Fashion?

[Lee Knight]

Originally Posted by nat whilk II

All agreed. I was thinking more of the big clothes Fashion industry. Still, your examples could also be looked at as exceptions that prove the rule, 'tho.

In simpler terms, I just don't like the illusion of thinking one is hip or creative or innovative when all one is really doing is buying mass-produced consumer goods. The Fashion world is a weird world unto itself...why should we let that dog wag us??

nat whilk ii

"Still, your examples could also be looked at as exceptions that prove the rule, 'tho."


Yes, they most likely are. But I've always been surrounded by the types of people who, while not obsessed with "fashion", certainly have unique and, at times, provocative style. Even my kid's high school seem to gravitate toward top hats and the odd cape or whatnot, all in a sense of fun. Certainly not following trends. Hipster garb and teh latest haircuts are no where to be found. You're more likely to see a sea of florestent hair color than indie rock cuts.

But, of course, I'm well aware of the Hot Topic phenomenon.

[blue2blue]

Originally Posted by nat whilk II

Well which way is it going to be? A democratic, lowbrow fashion that is redundant, uncreative, yet unthreatening, or a highbrow, haute fashion that is intimidating, aggressive, and elitist???

I sat at a restaurant many years ago with a college roommate of mine from my UT days, who had moved out of Austin to go pursue his journalism graduate degrees at Syracuse. He was back in town for a visit, and we were at a Mexican restaurant, catching up, and arguing about just about everything.

He held his right hand out flat in front of him and moved it from far left of his body to far right like a car moving along a horizon. He said, "This is the stream of actual events, moving along." Then he repeated the motion, but halfway through, he stuck one of his fingers from his left hand up through the fingers of his right hand, pointing in the opposite direction of his "actual stream of events" right hand, and said,

"This is News."

Fashion is News in the world of design. By the time you can buy something that is "fashionable" at [name anyplace any of us shop at]..it's not Fashion anymore. It's a mass produced consumer good.

What 99.9999% of us do when we "keep up with fashion" is to imitate something that's already History as far as Fasion is concerned. We all live at the other end of things where it's all fed to us as end product - mass-produced, pre-processed, media-broadcast, shipped by the megaton, and for all practical purposes, on close-out as far as Fashion is concerned.

Fashion is an artform, I do have to agree with that. But it's about as corrupted and ephemeral an artform as the human race has been able to conceive. So I write it off, but not without a vague feeling of regret. On the face of it, I find Fashion pretty fascinating.

Ask Ras about Fashion - he's the go-to guy around here on this, I guarantee.

But it's art at the lowest common denominator of artistic values....it's innovation without the slightest regard or respect for anything someone might dare to call "progress". It's value-null, except for the occasional tip of the hat to Beauty. But Beauty is pretty out of Fasion, too. Very sad that so many brilliant artists spend themselves creating things that evaporate as soon as they are recognized as "successful".

nat whilk ii

One of my GFs became a fashion designer. The fashion/garment industry sits somewhere between the music biz and garbage hauling on the corruption/mobbed up continuum.

One company she was working for had five of its top officials bombed or shot; three were killed.

The fashion biz. As usual.

[Vito Corleone]

Originally Posted by nat whilk II

In simpler terms, I just don't like the illusion of thinking one is hip or creative or innovative when all one is really doing is buying mass-produced consumer goods.

I've always found it humorous when you ask some kid why he dresses the way he does and he'll state it's because he's expressing his individualism when, in fact, he looks just like every other kid in his sub-culture.

The Fashion world is a weird world unto itself...why should we let that dog wag us??

1) most people aren't creative, so they let others do the creating for them.

2) most people are lazy. they're gonna buy what's on the store racks Takes too much effort to find creative clothing.

3) most people are too scared to not fit in. They actually DO want to look like everybody else, for the most part.

4) most people like anything if they hear it/see it often enough. All these old hideous fashions from the past were thought to be great at the time. Most of the fashions being worn today will be laughable in 15 years. Conditioning.

[blue2blue]

Originally Posted by guido61

I've always found it humorous when you ask some kid why he dresses the way he does and he'll state it's because he's expressing his individualism when, in fact, he looks just like every other kid in his sub-culture.[...]

My old man hit me with that one night on my way out the door in the late 60s and I thought he had me there for a second but, in one of life's minor victories, my subconscious delivered up a what I still think is a trenchant one-liner analysis: "It's not so much that we're trying to dress differently from each other -- it's that we're trying to dress differently from you -- from our parents."

He had to admit that made sense.

[BlueGreene]

Interesting thread.

People have no more control of the clothing in most clothing stores than they have control over what's played on the radio. If you want to find something different you have to dig around a little bit. No surprise here.

I wonder... how many people here are wearing blue jeans and a tee shirt? -- writing about how much fashion isn't evolving...

[adabra]

This is something called fashion. I am the one who is always open to the new fashion. simple like dress fashion in any age.

 

I am thinking to get in to the custom fashion. I don't know if anybody here is interested in custom fashion or not, I will suggest to get the custom dress shirt from [some bogus website that will probably give you malware or steal your kid's lunch money]

[blue2blue]

Scary thing is, they look like this all over again!

[coyote-1]

 

---

Folder wrote:

 

Have we reached a point where fashion styles are no longer evolving? Will fashion cease to exist?

---

 

 

Only if we are lucky.

Fashion is but one aspect of trendmongering, and there is very little as annoying in the world as a) the people who are slaves to such trends with their b) constant admonishment of those who do not obey the trends.

Just wear what you want to wear, as long as it is appropriate to whatever business you do for a living. All the rest is BS.

[nat whilk II]

Lawsa me, this ancient thread that's been dredged up was a goodun.

 

Y'all remember when we had to and fro this good?

 

nat whilk ii

 

[Anderton]

Y'all remember when we had to and fro this good?

 

And it can happen again...all it takes is for people to contribute. We're doing what we can at this end to make it a non-painful experience for people to do so

 

 

[Mandolin Picker]

I was born in 1960, but have always liked the look of the 1940s. I thought the men's fashion was very stylish and masculine. I look at the pictures from the time period, and guys like Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart with the suit and Fedora and always thought that is the way a man should look. Same with the ladies outfits. Even the military uniforms, with the Ike jacket or the Army Air Corp leather jacket and the dress cap with the '20-mission crush'. Some of this carried on into the 50s, but by the 1960s it was pretty much gone.

 

[Anderton]

I was born in 1960, but have always liked the look of the 1940s. I thought the men's fashion was very stylish and masculine. I look at the pictures from the time period, and guys like Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart with the suit and Fedora and always thought that is the way a man should look. Same with the ladies outfits. Even the military uniforms, with the Ike jacket or the Army Air Corp leather jacket and the dress cap with the '20-mission crush'. Some of this carried on into the 50s, but by the 1960s it was pretty much gone.

 

Gender roles were defined quite precisely back then; the differences between the sexes were emphasized, not obscured. When the 60s hit, so did the word "unisex." Fashion became more about blurring of differences.

 

I'm not even sure what the "fashion" is right now...perhaps the concept of "fashion" has become a luxury, available only to those who can afford to have time. Those people in the 40s put serious time in how they dressed themselves. It became a sort of personal art form. Art isn't exactly a priority in society these days, it's all about money.