I am free! I am free!
I have broken my intellectual chains!
Oh frabjous day, calloo, callay!
(If you don't get that reference, Google it. Now.)
I have finished my exams.
I will try to be a more diligent blogger.
I have too much residual mental energy, which I channelled into a long and confusing and angry and redundant rant below.
Multiple apologies.
Brave souls, trudge forth.
Behold:
The exhausted smile of satisfaction.
Oh this girl. She is so elegant. Look at those holes on her upper thigh. Tasteful.
(Honestly, though, I have never bought into the ripped-tights trend for many reasons, most of which I will keep to myself for fear of boring you to tears
Nevertheless, a few:
a) Why would you destroy a perfectly serviceable item of clothing? I love tights. I love tights unconditionally. They are my sweatpants. They are my safety blanket. They are my cold-weather friends. I resent their destruction. I feel their pain.
b) I find it hilarious (which is to say tragic) that girls devote so much energy to cultivate this pseudo-accidental look. My amusement probably derives from the fact that, as evidenced above, I rip my tights. A lot. Those ratty thigh-holes (it looks like a mouse gnawed through my hosiery. Delightful!) are accompanied by equally charming toe-holes (the dreaded scourge of socks and tights), which, if you look closely, you can just glimpse. Because I am frugal and resourceful and irrationally attached to inanimate things, I refuse to let go of my increasingly Dickensian legwear. I just can't believe that people intentionally do this.
b) I'm not a fan of this whole fuck-you aesthetic. I find it negligent and offensive on the part of its perpetrators. This passive-aggressive, "I'm-taking-out-my-woes-NOW-GIVE-ME-ATTENTION" ordeal does not amuse me.
I seek out originality. I look for marks of decency and goodness in people. I don't really care what you look like, I honestly don't, but I do slightly care about how you present yourself. Whether we like it or not, our outer layers are the products of conscious choices, and speak loudly about our characters. I try to the best of my abilities to look nice, because I try to the best of my abilities to be nice (I often fail atrociously).
I want people to want to talk to me. I want my appearance to speak about who I am, because I want to be able to transcend it. We are not only what we appear to be, but what we appear to be is part of who we are. I want my clothes to convey that I care about more than just clothes. I want them to indicate that I like pretty bits of cloth, but that I like so many other things too. I want people to see beyond the dresses and the tights. I don't want to look like I put too much thought into my outfits, but I do want to look like I put enough thought into it.
Does that make me shallow? Probably. Maybe my clothes say that about me too. Maybe I am shallow. Maybe we should all stop being so defensive about who or what we really are.
I want you to know that I care about you enough that I want to look presentable for your sake, so that you don't have to see me in my more gruesome states (I get pretty gruesome). Many of the popular trends today seem awfully selfish to me - they are all about ego. I want to be the centre of attention. I want you to know how complicated and angsty I am. I want you to know that I spent hours of my time carefully turning myself into a disheveled mess just to piss you off (you could have read a book instead. Jis sayin'). I want you to think that I am cool and original, when in fact I am the product of carefully manufactured social trends geared towards homogenisation.
Clearly, we all do this to greater or lesser degrees, myself included. I am obviously making a generalising statement (I hate generalising statements - the exception makes the rule), and as always, there are necessarily delightful exceptions which more than redeem the reviled style criminals I so despise, but there you are.
I just wish people valued looking nice more. Not just in the "pretty" sense ("Ooh, you look so nice!"), but in the honest "He is a nice person" sense as well. This is a societal statement as much as it is a sartorial one. Whatever happened to nice? Why is it not enough to look kind and friendly? Why must fashion and popular culture be so confrontational? (Argh there go to generalising statements again).
I know that there are exceptions to this rule. I know that there are many flaws to my pronouncements. Despite my temperamental ramblings, I really do love fashion. I really do see the value in pushing boundaries and encouraging experimentation. I am as forward-thinking as the next person. I enjoy being provoked, and I enjoy provoking people. I like being made uncomfortable, and I like having my perceptions changed. I love non-conformity.
But this is where the main problem lies, I think. Non-conforming has become so... conformist. Everyone rebels in the same way. Ripped tights, partial nudity, studs, piercings... They don't shock me anymore. They don't inspire me to start a revolution or challenge the status quo. They have become the status quo. I wouldn't mind the ubiquity of this aesthetic and its concomitant values if it didn't still proudly proclaim itself to be so original. It pisses me off that leather and studs and fishnets still get "Oohs" and "Aahs," while people trip over each other trying to reconstruct recycled looks that have been regurgitated onto page after page of the hipper-than-hip magazine of the day. What does this phenomenon say about its subscribers? Why do we all try to be different in the same way? Is anything new anymore? My shock-reflex has gone into hibernation. I often find myself rolling my eyes as I gaze at yet another image claiming to reinvent something I already got bored of three years ago. I crave originality like parched lips crave water.
I am not claiming to be the vehicle of extraordinary insight, and I certainly don't think that I am superior to anyone I may be describing. I too am a product of my society. I just think that we all need to be shaken, badly. A new "originality" needs to emerge. The socially-sanctioned, neutered, exhausted one we have now does not cut it anymore.
This is all to say that certain looks attract certain attention, and that, consciously or not, we all seek out different attention because we crave connections with other people. We are not islands. We are thrust into the world and expected to navigate its complicated inhabitants. We judge. We are judged. Ultimately, though, we just are, and how we choose to visually introduce ourselves to the treacherous crowds is a reflection of that being. Ripped tights do not scream "Being alive is miraculous, let's talk for a while and maybe forge some kind of connection." They scream "Fuck you, I don't give a shit about you because I am trapped in the all-important machinations of my own ego. Now leave me alone, I have some pretentious black and white photographs to go shoot and an aura of aloofness and mystique to cultivate."
I am not claiming to be superiorly insightful. These are merely my observations. As I have (repeatedly) stated, I don't mean to demean certain people or to devalue individual choices. I willingly subscribe to certain trends, and I firmly believe that fashion should be fun and light and experimental. I also believe that fashion trends are the visual expressions of social trends, and that they speak loads about the contexts in which they exist. What do my dresses say about me? What do your ripped tights say about you? When we meet on the street, what will happen?
Urban Outfitters' men's turtleneck, NafNaf skirt, ratty old intellectually-stimulating tights.
Col roulé d'hommes Urban Outfitters, jupe NafNaf, vieux collants troués.
