After the Daily Mail ridiculed a TV anchor for wearing the same top twice in the space of months, the host has taken it upon herself to troll the tabloid in return.

The paper suggested Lisa Wilkinson, co-host of Channel Nine’s Today Show in Australia, was “thrifty” for wearing the same blouse “just four months apart”. Scrutinising her appearance, the article drew attention to a number of items of clothing Wilkinson had apparently “recycled” in recent times.

Wilkinson, a long-time journalist with a big following, hit back at the article on Twitter.

“I am sooo busted!” she quipped. “Seems I've been seen hosting breakfast TV wearing same blouse with 'strategic cutout above the bust' just four months apart!!!”

The TV host decided the best way to get back at the publication would be to (shock horror) wear the burgundy floral top again the following morning live on air. Wilkinson jokingly even dubbed the furore “blousegate”.

“I did something incredibly brave today that's never been done in the history of female broadcasters. #blousegate,” she said.

Wilkinson, who is also the editor of Huffington Post in Australia, even wrote a humorous comment piece about what had happened on the site.

“I did something incredibly brave today,” she said. “In fact, I did something that has never been done before by a female presenter in the history of TV news broadcasting - at any news desk, in any studio, anywhere in the western world. Big call, I know. But it's true.”

“It didn't involve a live cross to Bashar Al Assad in the Syrian war zone. Or an exclusive interview with Donald Trump on Air Force One. I didn't manage to make Sean Spicer sound good. It wasn't a journalistic scoop, or even a hard-hitting editorial.

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“No, from this day forward perhaps my greatest legacy to the annals of female news broadcasting history will likely be that I dared to wear the same outfit two days in a row on national TV.