Carbon Copies

I don’t get fashion.

Please don’t read that as ‘I am not fashionable’ because that is not the case. Sure, I’m no Victoria Beckham, or the male equivalent (David Beckham?) but I can hardly be called a particularly bad dresser. Just a lazy one. The amount of time I spend choosing what to wear can only be measure by the nanosecond, with the finest time-keeping equipment science can buy.

But no, I just don’t get it. More specifically, I don’t get why in order to be “in fashion”, people have to wear the same things.

Chief culprits here are the skinny jeans; torture device and clothing combined. Wave upon wave of people wearing jeans that condense their legs to the width of a toothpick. A light wind would snap them, I swear. And how boys wear them is a mystery to me. We have parts, guys! Surely too much tightness there… ruins performance. Or just plain hurts.

I bought a pair of skinny jeans once, by accident. Like my daily clothing choice, my purchases of clothes spend as little time being processed in the brain as possible. Get in, get clothes, get out, get sandwich. This means that there is often a failure on my part to read labels. Important labels. Like “Skinny Fit”.

Upon realizing my mistake, I figured I may as well try them on, to see what all he fuss was about. After about half an hour of trying to get them past my knees, I eventually reached a stage where I could do up the fly.

I have never worn anything so ridiculous in my life, and I’ve dressed as Tinkerbell (Another story, another day). For starters, I couldn’t bend my knees, which meant I walked around like a pirate with one too many wooden legs. I don’t know about you, but I like the use of my knees.

The jeans seemed determined to let my know they were there, all the damn time! You couldn’t just get on with your day because the tightness below your waist is constantly shouting “You are wearing skinny jeans! You are cool!” I get how girls in corsets feel now, but whilst a corset pushes boobs out and stomach in, the jeans just seemed to force all the fat from my legs upwards and overflowing over the waistband.

So. Skinny jeans are out for me. So are scarves when it isn’t cold, turned up collars and band hoodies.

Regarding the latter, I have nothing against hoodies, or even hoodies that feature bands on the front. In fact, they regularly appear in my wardrobe. Issues arise when people walk around with the band logos emblazoned on the front and pretension emblazoned on their faces. The idea that wearing the symbol of a cool band somehow embodies someone with cool is ridiculous. The reality is of often the opposite. If someone walks down the street with a t-shirt saying “FBI: Female Body Inspector” (They exist), I always get the feeling that the only female attention they get is in the front seat of a car after parting with fifty British pounds.

The same applies to those who choose to buy clothes that their favourite celebrity has been caught wearing. There are pages and pages in ‘Heat’ magazine (Yes, I have been known to read it) dedicated to this stuff.

“Jennifer Aniston was wearing the most BEAUTIFUL dress at the BAFTAs. Where can I get one? ” The letter will usually say. Heat will reply with news that you can get one cheap at Primark, for only 1.50. Great.

What is should say is “Forget it woman! Jennifer Aniston has a fitness and health routine, and must weigh about three stone now. She has a pretty face and a good figure. Sure, the dress was ‘BEAUTIFUL’ (Why the capitals, by the way? Slip on the Caps Lock?) but it worked because she would look good in a bin bag’

‘We don’t know this for a fact, but judging by our average readership, Heat can only assume you’re a twenty stone, single mum of three children. There is a reason you’re single. You’re ugly! Simple. As. That.’

‘You can get yourself the same dress for only 1.50 at Primark and delude yourself that maybe, just maybe, you’ll be beautiful and successful and Brad Pitt will want to marry you. It won’t come true. You’ll look like a whale in a cheap night gown.”

Okay, so this is a whole lot harsher, and may to win them more readers, but the truth hurts sometimes. It is the only way these people will learn.

I think that the crux of my issue is that people shouldn’t all try to be the same. Sure, I’m ragging on fashion, and I know it happens elsewhere.

In film school, for example, I want to scream every time I hear someone say “I want to be the next George Romero” or, more often now, “I want to make films like Shane Meadows”. The reason these people are successful is because they are doing stuff their own way and not trying to be the ‘next’ anybody. Have some originality! Be the first you.

But it is in the fashion world that copycats prosper and so it is that world that I will call up for its sins.

A world in which everyone looks the same is BORING! Why not skip ahead to the near-future where everyone wears the same silver jumpsuit? Because that’s where this will all end up if we’re not careful.

Fashion. I just don’t get it.

:D

http://phatdesign.deviantart.com/art/Fashion-55617327