Fake tan and flesh – is Aintree Ladies Day a daring delight or determined catastrophe

It’s that time of year where 50,000 punters get dolled up and head on down to the races at Aintree – and there’s certainly some sights to see.

Whether that be watching your favourite noble steed pocket you a small fortune, or perhaps a prosecco-fuelled lass falling a**e over t**- and that’s before she even gets to the famous course.

The Grand National hopes to take most of the spotlight, but Ladies Day and the fashion that comes with it hogs a lot of attention – and if you’re not sure why, you soon will be made very much aware.

Here, two of Daily Stars finest commentators, though not on the topic of horses, share why they think Aintree Ladies Day is either a rebellious fashion bonanza or purely an ‘act of desperation’ from fantasist women…

‘There’s nothing wrong with a knicker-flashing knees up’

Senior Features Writer Layla Nicholson says…

Ladies Day always comes under scrutiny for being overly boozy and too brash. But in a time where women are starting to dress like they’re in the Handmaid’s Tale and clubs are closing by the minute – is it wrong to blame people for having a knicker-flashing knees up?

I think so.

Everyone is wearing beige, the confident curvy ‘Instagram baddie’ has died an untimely death and fast fashion site PrettyLittleThing cemented that by now flogging ‘Little house on the Prairie’ clobber. Can’t we reserve the grace and decorum for the office?

More now than ever it feels like Aintree Ladies Day is a rebellion against being boring, dull and well behaved. Where else could you get away with flailing around with a bouquet on your head while wearing a tightly fitted neon orange dress that matches your skin tone nowadays?

Some of the outfits might not be so fashion forward, nor backward, but who cares. The art of dressing up is all about feeling good within yourself, it’s not trying to appease others.

If a floral asymmetric dress that looks handpicked from a 2002 market stall that threatens to flash a cheek or two fills you with joy or hair extensions that gives a horse’s mane a run for its money makes you jubilant, then why not!

We’ve lost the art of getting dressed up in this great nation. Too often I see people opt for jeans and a ‘nice top’ for special occasions, which has quickly become jeans with trainers for dinner or even the bar.

It’s ragamuffin behaviour that I am even guilty of. No one can be bothered to get the falsies out or strap a pair of sole-throbbing heels on anymore. And can we have a moment for some cleavage…bring back the boob!

As the rest of society crumbles and women continually fall to their knees for conservative wear, fuelled by the ‘trad wife’ trend, I think we should thank the audacious ladies rocking up to Aintree in their own version of glamour.

Once we lose the, perhaps trashy, exuberance of Ladies Day then we are all doomed and might as well put our aprons on, girls.

At the end of the day, nothing feels more empowering than a gaggle of, maybe misbehaving, women having fun – no matter what they look like.

Maybe we should start taking a leaf out of their book and hang it in our wardrobes. But, I will say one thing, to hell with fascinators!

‘They look like they got dressed in a wind tunnel’

Assistant News Editor Abi Hunt says…

I’ve never been a girly girl.

Never cared much for frills, fascinators, or the kind of heels that make walking a near-death experience. But, despite my lack of enthusiasm for all things “ladylike,” I do have eyes. And, unfortunately, Ladies’ Day at the races forces me to use them.

Let’s be honest, it’s not a fashion show, it’s a costume party. A bizarre ritual where women who usually spend their lives in leggings and oversized hoodies suddenly decide they’re Vogue material.

Spoiler alert: they are not. Instead, they emerge, sprayed head to toe in a violent shade of orange, looking less like glamorous race-goers and more like traffic cones on a hen do.

Then there are the dresses – if you can even call them that. Too short, too tight, too much on display. Some of these women look like they got dressed in a hurry, perhaps in a wind tunnel.

A day at the races shouldn’t be a contest to see whose hemline can defy gravity the longest. And yet, here we are.

And let’s talk about the hats. Oh, the hats. If I wanted to see something so bafflingly large and unnecessary, I’d go stare at modern art.

Some women turn up looking like they’re wearing entire floral arrangements on their heads. Others opt for the “abstract nightmare” approach, balancing structures that seem inspired by a particularly bad fever dream. Who told them this was the height of sophistication?

Because they were lying. The worst part? The sheer desperation behind it all.

This isn’t about elegance; it’s about pretending. Pretending to be posh, pretending to be fabulous, pretending this one day of dressing up somehow makes life more exciting. But at the end of it all, they’ll stumble home, makeup melting, feet aching, dignity in tatters.

And tomorrow? Back to reality, back to the mundane, back to pretending this never happened while stacking the shelves at Asda.

Ladies’ Day isn’t about style. It’s about escapism. A fleeting fantasy for those who don’t want to admit their lives are, in fact, as dull as they were yesterday.

And if pointing that out makes me a cynic, then so be it. At least I’m not the one wearing a chandelier on my head.