ICONOGRAPHY: Fran Fine
She’s got style, she’s got flair, she was there, Fran was serving the Sheffield kids snacks while serving us looks.
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All things about the show The Nanny, feel infectious, something you can’t seem to get out of your head or subconscious. Almost like the laugh of Fran Fine, the woman herself. While everyone in the show lives in shades of beige, Fran brings the color, not just in her extravagant outfits, but in her personality too. One could say that her personality is almost as big as her hair.
What is it that makes a nanny or what many in the show consider “the help” so memorable? So impactful? For one, she is far more interesting than anything in the world she’s thrown into. She is over the top in the ways that most young girls watching a show about a nanny trying to fit into a world very distinct from her own, dream about to this day. Her flawless and full hair, snatched makeup, and outfits for literally every occasion make her not just a fashion icon to us, but a woman to look up to for the two girls she nannies for. Fran is not the under the radar beauty. She is in your face and taking up space in ways that most of us didn’t even understand watching the show. She is the opposite of effortless beauty in the ways many of us were taught beauty was. Not to say that her beauty didn’t speak for itself, but she spoke louder! She’s always taken pride in the way she chooses to show up and show out and in so many ways taught us that it was okay to do the same. Or do the most, rather.
While, yes, Fran’s style and flair were something unforgettable, her charisma makes it impossible not to like her, and her resourcefulness makes her adaptable in any room she walks in. It’s through her style that we are forced to see that no, she doesn’t fit, but yes, she makes things better. It can even be seen and said that her outfits were just a sneaky way of showing us that even being different, everyone wanted to be her, including us. Well us and C.C Babcock, the lady persistent in her distaste for Fran’s efforts to spice things up at the Sheffield residence for the better of everyone in the family. Nonetheless it was clear from the beginning that Fran was something no one would get used to, but isn’t that what makes her fun to have around?
From the first episode her flamboyance was apparent, showing up to the dinner party Mr. Sheffield and his business partner were holding in bright red sequined gown. The gown with a halter top, stretched all the way to the ground, as matching red gloves stretched up her arms, and she floated down the stairs. Her first appearance in this new world told everyone who wasn’t color blind to stop in their tracks, because someone from somewhere out of the way dropped in as the “lady in red, while everyone else was wearing tan.” Originally from a beauty pageant, the dress called for its own song as she made her entrance catching the eye of her boss, Mr. Sheffield. No one could compete, and as per usual, this was the start of us knowing her for exactly what she does best: stealing the show.
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Her wit, humor and flirty aura make her insatiable to the people she works for, with and around, and even those that despise her can’t help but to wonder what it is about her that makes her fit into a space made to weed people outside of the established tax bracket out. But even her boss can't help but to slowly and eventually fall in love with her. The power her charisma and a little black dress on a night out on a date with another man, or even a red beaded one on a date with another, have on him make it very clear that his attempts at telling her to cover up, or that the kids need her, are out of his own jealousy.
But, what seems to always seal the deal when it comes to why we all can’t help but to love Fran is how the biggest takeaway from her presence in any space is not her outfit, but her impact. On the same night she shows up to this dinner party in a dress resembling that of Jessica Rabbit, she’s prepped the kids in dinner party attire, given them a good talking to, and slipped them into the party with her. Insisting that Mr. Sheffield’s two worlds do not have to be separate by bringing the kids with her downstairs, Fran establishes herself as a bridge between several worlds. The world of Mr. Sheffield’s work and his children, the world between the upper class and middle class, and the world between serving and being served. A true girl's girl, a woman of her word, and a fashion icon by nature and creativity, she made us all understand why the show about an entire family was built around her. She not only stands as the infrastructure for community in the show, but taught us all that shopping retail does just about the same thing as trying to fit in does, it makes you bland and boring.