The Real Housewives of Cheshire premiered on Saturday at midnight. Since I’m assuming that, like me, you weren’t staying up and staying in specifically to watch it then, let’s talk about it now.
The ladies of the Golden Triangle were represented quite accurately in the show’s trailer. There are tacky discussions about wealth, massive amounts of plastic surgery, and—just like the Real Housewives of Melbourne—these women are constantly dressed like they’re going to a bachelorette party in Las Vegas.
Basically, the Real Housewives of Cheshire are to the Ladies of London what the Real Housewives of Orange County are to Beverly Hills.
It’s always been pretty clear that even though Orange County and Beverly Hills are only about seventy miles apart, the worlds are very different. Bravo has found their British equivalents. You could probably make the same comparison with New York and New Jersey, but as much as I love them, I’m not sure that the taste level of our Manhattan gals is much to write home about.
If you weren’t watching Ladies of London (I highly suggest you waste a weekend catching up since pretty much all the episodes are online), the series is one of those semi-Real Housewives shows but with a more specific theme. For the women in London, much of the focus is on social climbing. You get the sense that like Beverly Hills, most of the women in London have been wealthy for most of their lives because they rarely talk about money—its such a constant that there’s no need to mention it.
The women of the Real Housewives of Cheshire are very fond of describing their villages as “one of the wealthiest in Cheshire,” and announcing the prices of diamond earrings they’re going to buy. (There’s a reason Dana and her $25,000 sunglasses were never seen in Beverly Hills again)
Most of the women in Cheshire are married to soccer players, which, as we learned on WAGS, is a whole different kind of animal when it comes to wealth and status. The Old Money/New Money dynamic is obvious.