Fashion Victim

VS

Style is something I'm comfortable with: fashion is not. Style is about expressing yourself through clothes (and even that makes me a little leery sometimes). Fashion is a machine designed to sell products. Sometimes, it's so blindingly obvious that it's kind of pathetic.

The most recent, obvious change is from the model-off-duty, glam-punk shenanigans we've been seeing for the past few years to the retrofitted seventies things Celine's been churning out. Everyone's frieking out about "the new minimalism" and the switch from teen-hipster focused fashion to clothes that look designed for older women.

In reality, all of this is a bit ridiculous, because even when studded leather jackets and leggings felt fresh, they were hardly new. Same thing with Celine, et. al. - um, camel coats and leather skirts are hardly breaking any new ground.

What frustrates me about recent events is the attitude magazines have towards the new change, specifically Vogue, whose manifesto in their July 2010 issue read:

I AM WOMAN. Hear me roar. Hear me issue stock-purchase orders from the Wall Street trading floor. I am woman; I am not girl. I do not emulate the pop-burlesque fashion stylings of Ke$ha or Katy Perry. I do not aspire to PASSÉ MORNING-AFTER CHIC, with bird’s-nest hair and shredded leather leggings. No. Of Lana Turner and Barbara Stanwyck — and Lena Horne — I sing.

(Have you felt the smooth, snug tug of fine leather gloves being pulled on? Have you considered the REBELLION, the nonconformity, inherent today in a Marnie Eisenhower knit suit? Have you worn a crinoline lately?)

Reader, if you’re older than fourteen, fashion for fall 2010 offers more WEARABLE OPTIONS than it has in eons. Skirts fall below mid-thigh. Designers are giving us dead-cool-but-still-practical STREETWEAR UNIFORMS for work or school. Black-with-black is totally back.

Can we get an “Amen” up in here?

This is frustrating because, duh, Vogue popularized the supposedly "passe morning after chic" look (I'm not going to even go into the race issues). I think it's understood that Vogue has always been targeted towards richer, older women then most magazines target, and although I understand that the power-moms of America may have been alienated by the popularity of leggings and studded jackets, why did Vogue have Balmain advertisements or feature Lady Gaga if their readership is so obviously not of that demographic? Why are they hating if they participated?

Additionally, Vogue continues to act as if young, DIY fashion bloggers have nothing to do with fashion. I'm not counting myself here AT ALL, but when they did feature bloggers in one of their issues, the only one I'd heard of was Bryan Boy. They entirely ignored the fashion bloggers who are actually widely influential and well known - Tavi of The Style Rookie, Susie Lau of Stylebubble, Zana Bayne of Garbage Dress, Laia Garcia of Geometric Sleep, Isabel of Hipster Musings, and Michelle and Marie of Kingdom of Style. Saying in their manifesto "reader, if you're older then fourteen..." is a pretty insulting jab at Tavi.

I guess what this all comes down to is the difference between FASHION and STYLE. Vogue is part of an industry, and what it focuses on is the buying and selling of products. Vogue falls under fashion, dedicated to making people feel insecure about themselves so that they will buy more. It's unsurprising that, in order to make more business, they're now pushing people to flip flop from leather to camel coats. Me? I'll stick with my skinny jeans and hoodies, thanks.

Sin Camara

My camera charger has been missing for six months. I lent it to a flaxen-haired, absent-minded gal pal who doesn't remember me giving it to her.

Long story short, no original pix. It's all right, my clothes aren't that exciting anyways.

So anyway back to the perennial question of fashionnnn...

In all honesty, I hate the fashion industry. The only reason I deal with all the body anxiety etc. is because I like the cultural synthesis of clothing designers, and the ideas they create. Even if I'm never quite willing to wear much beyond jeans, a tee shirt, or a skirt.

Collage

Collage is my personal favorite art form because it's so easy to create something visually compelling. Interesting image juxtapositions lend themselves to greater meaning, even if at the time I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. The work of a genius artist has layers of meaning that are carefully planned, but right now I have no interest in being a genius. Thank god.

Do not go gentle into that good night

I can't believe I'm even writing this. McQueen took his own life? After releasing one of the most innovative, critically-acclaimed, beautiful, genius collections in recent memory? After surviving Isabella Blow's suicide? Terrible news.

CDG F09

I am honestly not a big fan of Comme des Garcons - Rei Kawakubo and Junya Watanabe create innovative works of art, but I like my clothes to be comfortable and wearable - I like when I don't notice my clothing because it isn't restricting my movement in any way.

That being said, the CDG Fall 2009 collection has (retroactively) blown my mind. This fall, I went to Barneys to creepily peruse/touch/lust over the fifth floor ready-to-wear stuff, and I saw some of the blanket-coats while I was hysterically trying on Rodarte. I remember not liking the design, because the coats over the blankets frequently ended at awkward lengths, with the ballooning fabric of the blankets resulting in an awkwardly pregnant-like silhouette (part of this neurosis around fit comes from my having a larger-than-usual chest. Girls with A cups can wear anything and look cool-cute. Girls with C cups risk looking pornish, cheesy, awkward, and a whole host of other bad adjectives).

After reading this article by Robin Givhan of the Washington Post, my whole outlook on the collection changed. Givhan uses an anecdote about a homeless woman she saw begging during the Paris shows, and astutely connects it to Kawakubo's intentions when creating this characteristically inscrutable collection. Givhan's observation is spot on. Although I would have never associated homelessness with high fashion, particularly because the more obvious sensory aspects of it are removed in a runway context (let's face it, eau de Colt 45 and Crack-Cocaine wouldn't sell very well), the bundled coats, bare-foot-painted shoes, and swaddled-kiss face coverings of CDG's show are distinctly homeless-inspired. I can't really summarize the genius of this collection or its review: reading and viewing both is required to really get them.

Fashion is rarely successfully intellectual, but Kawakubo's collection makes an adept portrayal of the hypocrisy of a society where fashion shows can coexist with those begging to survive.

*photo courtesy of Style.com

Rodarte x Target Giveaway

The (in)famous Tavi Gevinson had a Rodarte for Target giveaway on her blog a month or two ago, and I was fortunate enough to win one of the sweaters she gave away. This is what I wrote to win:

"the clothes the mulleavy sisters make look like some kind of evanescent floating magic that's chosen to sit on your body because it wants to- and might take flight any second. Their clothes remind me of swimming in a river where decaying leaves turn the water red, listening to punk rock while driving around with all the windows open in the cold, and exploring abandoned hospital buildings. Basically, these clothes remind me of how imagination and thinking outside the confines of every day life can allow you to experience life in ways you never thought possible. Pretentious as hayl, i know. BTW your blog is fun to read!"

Rodarte has been an obsession of mine since I read a feature on the Mulleavy sisters in the New York Times' "T" Women's Fashion magazine a few years ago, called Scissor Sisters, by Mark Jacobs (no, not that one). I was largely disappointed in their Target collaboration, mainly because it looked nothing like their high fashion collections - the subpar quality was just to be expected (it is Target).

I'll add pictures once I find my camera charger.