Recently in Fashion Category

I think it's funny that we "enlightened" types like to pride ourselves on not basing our identities around corporate branding or iconic products, but even subcultural, free-thinking communities have our versions of the stuff everybody has or the stuff everybody wants. Powerbook, Reload, Moleskine, Ikea, Chris King. I think it's more a matter of having similar aesthetic preferences and/or quality standards than trying to fit in through consumerism, and I don't think it's a bad thing - I kinda love uniformity, actually - but it's still interesting to notice, and maybe a reason to not judge suburban clone types too harshly. They just have a different uniform.

I may hate paying more than ten bucks for a shirt and live in a Wet Seal- and yardsale-based wardrobe of (deliciously) boring staples, but I really, really like fashion blog Flypaper, part of a fashion website I have never shopped at. This is one of my favorite blogs, not necessarily because of the fashion content but because it's brilliantly written and put together, and often totally hilarious. What's great about it is instead of consisting of pure aditorial, the author, Wendy, will talk about some random fashion moment and be snarky, then tack on a link to stuff to buy on the site almost as an afterthought. Great photos and juxtapositions, too.

Another blog I love that's also part of corporate pop culture is Cosmopolitan's Bedroom Blog. It's a fake blog. I think I've posted about it before. It's satisfyingly girly, juicy and fun in a way that makes up for all the personal blogs that you hope will be fun but are just long-winded explorations of the author's boring, typical neuroses. What I may not have posted before is that I found the real life blog of the lady who writes it, Jess, which has all the goofy pep of the Cosmo blog with the added bonus of being about an actual, complex person instead of the Cosmo Girl archetype. The fake blog has the bonus of being editorially prepped for readability and having a discernable plot line (it's basically Sex & the City in blog format) but the real blog is way zanier and, well, real. It's fun to read them both and watch how Jess's writing voice and elements of her real life sneak their way into the blog. If only the rest of Cosmo was that good.

Yesterday I had to buy a replacement for my white belt, which I'd worn into the ground and was falling apart. I'm sure that earns me some sort of massive hipster cred somewhere, like on some outdated '90s hipster punch-card not in use anymore that would earn you a free case of Pabst after 10 such hipper-than-thou moments. It was weird, I went to Naked City and realized I was looking at the enamel flower pins and Who buttons instead of the cherries-and-dice stuff only because I had arbitrarilly decided to subscribe to one subculture instead of another, and wanted to like things I had formerly hated (like flat mary janes) because it was appropriate. I lose! I am a fashion victim too! Oh well, wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

I sort of feel a pressure to start looking sharper these days for a variety of reasons.
1. Kevin has chided me for looking too conservative ever since I stopped hanging out with hipsters and started working at Ann Taylor Loft.
2. Watching period movies makes me understand the benefits of a society that values looking presentable.
3. The study abroad program I will be starting next month is totally giving me back-to-school jitters like when I started junior high, and I feel excited about having a totally clean slate and being able to present whatever image I want to people who have never met me, but anxious about doing it well.
4. The French supposedly are dressier than Americans in general and I don't want to look like a dork.

I've been spending a lot of time shopping this week and not really buying anything because nothing ever fits. I have found that I can fit into shirts from the children's department, but they never have anything black. It's heck of annoying, but again, there are worse problems to have.

“Fashion is being willing to pierce your collarbone to hold up a tube top.”
— Joan Rivers via City magazine's Fall Blowout issue.

I wish I'd thought of that after my bike wreck a couple years ago.

I'm sort of having this 1963 via 1999 mod moment, which basically means my last 10 years of evolution have gotten me nowhere. Not that that's a bad thing; I think fashion's biggest fault is that when it hits on something good it just moves on in the next minute to something else. It's almost like hitting on something good is accidental and never fully appreciated, and for the most part new is more important than good. Maybe it makes me a pathetic, nostalgic stick in the mud to be perennially obsessed with the same style, but I think it's better than going around looking stupid just because it's a la mode.

Anyway, it's not like I don't branch out. I do the trendy mall girl thing, I do the rocker-punk thing. Recently I was doing the '50s rockabilly thing kind of by accident, because the only thing I could do with my hair was a pompadour twist thingy, and with a button down shirt (for work) and cuffed jeans (cause it was hot) it's just automatic. I even did the total 80's revival thing last year. Well maybe not total, but sort of. See, my friends would laugh because I say I go through all these different styles, but I do them all with the same pair of jeans, and to everyone else I probably have looked exactly the same for the last however many years. But the little details, a pair of giant neon green earrings or some pink lipstick or knee-high boots or a crappily silk-screened teeshirt, maybe they don't make the biggest visual impact in the world, but they really make one's outlook on life different, and anyway it's all I can afford.

But maybe the reason I always look the same is I always come back to the same thing, and at this point it's too ingrained in me to go away on demand. Me, me, me. I'm sick of talking about me.

The weird thing about mod is that although I love the style, most of the mods I have known over the years have been horrible people. Yeah, arrogance is part of the aesthetic, but still. It's hard to recall someone's outfit some night and be like, "Dang she looked good... but man, she screwed me over so bad!" It's hard to hate your fashion icons. Or to really respect someone's style and image, but then when you try to have a conversation with them (or a relationship with them) you find that there's nothing going on beneath those short black bangs. Oh well, I guess you can't have everything. I will never really pull together the whole look from straightened hair to pointy kitten heels, but that's OK, because instead of spending my time trying to do that, I'm doing this.

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"La mode est vouloir se faire percer la clavicule pour soutenir une chemise tube." -Joan Rivers.

Si je l'aurais su apres avoir tombe de mon velo.

J'aime beaucoup le style "mod." Je souhaite je pourrais etre comme Davy Watts.