully, Cheryl gives us something to talk about around the water cooler come Monday morning. After all, if she was wearing something we all liked, what would the headlines say… ’Cheryl Cole wears something totally inoffensive’?

When we realised who she was wearing, we twittered it in response to some of the rather… umm, spiteful comments. It was re-Tweeted massively and people came out in support, including the lovely Scottish designer Louise Gray, who simply said: ‘I think she looks great. Love David Koma.’ So the embellished dress wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but we think it’s great that Cheryl is supporting young talent in front of millions of viewers, generating huge headlines and press for David, who in the past has dressed Megan Fox and Lady Gaga. Simon might have been cheeky about it – telling her to sit up – but FYI, we have it on very good authority that she didn’t flash any side-boob! However, no one put it better than Cheryl herself, who in response to a caller on Xtra Factor saying ‘your dress last night was horrible’, laughed and said ‘It’s just a dress!’

Meanwhile on Sunday, Cheryl broke the mould again and wore… trousers. Not as controversial, sure – but a talking point nonetheless. Crystal jewel-encrusted Julien Macdonald trousers, with an armful of Stephen Webster studded cuffs and diamonds and custom-made Rupert Sanderson shoes – she almost managed to out-sparkle the X Factor stage, and that’s sparkle a-go-go.

If next week Cheryl plays it safe in something boring, well, you only have yourselves to blame!