The most irritating haircut on TV! BBC sewing show viewers get snippy over Claudia Winkleman's HUGE fringe

Presenter's big fringe cause for irritation with viewers on BBC show
Clauida herself admits she uses it to cover '100 little lines' on her forehead

PUBLISHED: 01:35, 11 April 2013 | UPDATED: 01:35, 11 April 2013

No fringe benefits: Claudia Winkleman

Every now and then a TV presenter comes along who is so irritating that, instead of just switching off, you find yourself compelled to watch.

Over the years, I’ve done this with Lorraine Kelly, Natasha Kaplinsky and Davina McCall.

Now there’s a new contender raising my hackles: it’s Claudia Winkleman, presenter of new BBC series The Great British Sewing Bee.

Or, to be precise, it’s her haircut. Seemingly modelled on Cousin It from the Addams Family, Claudia’s trademark hairstyle is a long, heavy fringe that she can’t see out from.

Watching her squint at the camera through that curtain of hair is simply excruciating. And I’m not alone in my irritation – Twitter has been ablaze with comments.

‘I predict by end of series someone is going to take a pair of fabric scissors to Ms Winkleman’s fringe,’ wrote one viewer. ‘Trim it! Please! Anyone?’

Another begged: ‘Claudia Winkleman – CUT YOUR FRINGE! (Does it bug the hell out of anyone else?!)’

And yet another wrote: ‘Claudia Winkleman’s fringe really annoys me. How does that woman see past all that hair?’

There’s even a Twitter account dedicated to Claudia’s fringe.

Sewing Bee was viewed by an average audience of 2.57million on Tuesday, up from the 2.56million who watched the first episode last week.

But while it is wonderful to finally have a primetime presenter who isn’t an identikit vacuous blonde, I’ve often wondered what horrors she may be seeking to hide beneath all that hair.

Since 2004 the fringe has grown about half a centimetre a year. At this rate it will be down to her nostrils by the time she hits 50.

Claudia, who’s 41, insists she wears her fringe long to hide the signs of ageing. ‘My forehead is covered in a 100 little lines and a fringe is the easiest way to cover them,’ she once said.

In the hairdressing industry a long fringe is often called ‘poor man’s Botox’ since it covers a wrinkly forehead. But when you’re a loaded TV presenter married to a successful film producer why settle for the poor man’s version?

After all, as our photos below show (created with a bit of computer trickery), it’s hardly a flattering style, making the most glamorous women – from the Duchess of Cambridge to Jennifer Aniston – look like old ladies peering for the number on the front of a bus.

The Great British Annoying Bee: Claudia Winkleman, pictured with the show's judges May Martin, Patrick Grant, has irritated BBC viewers with her heavy fringe

In addition to that hairdo Claudia also likes to sport heavy eyeliner, pale lipstick and lashings of fake tan. The fringe, along with the squinting, slouching and stomping, is all part of the eccentric, bumbling act that she has perfected during her rise from late-night presenter on lesser-watched channels to mainstream host.

Her presenting style is a cross between Liz Hurley’s posh ‘golly gosh, goodie gumdrops’ gushiness and Miranda Hart’s self-deprecating clumsiness.

She has a habit of standing with her toes turned in and holding her dress at the side like a five-year-old learning to curtsey, while the slightest thing makes her cover her mouth and collapse in fits of giggles.

She regularly describes herself as lazy, hopeless, chaotic and disorganised and never misses an opportunity to say that TV presenting is easy peasy and that any idiot could do it.

But the fact is that, as the daughter of former Fleet Street editor Eve Pollard and publisher Barry Winkleman, Claudia, a privately educated Cambridge graduate, is anything but the ditzy clot she’d have us believe.

With two more episodes of the Great British Sewing Bee to go, I know I will be tuning in.

Not because I care how their trouser suit challenge pans out, but because I’m just hoping that one of the contestants will grab her scissors and do what the 2.5million people at home would love to do – cut that fringe off.