Amal Clooney is ‘the Mensa member’s crumpet,’ proclaims top fashionista

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By Katie King on

Doughty Street barrister makes other celebs look ‘naff’

Barrister and human rights expert Amal Clooney is “the Mensa member’s crumpet”, according to an influential fashion journalist.

A new article by the acting fashion editor at The Times flies in the face of criticism launched by Jan Moir, Daily Mail columnist, that Clooney is a “knock-kneed” over-dresser. By contrast, journalist Hattie Crisell has more praise for the Doughty Street Chambers barrister than you can shake a stick at.

If being described as more mysterious and alluring than Angelina Jolie wasn’t enough of a Clooney thumbs up, Crisell then says the Oxford law grad is “so confidently accomplished that she makes the title ‘movie star’ seem naff”.

Ex-Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer Clooney clearly has fashionista Crisell on side — and it seems the greats of the make-up world are fawning over her too. Vogue contributing editor Charlotte Tilbury recently told her Instagram following she was getting “the mesmerising Amal Clooney ready for the red carpet”.

“A few years ago, you wouldn’t have predicted [Tilbury would] be flying to Venice to apply lipstick to a lawyer,” comments former Vogue journo Crisell.

We do agree Clooney’s accession from little-known junior barrister to “red carpet style icon” is astounding. This has of course been helped along by her marriage to perhaps the most famous actor and coffee salesman in Hollywood. But Clooney, Crisell argues, is not simply a woman famous for wedding a successful man.

“[T]he truth is that Amal is more of an icon than a celebrity,” she says, “as enigmatic and untouchable as the stars of the old Hollywood studios.” But perhaps our favourite line in the flattering article — which made it to the front page of The Times — is this:

In the years before Amal, I’d have categorised George as the thinking woman’s crush: charismatic and handsome, but also politically engaged and an intelligent film director. Now that we know his wife, a whole new category has to be invented: she is the Mensa member’s crumpet.

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