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1/21/2012

Big Fat Fashion Blob

Today I want to talk to you about fashion. Yes, fashion. 
No, you didn't click the wrong link, this is not a fashion blog. 
I'm not one of those how-to, what-to or what-not-to wear kind of persons and this is not a site imposing any kind of fashion fascism on you either. 

But the topic is rather interesting, the theory behind it definitely is. 
So, don't worry, no guidebook, in fact, I would consider it inhumane to tell you what you can or can not wear. Not least because telling people what to wear is soooo last season!


Back to topic, the topic being fashion; its nuts and bolts, its appeal and horrors. Every woman knows at least a little something about fashion. I would call it the "mix and match" instinct. 
Other than that, tight shirts with broad stripes are considered bad, especially when the stripes are yellow and black, because it makes you look like a chubby bee regardless of your actual size. 
(By the way: I pet-named one of my cats chubby bee, for exactly this reason: broad sandy and black stripes) 


Skirts should have an appropriate length depending on your choice of shoes and the occasion they are worn to. Hookers may wear a more airy version of a belt-inspired skirt. Oh, and most importantly, remember to shave your legs before showing them. The resemblance to the UGG boot is frowned upon more often than not! Tee-hee I kid! 

But it's true that all of these ideas are high on the list of fashion aesthetics. 

Hubby has this one in red, it came with a complementary closet

Ermmm, what do I know about the fashion industry? Not much, really. I like Vogue and ELLE for their artistic fashion spreads, I think they are really interesting from a design perspective, but these spreads wouldn't make me go out and buy particular items. Other than that, I know that there are certain fashion designers who are more popular than others. 


The world of fashion commerce is divided in stores that sell either expensive or less expensive clothes for us people to buy. The more expensive clothes are the ones all women want to wear, but if they can't afford them, they'll buy cheaper ones that convincingly look expensive. 


Fashion should - at all cost - be worn by you, and not wear you, whatever that means. I think Timm Gunn said that. And clothing should meet a certain level of taste. But this ominous taste level always leaves much room for debate. Lady Gaga wearing a meat dress, Madonna wearing traffic cones instead of a bra in the good old Vogue times, me wearing deer antlers for breakfast... Crazy and completely random? Me thinks yes! Tasteless? 

We just need to have Jean Paul Gaultier tell us it is Avantgarde to calm our nerves and reassure us it's OK to wear them, and then, by all means, a more commercial version of the antler headdress will have made its way in Ready-to-wear fashion later this season, I guarantee it. I wonder who makes these arbitrary choices and if Heidi Klum does have something to do with it. Project Runway, hello! 

But most importantly, the thing I really don't understand is why we need all those restrictions, aka the dos and don'ts of fashion. Isn't it a bit odd for a society that claims to categorically refuse any kind of doctrine to willingly give up the choice what to wear?

As I understand it, and because I also watched the The Devil Wears Prada infomercial, there are selected power players in the fashion industry, like for example Anna Wintour of American Vogue, Marc Jacobs or Diane von Fürstenberg. The latter incidentally opened up a can of worms on the whole intellectual property discussion in 2008, because she sued Target for manufacturing a dress, strikingly resembling a dress she had designed, bearing a similar frog print. I guess it is exemplary that there is more to fashion than meets the eye, meaning big chunks of money to be made or lost. Uniqueness is a big selling point, and brand recognition even more so. I guess the dress was anything else but a shelf-warmer, and she wouldn't have minded letting bad ideas be stolen. 


So, what sells is what we are told to wear - or was it the other way around?
Be that as it may, we let ourselves be fooled by the appeal of right and wrong choices in fashion and we want the precious magazines telling us what is hot and what is not. And who doesn't abide by the rules is either too fat, a slob or - if lucky enough - pronounced a forerunner, depending on the potential of the outfit being seen as "visionary". If there is a statement to be made with the choice, you will be fine. Let it just be a certain 'je ne sais quoi'. I have to say, for my life I like it much better when 'je sais quoi'. Comfy slacks, here I come. Because slacker is the new black.

Fashion-forward just means that it is not a trend yet 


























Photography © Nick Knight for Vogue Magazine

1/03/2012

Dismantling Politics


Politics ~ what is it good for?


You may ask yourself that question, I do, partially, because I don't follow the macroscopic decisions made by the representatives, partially because sadly enough I am always under-informed when it comes to the day-to-day business of governing. I am looking at politics like I look at my yearly balance sheet, trying to figure out what the hell these numbers and figures are supposed to mean, and how they could possibly affect me, the unsuspecting citizen. 

I guess when you look at it with the determination to understand the coherency, it's not so hard to figure out what the hell politics is good for. In simple words, it's decision-making on a really grand scale. Not only for you and me, but for the whole country. As a politician, it's not an easy task, working within the system, with people opposed to your own vision, and still trying to do things in accordance with the law, for the good of the majority of people. Having a budget of minus billions of Euro doesn't help your cause either. So why would anyone go into politics, and be the leader of the doomed pack? Yes, there has to be some kind of special interest, some ulterior motive to voluntarily choose a career as a politician.

George Orwell's pigs: fat, greedy and horrible at their job

Opening the newspapers this day and age, it seems that politicians are a whole new breed of pigs. They are corrupt, they know how to work the media to their advantage and they are all liars. They are liars pretending to be moral entities, when in fact, they are - well - pigs. Well-groomed, well-educated, ladder-climbing pigs with black holes (I am guessing: wallets) instead of souls. That's what we hear day in, day out. 


And yet again, that they don't deserve our trust nor any privileged status (given indirectly by us) when they are so willingly abusing it at any given opportunity.


It's a fatal flaw, that no one talks about aptitude anymore, about the capability to rule, to manage, to handle this mess we're all in. Our concern for politics solely focuses on what these politicians do to deceive us, and what a giant piece they take from the big fat cake belonging to all of us. But everyone's cake has already shrivelled to a really small cookie over the last years of financial crisis.

Groomed and educated Guttenberg and Wulff, still pigs at heart. Someone needs to do the job though.

Shouldn't we rather be concerned about the country? This country is not an ark, it's the Titanic, having its daily staff meeting while ramming the iceberg. What do I care about the person holding the office, when it's the office itself we should be concerned about? Liars, cheaters, blackmailers: please do your jobs properly, and then we may have your heads on a pike for what you did while no one was looking. But we shouldn't do it during office hours.