In honour of fashion week, let me share with you the wisdom gained after a lifetime of following fashion:
1. If a clothing item doesn't fit you, it's because it is the wrong size, not you.
2. Fashion crimes I have committed: Bright red boilersuit with many many zips. Ra-ra skirts. Horrible hippy tassel skirts. Monkey boots. Don't do it, kids. *
3. High fashion is just a cannibalized expensive version of street fashion. Do like I do, and scavenge from the bags outside charity shops - you can't get much more street than that.
3. When you are young, through fashion you assert your refusal to join the boring grown-up world, and express your uniqueness and individuality, by dressing like all your mates.
4. People always go on about how radically fashion changes, but really it swings between two very narrow poles - skinny, and not so skinny. Note how it has never become fashionable to walk with a limp, say, or to have a hare lip. (Bring back the days when women used to wear red ribbons round their neck because their friends were getting their heads chopped off, say I... fashion was interesting back then.)
5. Shows like 'What Not to Wear' start with the premise that most people do not look good and need showing the way by fashion experts. Clearly this is rubbish - most of us look pretty amazing, considering that we don't have all the time and money in the world to spend on our appearances. Plus if you feel good about how you look, you tend to walk through the world in confidence and look good to other people. Trinny & Tranny can just bugger off.
6 . When it comes to women's shoes, you can choose either comfortable and ugly, or good-looking and painful, there is no inbetween. (Don't try and talk to me about Camper. Cornish pasties, anyone?)
5. Batwing sleeves are never a good look, no matter what they tell you.
6. PVC is very wipeable, but difficult to get into.
*Actually, if you wore all these items together all at once, they would hail you as a style icon down in Hoxton these days.
any more, for any more?
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1 day ago
15 comments:
Agree completely about Trinny & Tranny. Their convent-girl swearing is very annoying. I once saw them "educate" a fantastic looking woman who loved leopard skin prints & big hair into a navy pant suit. So sad.
Have ra-ra skirts ever come back into fashion? I think it was my only moment of understanding that a fashion-item was a very garave mistake.
Ooh, your footnote made me laugh.
BiB: They did, along with the puffball skirt. I took no notice. I'm also pleased to say I took no notice whatsoever of the alleged 'skinny jeans inside boots' trend, which was stupid and nonsensical. In fact I never take any notice of what's supposed to be fashionable, as I am about three feet tall and no shop stocks clothes small enough for me. The day Monsoon stops selling petite jeans will be the day I have to become a naturist.
Although underwear...that's a whole different thing.
Patroclus is obviously my long lost twin. I spend so much time loitering in children's departments I'll get arrested one day.
This week we will all be wearing smocks. Hope I can find one in leopard skin.
No 1. is so true!
I have clothes ranging across 3 different sizes, all of which fit me, so something's not quite right...
I'm waiting for drainpipes to come back.
So-called fashion may look good on beanpoles but wasn't designed to fit curves. Ignore it.
Suffering for style is pointless. It's impossible to look gorgeous while grimacing in pain.
I always get the feeling with Trinny and Susannah that, rather like *Doctor* Gillian McKeith, they're so riddled with insecurites about themselves that they like to bring other people down to their level of self doubt.
When I was younger, my mother said to me, "I know you hate looking like everyone else and try and clash and be un-co-ordinated but the problem is most people when they look at you won't know you did it on purpose, they'll think you're stupid and can't dress yourself properly."
Oh and boy fashions, despite being about 4,000 times better than 6 or so years ago are still 99.9% rubbish, unless you've got loads of money. Only good thing is that it's not advertised by beanpoles.
Meredith - that's what I'm talking about! It's the triumph of the bland - bring on the leopardskin, we say.
BiB, like many an 80s fashion, they keep trying with ra-ras (& puffballs) and the public will have none of it.
Patroclus, interesting - underwear seems to escape fashion in some way (though we don't wear corsets etc as much as they used to). And bras went very pointy and rocket-like in the 50s.I'm sure there is a thesis in that somewhere.
Hi Kaz! I bet you get the best shoes in the sales though, they only ever seem to have size 3s of the good ones left...
Anxious, right, different brands have totally different size 12s, say. I'm also thinking that people shouldn't think 'I'm too big to get into these jeans' Au contraire! The jeans are too small!
Greavsie - you start wearing them, everyone else will follow. It just takes conviction. And nice legs.
Llewtrah - right - I am baffled by shops refusing to stock sizes over a 12 when the average size for women in this country is 16 - you'd think that just simple greed & the desire to make money would change things...
Betty - watching it is a guilty pleasure, because they annoy me so much. Bloody patronising rich Sloanes.
Billy, hahaha! Classic! I totally agree with you on the men's fashion, I so admire men who can dress with some style, because it can't be easy...
Snap - boiler suit (although mine was khaki), monkey boots, rara skirt and batwing slash neck hideousness in pale mauve. Oh god - I went through a donkey jacket phase too - what with the monkey boots I'm wouldn't be surprised if people might have thought I worked for the council aged 14.
Re: point 4 - absolutely, tarten comes round on a two-yearly basis. And could not agree more with point 6 - Campers are clown shoes.
Also, I take your ra-ra skirt and raise you a ra-ra dress (polka dotted from Woolworth´s no less!!)
Very fucking funny.
All I'd add is "dress so you feel good, and change out of your comfort zone every now and then"
I am a beanpole. How come I can hardly find clothes to fit either? Gaping armholes showing far too much bra, necessity of choosing between legs-too-short or waist-too-big-needs-huge-belt-all-the-time, everything baggy round the arse and hips I don't have, apparently meaning that I am not a 'real woman' despite my being a healthy weight.
Sorry. I feel slightly better now, but still annoyed that the world of fashion is apparently designed for me and I'm supposed to be some sort of smug body-fascist bitch and yet I still can't find a decent little black dress or pair of jeans that fit properly.
Point 6 - Doc Martens! The exception to the rule I'm afriad, though they do make me cry when I'm breaking them in so maybe they don't count.
RoMo - we are clearly sisters under the skin. I recall wearing the red boilersuit to see the Marriage of Figaro at the Barbican alongside a friend in a matching red boilersuit - why we thought this was appropriate wear for the opera I've no idea - they probably thought we were apprentice plumbers on a youth training scheme.
Em, you've got your own account! I thought you had your own blog and got v excited. Glad sunny Spain has not converted you to the Camper...
Adrian - right, good to get out of the comfort zone. This is why British people love fancy dress parties, it's the only excuse they have to dress up (and for men to get into women's clothes too - every man I've ever met will leap at the chance to drag up.)
Violet, much as I want to hate you I have a tall slim friend and I know it's a nightmare buying clothes, especially trousers. My DM days are over I fear - hey, you have discovered a gap in the market - you could pay someone to break them in for you!
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