Addie Broyles, a former Aurora resident, graduate of Aurora High School and former employee of The Aurora Advertiser, will be featured on What Not to Wear at 8 p.m., Friday, March 21, on the TLC channel.
The premise of the show is to select a woman, take some hidden-camera views and, ultimately, show her how to improve her wardrobe.
While it might sound a bit cruel, Broyles is viewing it as “the sweetest gesture” from her fiance, Ian Knox, a musician.
“He made it so I could spend $5,000 on clothes and take an all-expense-paid trip to New York City,” said Broyles by phone last week.
Knox nominated her in February of last year, shortly after the birth of their son, Julian Broyles-Knox. After officials with the show selected her, they sent a crew of photographers to “ambush” her in a variety of locations and events to capture her clothing style on film.
“People were calling me to do all of these things--it should have been a red flag,” said Broyles.
She heard the news when she went to meet Knox at a show in downtown Austin. During the event, Stacy London and Clinton Kelly, hosts of the show, broke the news.
Later, a crew of about 20 people went to her house and showed her the films featuring her unique clothing style.
“The quality of my clothes was worn and sloppy. I thought they were colorful, but they were really dull,” said Broyles.
True to the style of the show, the hosts took Broyles to her closet and pulled items out piece by piece and made fun of the holes, the stains, the torn crotches and the “baby juice” stains (created when Julian rubbed his graham-cracker coated mouth on her shirt), she said.
The result of the purge was a trash can of clothes for Goodwill. Since she had another two weeks before going to New York, they did let her keep some “mediocre” clothing.
During the week in New York City, she stayed in a posh hotel, spent time in the studio, shopped at some upscale stores and learned a few more tricks for her wardrobe and appearance.
“I spent $4,000 the first day! It was awesome!” said the newly fashion conscious Broyles.
For someone accustomed to shopping on a much more limited budget, Broyles said it was a fun experience to spend someone else’s money. She noted one store had $200 jeans, but one store she really enjoyed featured updated vintage clothing. Another store, where she spent $1,300 and, likewise, enjoyed the experience was Anthropology.
