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Sugar & Spice and Dressing for Vice

18 Nov

Mama Rose, Gypsy, Baby June

I have long ago accepted that clothing retailers consider children a very profitable market.  No longer are unwilling children dragged to a department store, up to the poorly lit, dismal fourth floor and forced into practical school clothes and durable outerwear.  Entire chain stores and boutiques are now available to cultivate pint-sized consumers.  One need only flip through an advert or catalog, or walk past a store, to discover that utility is the furthest thing from the “designers” mind.  Much of the apparel is trendy and costumey, not intended to last to the next season, let alone to the next sibling.

Yesterday, I walked through the GapKids section (remember when the Gap sold Lee and Levis?) due to a remodeling of the adult section (remember when “adult section” meant something else?)   I was somewhat prepared for the barrage of pink.  Only somewhat.  If I was a child today, I would be cross-dressing.  I have never enjoyed pink.  My mother tacked a pink bow on my head once (for a family function) and even the black & white photos from that day, prove I am not a “pink” gal.  Like most women in their early twenties, I made some mistakes.  One was in the form of a Perry Ellis sample sale double breasted silk coat dress, in pink.  In my pathetic defense, it was beautiful fabric, very well made and cost $10.  None of that prevented a co-worker from nicknaming me “Pepto.”  Pink has done me wrong.

But enough about me.  What I was not prepared for in the mass-marketing mecca for children’s hard earned money, was the Vegas/Burlesque line of apparel available for sizes 3-14.  One-third of the girl’s section was reserved for the merchandising of black sequined clothes.  There were little black sequined tops, dresses, skirts, shrugs (shrugs?!) and of course shoes.  I had to do a double-take AND pick up and investigate what appeared to be a pair of black sequined shorts in size 4.  I’m not sure I even understand sequined shorts for grown women.  To top it all off there were lovely fake fur white jackets, (a la Taxi Driver) for the little girl left out in the cold.  I suppose it goes without mention that there were no equivalent tarty clothes for the little boys.  Not a single Huggy Bear outfit in sight.  We all know that little girls are becoming more sexualized and objectified every day.  What I hadn’t entirely grasped, was that they are doing so at the hands of the adults who clothe them

 
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Posted by on November 18, 2011 in Childhood, Style

 

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Hello Gorgeous!

17 Oct

Rumor has it that October 19th is Love Your Body Day.  (Note: I would do some fact checking before assuming opposite side of the street parking has been suspended.)  While I’m not sure that schools and banks should close, I do applaud the occasion.  From what I read, see and hear (mostly by way of eavesdropping) this day is called for.  From tweens to seniors, there is a great deal of self war being waged.  We all have an off day, but there is something tragic about hating yourself every day.

I am a woman from a western culture, I am not impervious to the internalized merciless critic.  However, a couple of adult decades under my belt has pretty much muted that little voice.  Has my body gotten better with age?  I doubt it (if so, I could probably sell myself to science!)  To be utterly reductive, I think I’ve (finally) stopped comparing myself to avatars.

As soon as I was allowed, I became a devotee of ‘Teen magazine.  I poured over that magazine, not for fashion pointers, but for role models.  Like a Talmudic scholar, I wore those pages out trying to decipher the secrets.  Coming to adolescence with the zealot belief that life would be like an MGM musical, I desperately wanted to look the part.  ‘Teen magazine promised to be the most instructive.  I was self aware enough to know that Charlie’s Angels, and even Julie, the cruise director, were out of my reach.  But perhaps the fashion models, only a few years older than I, would hold the key.  The fifteen year old me, with a thin layer of baby fat, studied those photo-spreads like nobody’s business. I also, unfortunately, compared myself mercilessly to their perceived perfection.

I still find fashion magazines potentially instructive.  I now, however, understand the wonders of lighting, styling, airbrushing and photo-shopping.  (Hopefully, today’s young teens are much more media savvy than they used to be!)  All this is to say, that the first step to honoring “Love Your Body Day” is to stop comparing it to fiction.  The second step, is to stop comparing it to others.

“Others” being a version of your younger self, or the gal sitting next to you.  As far as the ravages of gravity and/or aging go, let me be the first to point out that you are never going to be as young as you are right now.  Don’t waste another moment bemoaning the fall of your bum.  Buy better pants if necessary.  (Truly, the virtue of good undergarments can not be stressed enough.)  And about that “perfect” gal sitting across from you?  She feels fat.

No one sees our perceived imperfections, they are far too interested in their own.  Whatever our shortcomings, we’re here aren’t we?  Isn’t that everything?  Life is too short to not treat everyday like a potential MGM musical.  Now as far as those off-days?  Change your inner critic’s voice to that of Irving Berlin’s: “Never saw you look quite so pretty before.*”

* Easter Parade

 
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Posted by on October 17, 2011 in Style, Well-Being

 

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Fashion Mistakes – They Can Be Lessened

27 Sep

One of the hallmarks of maturity is knowing what’s right for you.  My childhood (perhaps like yours) was peppered with “well, if everyone else was jumping off the George Washington bridge…” Which of course is code for “it’s not really you, dear.”  In theory, as we mature, our inner “it’s not really you, dear” voice becomes strong and clear.  Of course, many many mistakes must be made along the way.  Most of us are not born with the gift of clarity.  Some must slog through several academic majors, or colleges, before they find what suits them.  Some, must do this sorting and shifting with romantic partners.  And of course what suits us at one point in our lives is bound to feel ill-fitting at others.

Nowhere is this more visibly apparent than in fashion choices.  What suits us, physically and emotionally, changes over the years.  Ideally.  I won’t pretend that the world isn’t filled with people who are wearing acid washed jeans and shoulder pads; unironically.  I chalk that up to one of two things; 1) complete lack of (inner or outer) resources) 2) associating their decade of choice with a happier time in their lives.  The rest of us, for better or worse, are more susceptible to the siren song of marketing and retail.

Unless we are in possession of a coloratura inner critic’s voice or an indispensable insightful and candid friend, we need a little outside help in navigating the myriad of wildly inappropriate choices out there.  There are some simple (although perhaps, not easy) steps to take:

  • Know oneself – not necessarily in some meditating on a mountaintop, or involving a hand mirror way.   Know what you like about your body.  Have a realistic sense of your life (there’s nothing so sad as a closet full of gowns with price tags still attached.)
  • Own a full-length mirror and use it.  I bought my first one ten years ago after an unfortunate “patriotic clown” work outfit that just slipped by me (until I got to work that is.)
  • Unless you make a career of reinvention in the public eye; know the difference between costume and clothing.  If the item enjoys a prefix, that is your hint (ex. Running/Tennis/Athletic shoes, Yoga pants, Gardening clogs, Bathing suit, Cone bra, etc.)  These clothes will tell you where and when to wear them, you don’t even need to cultivate your inner voice.
  • Cut, Clarity and Color, it’s not just for diamonds.  The cut of the pant, dress, skirt, blouse, jacket, MUST flatter.  (The goal is always to look better in clothing than one does naked!) Please note: Flatter is NOT synonymous with Camouflage.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, is looking at someone in an oversize garment and thinking; “Wow, I bet she is really tiny under there!” Clarity: Is the piece/outfit you?  Does it make you feel fabulous?  Does it clearly express what you’d like to express about yourself?  Color; it’s not an abstraction.  Liking color is not the same thing as color liking you (think back to that elusive guy in high school.)  The color, like the cut and clarity, must do something for you.  Clothes must earn their keep.

Simply put, life is too short to not feel fabulous as often as one can.  If you have never experienced the bounce in your step a well-suited outfit can give you, get moving.  The most effective way to train your inner voice is to use it.  Try on new things.  Often.  No doubt, mistakes will be made along the way.  However, if I had never spent the day as a patriotic clown, I would not realize how important the cut of a pant really is.  Or that red, white and blue, should rarely be combined in the workplace, unless one is in the military, or circus.

 

 
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Posted by on September 27, 2011 in Style

 

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What Is Our Blue Eyeshadow?

10 Sep

When watching an old movie, how long does it take you to pinpoint the decade?  How long before you can identify the year?  Maybe I possess a (previously unidentified) talent, but I can guess the time period in about 2-3 minutes.  The women are the very first barometer.  Even in a women’s prison film, the style of dress, eyebrow and shoe should speak volumes.  If there are no women handy, men will do.  Hair, hats, cut of the pants, will all point to a decade if not a year.  For the more advanced player, do try a period film.  Cleopatra is a good example of such an exercise.  I’m no anthropologist, but I’m going to venture that there was no blue eyeshadow before the common era.

Parlor games aside, I am struck by the notion that I can not identify any style of dress or hair after the 1980s.  Of course I can still pinpoint a film’s time period.  Sort of.  By the cars and size of the mobile phones.  But the fashion and style?  Not really.  I would be willing to concede that one never notices what will eventually become iconic, while actually living in the period.  But, and this is a big but; I am referencing over 20 years of indistinguishable style and fashion!  If you don’t believe me, try it yourself.  Your assignment is to describe to me a working woman in 1998.  What is she wearing?

Now, I don’t necessarily think a loss of iconic time specific style will be the death of our society.  I just wonder how it happened.  Is it the result of cheaper mass marketed clothing?  Perhaps this is what comes from sanitizing the design process for competitive cable television?  Is it the result of brand worship?  Did America even know which shoes to fetishisize before the 1990s? Perhaps it is more positive: could it be that the fashion playing field has become so democratic that there is not one style we can pinpoint as that of a recent decade.  Or, is fashion now like public behavior; anything goes?  Does a generation of women who think nothing of styling their hair in public (often in the vicinity of my dinner) feel a specific style would stifle her spontaneous, chip clip creativity?  Is style just too committal?

Life will go on, no doubt.  But it makes me a little sad, that in my doterage, when I turn on my subcutaneous video imagery receptor and watch a film from my “youth” I won’t be able to imagine myself in the time period.

 
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Posted by on September 10, 2011 in Style

 

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