hilkat

Coco Chanel once said, “fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is something in the air. It’s the wind that blows in the new fashion; you feel it coming, smell it… in the sky, in the street: fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening…” Ms Chanel did not say, “well, you know, if your wardrobe isn’t made up entirely of designer clobber, you’re clearly an unfashionable peasant. Now where’s my Evian?” Despite being one of the most renowned couturiers of all time, and the founder of the most classically famous design house in the world, Chanel knew the score. She celebrated fashion as a way of expressing not only the individual, but also the world around us.

Sadly, this isn’t the case of many so called “fashion lovers” of today. I’ve heard tales of girls who spent their entire student loan on one handbag, meaning they had to beg their parents for rent money and eat Smartprice beans on 12p bread for the rest of the semester. The worst thing about this (apart from the obvious – have you ever eaten Smartprice beans?) is the fact that the majority of these girls are paying a vast amount of money for the privilege of owning an item by a design house that they know absolutely nothing about. Ask them why they like Marc Jacobs or Louis Vuitton, and you’ll be met with a blank stare. Question them about who the head designer is at that particular couture house, and they start to look uncomfortable and edge away from you. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with people buying designer clothes. What I have a problem with is people buying stuff that is dictated as fashionable, without being able to answer a question as simple as “why do you like that?”

Fashion is about identity, it’s an expression of yourself, both inside and out. It’s about creativity, passion, showing the world who you really are. Clothes give you the power to be whoever you want to be that day; a 1940’s sex siren, a rock chick with holes in her clothes and a cigarette smile, or a ghetto fabulous superstar. Fashion is supposed to be about fun and frivolity, not wearing something a magazine told you was the latest ‘must have’ that you had to take out a mortgage to purchase. £1500 for a dress? I don’t care if the queen herself bled her fingers to the bone hand sewing on diamonds, I would not pay that for any item of clothing. Fuck, I probably wouldn’t pay that for a car.

The society we live in today is based upon cultures of consumption; desire is manufactured, and women are manipulated into thinking they can be better people if they have this handbag, more successful if they have these shoes and more attractive if they buy this lipstick. The whole point of fashion has been lost amongst multi-million pound companies and glossy magazines, all convincing people that they need overpriced clothing. Identity has completely disappeared, as people wander down the street all looking exactly alike; robots and clones on the conveyor belt of life. The desire to look like everyone else is completely lost on me; personally I shop in second hand shops and H&M. Topshop, Miss Selfridge and the like have veered into the realm of stocking only ridiculously expensive catwalk copies, and lets face it, where is the fun factor in turning up to a party only to be faced with three other girls wearing the same dress as you, one of whom is the hostess?

In an age where freedom of speech is considered so important, how has it come to the point where personal expression has become so stifled and smothered? Clothes should be used to express the real you, hide the flaws, show the perfections, change your personality and show the world what YOU want to show it. Not to show the world that you can go into Topshop and buy the exact outfit on the mannequin in the window, or that you can pick up a glossy magazine and purchase exactly what they’ve instructed you to.

You want my advice? Go and buy Pop magazine, take a trip to a second hand shop, have fun with fashion and give two fingers to the world of couture.

Dedicated follower of fashion? I don’t think so, thanks.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.