Secret Style Icon No.21: Janice Litman-Goralnik

There was Burton and Taylor. There was Rocky and Adrian. There was Janice and Chandler. I present to you the real love story in Friends. The one that ran like a shimmering, sleek river of deceit and sexual tension through ten series. She was The One for him. Sure, he settled for Monica, but that was the act of a heartbroken man. Too long he had tarried, waiting for Janice and her gold-chained rack and leapord print curves and magnificent mane of hair.

A while ago in my line of work I happened to come across someone called Chanice. I texted my flatmate this news (I know, I’m hilarious) and she came back with the suggestion that it must be Chandler and Janice’s love child. Solid gold. So this post is all credit to Fiona. And how great was Janice? Her style was sparky and defiant. No New-York-in-the-90s poker-straight hair. She was all gutsy clashing prints, animal hide worn like the spoils of war, skyscraper heels and clanging gold jewellery. Her limpid dark eyes and sooty eyelashes stole the hearts of men. Or at least, Chandler Bing and her husband, Gary ‘The Mattress King’ Litman.

She wasn’t some lame comedy sidekick. Let’s not forget that Chandler begged to have her back sometime around series 2, and resorted to stealing her shoe so she couldn’t leave him. She looked down at him with such effervescent pity, because she knew she was The Real Deal and he wasn’t getting none better. Then she bravely limped away, in one high heel, from the unending heartbreak. Not only that, but sometime around the end of Series 10 of Friends, Janice nearly became neighbours-in-suburbia with Monica and Chandler. She relented and gave up her plans to move in next door, but not before engaging in one final covert kiss with her lost love. Come on, she should have moved in. They should have had an affair. She should have had his baby and called it Chanice. That’s a whole new show I would definitely watch.