Last week I wrote a blog about grid girls. I fully expected to be lynched for it, as the few tweets I posted about grid girls in the past triggered rather extreme replies. However, even though the response to that blog was larger than usual, people on the whole were fairly positive about what I had to say. That has given me the courage to write this second blog about grid girls, to address the other thing about them that I dislike: their clothes.
Before the pitchforks come out, I should quickly say that I’m not writing this blog to criticise the design of the clothes the girls are given to wear. Okay, fine. I’ll admit that personally I see no appeal in girls (or, for that matter, men) who are clad in scantily-designed outfits that leave half their bodies uncovered, but I know everyone is different. Just because I personally would sooner buy a product when it’s promoted by a fluffy puppy than a fashion model, it doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who prefer to see a model – and as long as that model is willing to do the job and is paid properly for doing it, there’s no reason these people shouldn’t get the visuals they want. Also, there undoubtedly are models who find wearing such outfits empowering. And if so, all power to them.
But what enrages me time and again, is that in motorsport grid girl/promo girl outfits are hardly ever matched with the weather. When an event organiser has decided that their girls should wear heels, a mini skirt and an upper-body garment that holds the middle ground between a tank top and a bra, that is exactly what they will wear. Even if the series races at a track like the Nürburgring, where it’s sometimes 5 degrees Celsius with a storm wind rolling in from the North East.
Too many times I’ve sat on a grandstand, wrapped in six layers of clothing and still freezing, while watching a grid full of girls who are braving the cold in their bare skin, with red knees, pale hands, frozen fingers, and blue lips. I know grid girls are paid a good salary for the work they do, but somehow I can’t imagine they knowingly sign up for such dreadful working conditions. Surely they expect better than that – and, moreover, deserve better than that?
I’ll never forget the pitwalk I did at Zandvoort a few years ago. It was below ten degrees and the sea wind was howling around the pit building. The promo girls that day were clad in cat suits so thin that I couldn’t just tell the form and model of their underpants, in one case I could even tell the colour. All of them were shivering like mad. As the pitwalk went on, the girls suffered more and more from hypothermia. After fifteen minutes one dropped the sign she was holding and walked away. Her neighbour decided on a different tactic. She turned to the mechanics in the garage behind her and begged them for a coat. Nobody even bothered to look up. So she turned to another garage for aid, but got the same response there. In the end one of the fans pulled a vest out of his bag and handed it to her. I’ve rarely seen such gratitude on a race track.
I know for a fact that I’m not the only one bothered by this mismatch of weather and clothing. Last year, while attending an event I won’t name here, I was walking through the paddock and came across a member of the organisation who was having a huge row with a furious woman. She was shouting abuse at the top of her lungs. “How dare you?! This is not what we signed up for! My girls are getting ill this way, IT’S FREEZING COLD! I will not stand for this! You either come up with decent clothes or we will never, EVER, work with you again! This is sick!!!” I don’t know who she was, but the girls who work for her should be proud to have someone like her fighting for their rights. I honestly hope that the woman made good on her threats too. Unless agencies stop accepting that their employees are made to work in tough weather conditions in unsuitable clothing, I fear the practice will continue for a long time to come.