Unintended irony in street fashion

For the first time this morning I saw a street style blog post with a picture of someone who had not dressed up trying to be fashionable or ironic. It was the first time I've seen the photographer make the decision that the person was going to be those things. Here it is:

http://com-onpeople.blogspot.com/2009/03/housein.html

Seeing the above really shocked me. Housein is not trying to be fashionable or cool! Who knows why he ended up buying that jacket, but it wasn't because it made him giggle. But still he was wearing a jacket that a hipster might buy because it made him giggle, and so the photographer photographed him. So I guess intentionality is now moot in the production of sartorial irony? Will everyone become un-P.C. like me and start taking pictures like this?

Interesting how, obviously, Housein's unironic orientation towards clothing goes right along with a completely different set of values. Whereas the legginged-out girl a couple posts above him reported her inspirations for this outfit as "Santangela,pulp,common people,1991," Housein's were his country, family, and friends. No hipster raised in the United States would ever say this. And yet, it's a much cooler response, in my opinion, than any of the rather boneheaded ones that most people spout when asked.

I've been spending some time with my friend's crowd of international-relations students here in D.C., and one bit of fashion trivia which they frequently cite is the Third World's position on the fashion food chain--how apparently after clothes have made it all the way from the manufacturer through discounts and more discounts at department stores, to second-tier bargain stores like T.J.Maxx, to thrift stores, they finally make it (seasons, years later) to poor countries in big bags, and people there shop by fishing things out of the bags.

The resulting outfits are representative of the trend I wrote about here called "Beautiful Ugliness," in which the goal of an outfit is to create an effect of aesthetic dissonance. However, I was completely wrong about this idea. Instead of being created on purpose, the new aesthetic dissonance will be created by accident; and instead of acting as a fashion catharsis for the "problem" of collage Late Modern culture, it will expose the fact that the "collage" is an illusion, a false construction of affluent Westerners trying to explain and contain the surging multiethnic, multicultural richness and vitality of the world beyond its ken--and to assuage its guilt over destroying the continuity of the past by obsessively recycling it.

This Beautiful Ugliness is the first modern fashion that the American-born cannot attain--or that at least very few of them can attain--because the prerequisite for it is a certain attitude: one that prompts a person to instinctively list as his inspirations, "My country Bangladesh, my family and my friends." Though hipsters and celebrities, especially M.I.A., dressing up in a version of Beautiful Ugliness, they still can't help doing it all on purpose. They have learned aesthetic preferences which it's very hard to unlearn, and have aesthetic associations that may never be wiped clean. They are doomed to look at Husein's jacket and think, "1980s. Ironic." They just can't wear this style!

Of course, is it a style? Does an aesthetic have to be intentional to be a style? I'm not sure. It does to be a "fashion" -- but all traditional cultures have extremely well-developed styles, and those emerged not from a designer's sketchbook but from centuries of evolution, elaboration, and perfection. Now they're gone. And what the descendants of those cultures have left to work with are the cast-offs of the culture that demolished them. And, repeating the pattern of unconscious evolution, the style that's emerging expresses much more perfectly the reality of the modern aesthetic than its rich overlords do. That is real street style.

Radical Chic redux

Along with the natural/afro hair, politicized hip-hop style, and authentic African names that I think an Obama candidacy and presidency is going to bring to the forefront, I'm starting to wonder if some Black Power-influenced style is going to come back in 2009.

I mentioned in this post that I think the color black in general is going to only get more pervasive, and that in the winter the classic black turtleneck is going to be huge. I'm also imagining lots of sober, simply-cut (minimalist) black jackets, suits, and coats, and flat black boots. And I'm thinking that the camouflage trend of this winter/spring is only going to get bigger and encompass a generally militant-ish look. Plus, I continue to insist, long hair for men. Add to that a dumbing-down of (or maybe even dispensing-with?) makeup (here, here), the continuation of skinny jeans, the not-dying popularity of sunglasses, especially still the Wayfarers, the seemingly-random turban and hats-in-general trend, and it's all sounding a little familiar:

...Christ, if the Panthers don't know how to get it all together, as they say, the tight pants, the tight black turtlenecks, the leather coats, Cuban shades, Afros. But real Afros, not the ones that have been shaped and trimmed like a topiary hedge and sprayed until they have a sheen like acrylic wall-to-wall--but like funky, natural, scraggly . . . wild . . .

...The Panther women...are so lean, so lithe, as they say, with tight pants and Yoruba-style headdresses, almost like turbans, as if they'd stepped out of the pages of Vogue, although no doubt Vogue got it from them. All at once every woman in the room knows what Amanda Burden meant when she said she was now anti-fashion because "the sophistication of the baby blacks made me rethink my attitudes." God knows the Panther women don't spend thirty minutes in front of the mirror in the morning shoring up their eye holes with contact lenses, eyeliner, eye shadow, eyebrow pencil, occipital rim brush, false eyelashes, mascara, Shadow-Ban for undereye and Eterna Creme for the corners . . . (from Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers ©1970 by Tom Wolfe)

Of course Black Power overtones are exactly the last thing Barack Obama needs, so I hope this doesn't come back too strong or too soon. Hopefully not really until he's in office. And I really, really hope it'll be about black pride instead of black separatism.

Ideally it will represent, also, not the nihilistic defeated attitude of 1969, but a non-materialistic, honest attitude, and be part of a sweeping-away of the overconsumption-oriented style that has reigned for almost this entire first decade of the 21st century.

Can-collector costume

I always get transfixed by the clothes of the Chinese-American women who collect bottles and cans in downtown New York. Though definitely the result of poverty and with the main goal of utility, these women's outfits are quite beautiful and fascinating.

First of all, they just have their outfits DOWN! They are always dressed from head to toe in an utterly functional, comfortable-looking combination of layers. In the winter, this often means an assortment of cotton jackets piled on top of each other, with socks ingeniously made into wrist-warmers. But look at the picture here, taken recently in warm weather: She's wearing a short-sleeved top, and seemingly underneath a dark-red long-sleeve top. But I could see from closer up that what appear to be sleeves are actually arm coverings, home-made out of other cloth and with elastic at both ends to keep them on!!! They must be for sun protection, cleanliness, or both. Whatever they're for, they provide adjustable, easy-to-remove coverage and look amazing. Then there's her smock: these women always wear one. It's again a very functional, thrifty garment to wear. And yet it also adds another layer to the collage of clothes, making the whole outfit look more rich and almost exotic. The sun hat, too, is functional, but gives this woman and others an added dignity -- affirming, somehow, that they too are workers with a job to do and a role to fulfill.

Above all I love how all the different parts of these women's outfits work together. They always clash, possibly because the women can't afford to -- but my hunch is that they don't care to -- match their clothes to one another. It's not that they're oblivious to aesthetics: it's quite clear that they prefer certain prints (florals, paisleys), colors (pastels, muted neutrals and primaries), and styles (boxy jackets, especially traditional Chinese ones, and elastic-waist pants). But they're operating with a completely different eye for how these things should go together.

The can collector aesthetic is effectively very similar to Beautiful Ugliness, only from an opposite direction. Unlike a post-hipster who would have to combine clashing items self-consciously, these women -- and poor non-Westerners and marginal Westerners across the world -- put anti-matching, anti-fashion outfits together totally naturally. They don't have to force themselves to ignore what a rich Westerner can't help but see as contradictory, inappropriate, potentially-ironic juxtapositions of style -- because they don't have anything invested in those styles not clashing. So while they probably don't see their clothing as beautiful, neither do they see it as "wrong." And that puts them way ahead of typical affluent Americans, with their concerns about putting together right-wrong outfits, at great expense, which will just have to be given away or thrown away when the next right-wrong fashion comes along.

The can collectors don't care about any of that. They're just surviving. And they've come up with a clothing style perfectly oriented towards helping them survive. In this sense, their style is not just like Beautiful Ugliness, but also New Sportswear, in that it's all about functionality and performance. That's the most modern way to dress.

It's my belief that these women are actually, in a way, better-adapted to living in New York City than the expensively-suited office workers who pass by them and pity them every day. They really see clothes for what they are, and use them for exactly what they need. And they look more amazing than anyone else.

I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes

The darkness isn't going to go if you turn your head, though.  More darkness is on the way.  In fact it would be appropriate, if you see a red dress, to paint it black, because black and more black is what we're going to be seeing this summer.

That's right, here it is, my favorite time of year: time to make the New York Downtown Young Ladies' Summer Fashion Trend Report.

It's all about separates, neutrals, minimalism, utilitarianism, lots of skin, and a tough attitude.

All the outfits worn by New York Downtown Young Ladies are a variation on this theme:

• white, black, gray, denim, or khaki short shorts or short skirt, high-waisted
• + white, black, or gray top of some kind
• OR black or white sundress BELTED AT THE WAIST -- NO empire line
• potential vest, layered shirt, or jacket in white, black, or denim -- NO SWEATERS

Guidelines for accessories:

• sandals, esp. gladiators or anything with an ankle strap, leather NOT jelly, espadrille, or other, TRUE sandal NOT FLIP-FLOP -- OR leather or canvas black/white/neutral lace-ups OR boots -- tough boots as motorcycle or winkle-picker, NOT round-toe scrunchy
• NO bag -- OR utilitarian bag - backpack, fanny pack, or as last resort TRUE handbag (no shoulder straps and especially NO HOBOS)
• the best accessories have some sort of significance or symbolism: for instance, political pins, wedding rings, friendship bracelets
• earrings are long and made of feathers or fringe or are hoops or simple studs but are NOT chandelier.  multiple ear piercings are good.
• chokers

Grooming:

• hair: should not be styled -- it should be air-dried and left in its natural state.  If it's frizzy in its natural state, it should be frizzy; if it's flat, it should be flat.  your growing-out bangs should be in your eyes.  don't trim your hair.
• makeup: pretty skin, some mascara.  NO EYELINER.  lip balm.
• no nail polish

Underwear

• I was a little wrong about bras.  it's OK to wear a bra, but it shouldn't be a heavy-duty bra.  It should be a garment and not an undergarment.  it should show -- the straps should show, or the color should show through your shirt.  or you can wear it on its own -- if it's a sports bra.  that could be really cool, actually.

The following are forbidden:

• irony
• color
• notions of "luxury" or "glamour"
• boho

Other notes:

• the right denim is old, thrifted, men's denim -- ideally a little torn.
• don't try to be sexy.  it's an election year, get over yourself
• shoes are going to be getting more and more utilitarian.  sandals this summer will give way to sneakers this fall and hiking boots and flat boots this winter.  notice how the nineties are coming back?
• also in that vein: perhaps instead of long hair, a bit of a sinead/ani moment?
• this winter the black turtleneck will succeed these black winter clothes.

Political hip-hop style

I was waiting for something like this. I saw an amazing, amazing Obama shirt this afternoon. It was in the window of a tiny hip-hop boutique on 28th near 6th Avenue: this big black shirt with a picture of Obama (shot from below, like in all the web site photos) giving the thumbs-up, and surrounding him the giant words "YES" (above his head) and, below him, "WE CAN," in puffy gold glitter fat bold type. There were other hip-hop-style Obama shirts in the window, too, but this one was the winner.

Tons of blacks and Latinos in their teens and twenties were psyched to wear the Obama stickers I and other volunteers were handing out at the Puerto Rican Day Parade on Sunday. Lots of people passed me waving these stickers around and then would circle back and say, "Oh, Obama. Yeah, I want a sticker."

What youth culture, black culture, and entertainment culture media will the Ice Cold Obama influence infiltrate next??

Tinted glasses, haircolor for men, nun casualwear

Great people-watching on the downtown 6 train today.

I saw my third man wearing tinted prescription glasses (not sunglasses) of 2008. The first two men were wearing yellow-tinted glasses and I saw both of them on St. Mark's. One was wearing a very nice suit and the other I don't remember that well but was generally a bit nebbishy-chic I think. This man on the 6 today had pink or "rose"-tinted glasses. He was a short, plump thirty-something man wearing a tight blue-and-yellow-striped long-sleeved polo shirt, lots of rings, and a gold bangle bracelet. Like with the other 2 men, I was too afraid to ask him what the deal was with his glasses. I didn't like his as much as the yellow glasses because they were very high-style, whereas the yellow-tinted glasses on the other men were otherwise very normal and I thought that was cool. What's the deal? Is this a fad? Does it have to do with insisting on one's own subjective experience of reality?

Second: I saw a tall businessman, also in his thirties, in a nice suit, with platinum-blonde hair that I for some reason did not buy as his natural haircolor. I started wondering whether he'd started going gray and was dying his hair back blonde. His face looked older than his hair, somehow. Then I saw it in a different light and the blonde looked more believable. It was hard to believe someone that nicely-dressed would be *tacky* enough to dye his hair. Then I wondered whether it wouldn't just be very punk rock to dye one's hair, if one were a man. Natural colors that were just a little bit off would be cool. A reddish tint on a natural light brunette, black on natural dark-brown hair.  Here's a redhead from Face Hunter who went Manic-Panic-red with great success.

Then I saw what I think must have been a nun in a nun's casual-wear ensemble. Do nuns have special casual-wear uniforms?? The all-over light-blue color was the main reason I thought she had to be a nun. That and most of what she was wearing was handmade: handmade light-blue knee-length A-line skirt with white embroidery (obviously done by one of the automatic stitch functions on a sewing machine -- scallops and zigzags); a light-blue V-neck cardigan, baggy fit, definitely hand-knit; white blouse looked like it could have been hand-sewn; and then my favorite, this chunky beaded necklace of alternating white and navy beads. This with tan hose and black-on-black cheapo sneakers, maybe Reeboks. And a short pageboy with bangs. She was doing the crossword. Is this an approved nun's holiday ensemble? Or was this woman just some sort of wacky Holly Hobby? I love spotting handmade clothes. They always just leap out at you. They look so original, and so wrong.

Maximizing the contradictions

I've already complained about how, in this twilight of the Late Modern collage aesthetic, consumers are required to put a lot of time and effort into expressing themselves through creative consumption. So now I'd like to propose a better, newer, more advanced transitional aesthetic -- a tide-over until the recession-delayed New Sportswear.

I mentioned it in my post about Unhairdos. My idea is called Beautiful Ugliness and would consist of ensembles, in various mediums including but not limited to fashion, in which disparate elements are combined without regard to aesthetic harmony and in fact with the goal of creating dissonance.

I think Beautiful Ugliness is a good next aesthetic step because it's a clear way to acknowledge a problem that I think we as a culture are avoiding: that our current mash-up culture is a temporary, uneasy compromise at best and is not helping to move us forward. Because, I think, we are so afraid of facing the huge difficulty of collectively fabricating more original cultural forms to meet our modern human needs, we're procrastinating by obsessively trying to make mash-up culture "work." And of course it feeds into consumerism, too. If everything is original and different but everything has to "match" and "balance," etc., you have to spend a lot of time shopping for the right-color, right-style, right-"wrong," in a way, products. Magazines and TV shows are full of advice on how to make all the crap work together. Obviously it's a big strain on everyone. Why not put a stop to it with something a little more "real" and honest?

Instead of "right-wrong," I propose "wrong-right." This means, instead of trying to sublimate the apparent "wrong"-ness of our mismatched culture into the "right"ness of matchy-matchyness, let's put it out there, create obviously "wrong" mash-ups, and decide to accept these as the new "right."

Think about it: when you look around as you walk down the street, does everything match? It absolutely doesn't. When you walk around in nature, in a forest, say, everything matches to some degree. But in artificial human environments, aesthetic continuity exists within individual, self-contained environments such as stores, sure -- but not (except in the strip-mall environments that almost everyone agrees are heinous) in larger blocks of what actually constitute our living environments. If you look at a whole block, a whole street, together -- everything clashes. Everything is a jumble. Because it wasn't masterminded; it's the result of evolution, not intelligent design. And lots of city planners would tell you that that's precisely what makes good neighborhoods good. So why don't we expand this aesthetic, which is so expressive of what's good about melting-pot culture, and apply it more deliberately?

I love what Andy Warhol wrote in THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol about his own version of Beautiful Ugliness:

I really look awful, and I never bother to primp up or try to be appealing because I just don't want anyone to get involved with me. And that's the truth I play down my good features and play up the bad ones. So I look awful and I wear the wrong pants and the wrong shoes and I come at the wrong time with the wrong friends, and I say the wrong things and I talk to the wrong person, and then still sometimes somebody gets interested and I freak out and I wonder, "What did I do wrong?" So then I go home and try to figure it out. "Well I must be wearing something that somebody thinks is attractive. I'd better change it. Before things get too far...So I think, "How weird. I know I look bad. I made myself look especially bad--especially wrong--because I knew a lot of the right people would be there, and still someone somehow got interested..."

Of course this, like a lot of what Warhol wrote, is intentionally facetious/misleading, as what he called looking "awful" and "wrong" was a large part of the cult of personality he deliberately fostered in order to get the attention he claims he was avoiding. This ironically-ironic ambivalence towards the positive-attention-getting potential of "ugly" aesthetics would be one of Beautiful Ugliness's contrbutions to the cleansing transition out of irony into Post-Postmodernism.

Arguably some hipsters dress Beautifully Ugly, but most try to make stuff match and "look good." I just think it would be so cool if more people tried to "look bad." And wouldn't it be amazing if "bad" became the new "good"? Maybe that extreme of topsy-turviness would be enough to "reset" us aesthetically so we could come up with some good new stuff.

The dress is dead, the pant is dead, the jacket is dead, long live the new sportswear

This Times Style piece covers the news that "the dress" "is dead."  As usual, no concrete reason is given -- apparently, “the eye is looking for something new, and so is the psyche."  Whatever.  I think all these old categories -- "the dress"; "the pant" -- are outdated, and that it's the entire dizzying, lucrative dance of separates that consumers, their eyes, and their psyches are sick of.

So, my big, long-range prediction is that old separates categories, which have been eroding, are going to finally wash away, and in their place more total-look, perhaps one-piece, minimalist, body-con-influenced outfits will come into fashion.  And as has been the way this happens since always, the new look will come out of sportswear -- actual sportswear, like you wear to play sports in.  The modern equivalent of what the stuff we call "sportswear" now used to be.

This trend has begun with the interest in dancewear and the "superhero" look.  It could continue with a revolution in material.  Comfortable, high-performance, eco-friendly, temperature-control, sweat-wicking fabric will finally cease to exist exclusively in the realm of exercise clothes and move into regular casual and formal clothes.  Design features of activewear, such as protective padding, zip-in-zip-out coordinating garments, etc., could then follow.

A really modern men's suit, for example, would be a form-fitting garment made of high-tech fabric worn over some kind of  body-shaping or -enhancing "armor."  Very Japanese, very superhero, very Aeon Flux.  Very Clockwork Orange.  Very environmentally-friendly, inexpensive, no-fuss, tough, modern.

A really modern women's outfit would, indeed, include some kind of leg covering.  (It's the extraneous fabric and modesty-related inconvenience of dresses and skirts that really makes them old-fashioned.) It would be basically along the same lines as the above-imagined men's garment, only cut to flatter a woman's body.

Update 5/6/08: Madonna may have chosen sportswear as her new look.  Her clothes in the video for 4 Minutes are a perfect example of New Sportswear.

Update 7/4/08: If even Free People is making corset-influenced clothes, something must be going on.

Homespun chic

The cheapest clothes are often the coolest. Subcultures tend to discover cheap ways of dressing (Edie Sedgwick's girls' skirts from the LES; hipsters' thrift store clothes; grunge rockers' work clothes), which then get knocked off mass-market style. You can still go out and try to buy "the real thing" for cheap once that happens, but the price of the original often goes up, and wearing the original is never quite the same again once everyone's wearing a copy from Urban Outfitters. There's one type of cheap clothing that can never be knocked off by mass merchants, however, and that's homemade clothing. I'm predicting that homemade clothes are going to be the next subculture fashion trend.

People are clearly interested in this. Teen Vogue has had a "DIY" section almost since it launched, I think, in which they show you how to turn an existing piece of clothing into a clone of some designer garment. Built by Wendy sells a book called Sew U, which teaches the basics of home sewing, as well as patterns. Project Runway obviously has people interested in making their own clothes, too.

I think a potential home-sewing trend would take a slightly different direction than the above examples, however. The reason more people don't make their own clothes is that sewing is so difficult and time-consuming. If more people are going to make their own clothing, it has to be easier and faster to make than conventional tailored garments. So, I think that body con will combine with the classicism of New Humanism to create an aesthetic of simple, easy-to-make knit clothing in a Nouveau-Ancient-Greek style (which has also been popular lately, with all the Greek drapery styles and the relaunch of Vionnet).

I'm wearing a dress today that I made in thirty minutes for $21. I learned how to make it by doing a little research online about how Greek chitons were made, got some fabric at Mood, and used my sewing machine (the pricey initial investment for doing this). I'll try to write up some instructions on how I did it, hopefully with a photo, sometime soon. It took me a few tries to figure out a pattern that didn't look like I was in costume, but what I ended up with actually looks pretty modern and vaguely Calvin Klein-minimalist.

Body con

I wrote earlier about my prediction that underwear would be "cast off as an unnecessary artifice standing in the way of fashion’s reimagining of the body." I now have a clearer sense of how that reimagining is going to take place. We're seeing its beginning in the body-conscious or "body con" trend, which I believe is related to the trend of "new humanism" in society and culture.

Superficially, body con is a sexy, show-off-y look. But at a more basic level, it's about the body, and letting the body beneath a garment determine the shape of the garment. No other style could be more human-, as opposed to fashion-, centric. This return to the body, after seasons of shapeless baby-dolls, sacks, and bubbles, signals the beginning of a turn away from "art" and towards "life" as the model for fashion.

In May of 2006, during the heyday of the shapeless dress, a representative piece of fiction appeared in Harper's. The story, "A change of fashion" by Steven Millhauser, chronicled the rise and fall of a spectacular fashion trend in which women's dresses grew to be as large, sculptural, and complex as houses, to a point at which women could withdraw into them and remain incommunicado for days at a time; suddenly, at the height of the trend, it reversed itself, and women went back to wearing regular, person-sized dresses. I think this story was about the overgrown artiness of our culture, for which fashion has been only one outlet.

A similarly representative piece of writing for the body con trend just ran in the New Yorker: Michael Chabon's essay "Secret Skin: An essay in unitard theory" (March 10, 2008). Although Chabon's topic was the archetypal superhero costume, his theory of its significance is just as applicable to contemporary body con fashion: "it ultimately takes its deepest meaning and serves its primary function in the depiction of the naked human form, unfettered, perfect, and free."

Just as the ancient Greeks celebrated their humanistic worldview by wearing draped garments and exercising in the nude, we are beginning to manifest a return to a human-centered view of things by wearing human-centered clothing. But also like the Greeks, we're striving toward not a completely "natural" human form, but an idealized one. This idealization is evident in two currents within body con: the unification and re-shaping of the body.

The drive toward unification is evident in the trend toward one-piece garments. Prada, Halston, Stella McCartney, Betsey Johnson, and many others showed jumpsuits for spring. The "one-piece" category at American Apparel is also going stronger and stronger. This new enthusiasm for all-in-one garments indicates a high regard for the aesthetic of the body-as-a-whole -- a regard high enough to overturn the shifting collage of separates that has been the basis of styling for decades now.


The re-shaping tendency is showing up in the growing popularity of all-in-one shaping garments. This got started a couple of years ago when a retro-ish corset trend showed up. But now, with Spanx, which celebrities are always talking about in tabloids, and products like the Dreambody, which I learned all about from a mesmerizing infomercial at the gym, there's a new market for undergarments that take a lumpy, out-of-shape body and magically streamline it.


The new unified, reshaped body is a sign of what the new humanism is looking for: a way of life modeled on the icon of inherently-perfect homo sapiens. I'm predicting that the "body con" trend will continue and extend past its roots in sexiness and provocativeness into a more general wide-range, long-term, minimalist, form-fitting trend in clothing.

Update 4/9: The Met is planning a May exhibit that "will explore the symbolic and metaphorical associations between fashion and the superhero" and "reveal how the superhero serves as the ultimate metaphor for fashion and its ability to empower and transform the human body."

Update 4/17: The NYT reports how designers are being influenced by the comic book aesthetic

2nd Update: Camouflage

I wrote earlier about the street trend of camouflage prints here and here.

This second update is long overdue because I've been seeing more and new kinds of camouflage for over a month now.  Desert camo prints have been gaining on the woodland ones I saw most at first.  But more curiously, there are now lots of camo-like prints in mass market clothes.  I've been seeing women's tops and skirts in floral prints that copy the look and colors of camouflage.  I also saw a skirt with a print of a collage of faces that formed a camo-like pattern.  There has been a lot of pixillated camo on skater-type clothes for men, too.

The transmutation of camouflage into traditional fashion patterns can be read in multiple interesting ways, such as:

• A symbol of how the foreign policy topic of the war has come to be seen also as a domestic issue
  
• An echo of the trend in contemporary art away from the abstract (camo's blobs and squiggles) and towards the figurative (flowers, faces)
• A gesture of solidarity with the troops
• An anti-war statement
• A motif of national insecurity (we want even our pretty patterns to "camouflage" and protect us in daily life)

These patterns haven't actually been having that much success: I've spotted them a lot on sales racks and in thrift stores.  People may be a bit put off by the potentially very loaded message of these prints.  Or they may just find them ugly and difficult to wear -- which they are.  I can't tell yet whether this trend is surviving into spring, but if it does, I'm sure I'll write about it again.

Strong shoulder

When fashion editors write about the recycling of 1980s fashion, they always take care to mention that no one need worry because one thing that will never come back from the 80's is the shoulder pad.  I think this is wrong!  I think big, strong shoulders for women should come back.

Particularly when and if Hillary Clinton loses the Democratic primary, a lot of pissed-off white women are going to want to put on something that really makes them feel powerful.  So are a lot of job-seeking or job-holding-on-to women, when and if the recession gets worse.

Suits have been coming back for a long time and I think they should really come back now.  Women's fashion should stop playing around with "menswear" looks and just do some good-old, powerful, classic jackets for women.  And, underneath, perhaps a regular-old shirt instead of a fancy cami.  And on the bottom, a skirt to the knee (the conservative length for hard times).

Update: Camouflage

In December I posted about all the camouflage army jackets I'd been seeing around town.  Since then I've seen more and more camouflage, but remained unsure of what it meant. Today I read this article, which describes how gang members in the U.S. army in Iraq are sending flak jackets back to America for use in gang warfare.  It gave me a couple of new ideas about the source of the camo trend.

On one level, the camouflage trend may have come from a street trend: gang members started wearing the stolen camouflage flak jackets around, clothing companies picked up on this, and the trend was turned into fashion.

On a more abstract level, the use of camouflage as a print in civilian wear may be a symbol of how American corporations are using the war to make money.  Commercializing camouflage by bringing it into "fashion" could be a statement about the commercialization of warfare.

All-black is whack

The all-black look is overdone: most people agree with that. But lots of people love black and want to wear as much of it as possible. What's the best way to pull it off?

Lots of people compromise with almost-all-black, adding color in just one place like in a top or accessory. That's a little more interesting than all-black, but it doesn't have much personality, unless you're really good with the details. It's also hard to make it look balanced since the one spot of color draws the eye like a magnet, making you look poorly-proportioned.

It's best to flip the ratio of black-to-color so that black makes up the minority of your outfit. Just a dash of black, in an accessory or a single item of clothing, is enough to make an outfit pop. It also makes you look cool, because a restrained use of black shows you're not trying too hard.

The most modern colors to combine with black are neutrals. I've been seeing lots of people on the street combining black with natural-colored leather shoes, bags, and belts. This is a great look because of the strong contrast between the ascetic modernism of black and the earthy classicism of the neutral. It is also very easy to put together.

To make a black + neutral outfit even better, it's good to add some color in the form of a print. Once you've got one print in there, it's O.K. to add a solid color. But an outfit looks best with at least one print to play off against the solids.

I'm not saying no one can ever wear all-black. But very few people can pull it off. You have to be extremely intense to make it work. And you have to be a wizard at combining different textures and fabrics, because that's what makes an all-black outfit work. And you have to either be very good-looking or have very deep, cool, or clear coloring -- ideally both.

A new separates dynamic?

There are multiple variables that can change in fashion as part of a trend: proportion, volume, pattern, color, skirt length, waist location, etc. But there's one variable I'm interested in but never hear discussed (probably because it changes so rarely) and don't know the name for, and that's the relationship between the various articles of clothing.

Even though I haven't heard a name for this variable, I am sure it exists because it has been very active and changeable recently. Here's the progression we've seen over the past few years in the relationship between women's sportswear tops and bottoms:

1. bootcut pants with tank tops and jackets
2. low-rise bootcut pants with fancy tops and jackets
3. designer low-rise jeans with fancy tops
4. skinny designer low-rise jeans with fancy tops
5. tunics, wide-leg pants
6. tops with leggings
7. dresses with leggings
8. dresses
9. bubble dresses
10. high-waisted jeans

This is probably a little inaccurate, but still -- it's quite a progression! From mid-rise bootcut pants to high-waisted skinny jeans and dresses? What is going on?! It's like there was a whole reimagining of the proper clothing for the torso (from tight and short to long and loose) and the legs (from long and high to tight and low and back again!) and the combination of the two. It was as if the women's top got longer and fancier, becoming like a dress that was worn over pants, until it became long enough to actually go over pants, then pants were eliminated and the dress took over, then evolved its own kind of "pants" (leggings) to go under it, which then grew more important than the dress...

The recent reorientation of the relationship between legwear and...torsowear (?) is similar to what happened during the sixties with the miniskirt. As Thomas Hine points out in The Great Funk, pantyhose came on the market just as miniskirts were surging in popularity. This invention arrived right on time, as pantyhose tempered the miniskirt's shock appeal by cushioning the visual impact of so much leg. Hine agrees that, just like it seems leggings have recently supplanted trousers, "it may be that pantyhose were themselves pants in disguise."

I think it's interesting to take a look at how we put our clothing together and realize how arbitrary it is. We take for granted that men, for instance, wear some kind of pants on their legs and some kind of shirt on their torsos. But this is far from how men used to dress in the past! Men used to wear stockings with little pantaloons and cropped jackets with tails; women used to wear dresses that were actually in two parts; women's sleeves used to be separate from the rest of their clothes; men's ties used to actually hold the collar tight, and their belts used to actually hold their pants up. Native American men traditionally didn't wear pants -- they mostly wore breechcloths, sometimes with leggings that hung from their belts, so that the total effect was somewhat like pants, but was actually put together very differently. Men in ancient Greece and Rome wore chitons, which were not pants at all but more like big loose dresses; men in ancient Egypt wore kilts, which were linen skirts.

All I'm saying is that our basic vocabulary of pants, shirts, and jackets for men and pants/skirts and tops or dresses for women is not the only option. Men and women could instead both wear some kind of dress; or we could both wear unitards; or men could wear skirts and women could be the default pants-wearers.

I'm wondering whether women's separates will keep moving around like they have been, or find one place and stay there. I'm also wondering when the next total paradigm shift will occur in how we wear separates, and what form it will take. One option I think would be really cool, and possible given current trends, would be if undergarments actually became the basic garments, much like the breechcloth was the basic garment for Native American men, and for the other separates to be layered on top of those as needed. For instance, women could wear underwear only in hot weather, a top added as it got cooler, then, as it got progressively cooler, socks, gloves, sweaters, warm thigh-high stockings, boots, and finally a coat. But a woman would still be decent so long as she had her underwear on--her underwear and her shoes.

Big sweaters

Just an idea for something to try: oversized sweaters on women.

Similar to the popular belief that it's uncool to wear shirts tucked in is the general consensus that it's uncool to wear a sweater that doesn't tightly hug one's every curve. Baggy sweaters are associated with nerdy middle-school girls who are self-conscious about "developing."

I think this notion is passé. A baggy sweater looks refreshing and chic and makes its wearer seem relaxed, down-to-earth, confident, fun, and comfortable in her skin.

It's important that an oversized sweater have some kind of banding at the bottom so that it hugs the body there instead of flopping all around. And I think it's best to keep it simple. A men's small classic crewneck sweater in a solid color should work. But please none of those terrible thick waffle-knit sweaters that are trendy right now.

Army jackets

Ever since it got cold this fall, I’ve been seeing men in army jackets all over New York. They are cotton field jackets with a “woodland camouflage” print. Some of them appear to be army surplus (probably the M65 Field Jacket) and some are reproductions with a twist such as screenprinting done over the camouflage pattern. I’ve seen them on thirtyish men of all ethnicities, most of whom have an understated, sort-of anti-fashion—but still stylish—style.

This is the second military jacket to be popular this year. The first was the M65 “fishtail” parka, which Prada brought back in fall 2006 and H&M and others knocked off early this fall. I attributed the reappearance of the fishtail parka to its association with the British Mods of the ‘60s, whose look had a mini-comeback along with the other recent ‘60s trends, and to the “urban warrior” look that was popular last winter. Associated as it is with the Korean War and the Mods, the fishtail parka does not seem like a direct reference to our current war in Iraq.

Neither do these field jackets. First of all, the men wearing them do not project a politically-charged fashion statement of any kind. Secondly, the print I’ve been seeing is woodland camouflage, not the desert camouflage all our troops are wearing. Do these jackets make a statement at all? Maybe they were bought for practical reasons, such as price (they cost about $70), the desire to avoid shopping (they can be found in any army-surplus store), a disinterest in fashion (they’re a uniform), or plain utility (although the outer shell is cotton, a warm, down-filled liner can be purchased to go inside). Or maybe men bought them to be environmentally friendly (buying a surplus item is a form of reuse/recycling).

I’m curious, though, about the “woodland” camouflage print. I hadn’t seen it around until recently, and I think its popularity must have some significance. Could it have to do with a renewed interest in nature and concern for the environment? Or perhaps an enthusiasm for hunting? Or maybe the jackets are a political statement after all, and the wearing of woodland camouflage, instead of desert camouflage, is a symbol of Americans’ desire to turn our military’s image away from the negative one it’s taken on in Iraq and back towards its traditional, more positive one.

I wonder whether anyone else has been seeing this trend, or whether they start noticing it after reading this. Please let me know (in the comments) if you spot it around or have other ideas or reactions.

Update 1/6/08: I am now seeing brand-new-looking desert camo on "cool dads" at Whole Foods and such places.

Update 1/11/08: Now seeing tons of camo-print hoodies and hats

Tuck it in

There's this consensus that tucked-in shirts on girls look ugly, nerdy, and wrong. Almost no young women wear their shirts tucked in unless they have to as part of the dress code for their jobs. For as long as I can remember (since the mid-eighties), tucked-in shirts have been extremely uncool as part of casual wear. Why is this?

I think it's because it's so hard to make a tucked-in shirt look flattering on a woman's body. First of all, it draws attention to the waist, which can be bad if the waist is too wide, too high, or too low. It also makes the hips look wider by making the waist look smaller. And tucking in can make you look heavier than you are: if you're overweight, it draws attention to your tummy, and if you're thin, the blousing effect can hide your flat stomach. I'm guessing that untucked shirts became mainstream because women realized that it was easier to look good in them. The women who contined to tuck in their tops were either very conservative dressers or not very fashion-conscious ones. Tucking in became associated with conformity and nerdiness, and therefore came to be considered not only unflattering, but uncool as well.
Of course, the uncoolness of tucking in makes it ripe for coolness. Now that 70s and 80s styles are so mainstream, I think authentic 70s and 80s styling should come back, too. Plus, as I discovered just now while looking for images of nerdy tucked-in shirts, even L.L.Bean now shows its shirts worn untucked on models on its website. If L.L.Bean has decided tucking in is too uncool for its customers, then it is definitely time for it to become cool for trendy people. (L.L.Bean is a great barometer; they also started producing bootcut pants just as those were about to become unfashionable.)

It's all in the execution, of course. For knit tops, I think it's best to go small and simple: a form-fitting (but not skintight) T-shirt or tank tucked into jeans (the high-waisted ones are perfect). For blouses, form-fitting is a bad idea; tops with very shaped waists that slip perfectly into pants or skirts will give the bad, conservative look. It's better to choose a looser-fitting top, accept that the blousing is going to happen, and embrace it.

Minimalism

Apparently the nineties are on their way back. I knew it was inevitable, but the idea of it was just so depressing and boring that I think I blocked it out. It makes sense, though--with the concern about the environment, the weak dollar, the celebutante burnout...It's time for minimalism.

The early signs are here: all the black on sale for winter; the Gap finally getting its act together and selling more colorful basics instead of trendy clothes (its older and younger brothers, Banana Republic and Old Navy, have made a similar switch as well); all the interest in Kate Moss; high-waisted jeans; the obsession with white Converse; American Apparel; androgyny. It's coming.

As soon as everyone acknowledges that we really are in a recession (or more precisely a "four-year slow-down," as my banker friend informs me), this will hit for real. Shoppers are already tightening their purse strings.

What will the apparel companies do? For a few years the fashion cycle has been so fast, and everyone has been buying trendy this and faddish that, throwing all their money away. I can't see how mass-market chains won't lose out when that suddenly drops off. There will still be some fads, of course; minimalism in the 90's wasn't just blankness, but a blank slate for other trends as well (grunge, heroin chic). But, like those, the fads superimposed on the 1990s of the 2000s won't be too lucrative, either. Luxury, of course, will keep booming through this, as those rich people continue to get even unbelievably richer, and they'll be able to afford the expensive designer versions of minimalism (People at Calvin Klein, start your engines).

So, the 90s trend is kind of a precursor to the end of the hipster fashion I predicted a few days ago. But, since it's still just a recycling of a previous decade, it's not the real deal. It will be more like a palate-cleanser. Because the 90s trend won't last a whole decade. In a few years, it will be over, and at that point we'll be all caught up; there won't be anything left to recycle...except for "recycling." How would that work--an ironic recycling of ironic recycling? That could be interesting. I look forward to seeing Marc Jacobs do it. Until then...black jeans, anyone...??

Head-to-toe

You hear it all the time: “I would never wear a whole outfit by one designer. I like to combine designer clothes with cheap stuff from H&M and vintage store finds to create my own unique look.”

“Unique.” Ha! That same unique look is worn by every single celebrity, rich person, hipster, and “fashionista” in the world. Sure, one person may combine that thrift-store jacket with a cocktail dress while another pairs it with an ironic T-shirt, but both people are wearing essentially the same look: that “I created my own unique style by wearing a bunch of stuff that doesn’t go together” look.

I’ll admit that, within the context of this now-ubiquitous “look,” creating a successful outfit requires some creativity. Honestly, it is quite a challenge, and someone devoted to getting it right can spend a great deal of time doing all the shopping and outfit-planning it requires. But to what end? A person who dresses like this may be wearing a unique outfit, but they are not sending a unique message. Instead they are sending the same message as everyone else on the planet: “I want to look creative, I hope I look cool, God these booties are uncomfortable, did I overdo it with the beret? Are people looking at me?” In other words, no message at all, except for a vague, self-centered longing for an identity. I think it’s only a matter of time, now, until people realize how shallow, boring, and essentially hypocritical this message is, and start looking for a new one.

I’m not asking for everyone to become genuinely unique and creative with their clothes. My, what a trial that would be! No, in fact, I’d prefer it if people dressed a little more alike, if that’s what it takes to get a new style going. After all, it’s nothing out of the ordinary for the majority of people to send the same message with their clothes; that’s what fashion is. In fashion, everyone sends the same message with their clothes at the same time because everyone in the society is going through the same things: the same economy, the same world events, the same environment, the same popular culture. Think back to some fashions that meant something (they’re easy to remember since we’ve now been recycling them in our creative outfits for the past ten years): flappers (“We’re liberated, we have legs, hooray!”); the New Look (“Yes! The war is over! we feel like looking HOT”); Courreges and space-age fashion (“We’re exited about the future, we’re going to fly to the Moon, we have even more legs, hooray!”). What fun those all were. These days, however, with our “unique” outfits, we’re trying to deny the fact that we’re all experiencing the same things. Instead we’re focusing on all the different experiences that are available to us now as a result of globalization and the internet, and that proliferation of possibilities is showing up in our wacky mish-mashed wardrobes.

But everyone is scared, too. And I think that fear is what’s causing us to place so much emphasis on creating a unique (but ultimately uncreative and “blocked”) style of dress. In this new world, with all its problems and possibilities, we’re afraid of losing our identities, of being submerged in mass culture. We’re insecure, so we’re exhibiting self-conscious, self-centered behavior. This is manifesting itself not in a new fashion, but in a new use of fashion.

Until recently, fashion wasn’t a very important part of most people’s lives. It was something that decorated, commented upon, and reflected life, but it wasn’t the focus of life. But since the millennium, fashion, and all the arts, have grown out of their proper contexts. Instead of being treated mainly as a decoration for life, the arts have come to substitute for it. We would rather look at art than what’s really going on in the world. Nowadays everyone wants to work in, or at least feel like they’re an expert in, film, fashion, music, writing, or art. Witness TV shows like The Hills and Project Runway: we’re all fascinated by people who are “making it” in these creative fields, and we think that in order to be truly unique and authentic, we have to be involved in creative pursuits ourselves, too. Witness the insane art market: everyone who can afford it is gobbling up art at high prices because they hope that its creativity and uniqueness will rub off on them.

But all this is an illusion. We can’t, as a culture, come up with a new statement in fashion because we’re overly focused on the fashion itself. Sooner or later, the feedback loop will have to break down, as a cannibalizing culture finally consumes itself. At that point, designers and other artists can turn back to looking at life, instead of at art, and a genuinely new style will grow out of that—one that reflects our times, our collective mood, and our culture’s aspirations. People—lots of people—will adopt the new style, and go from trying to be creative with their clothes to being genuinely creative with their lives—from insisting on the important uniqueness of their individuality to collaborating more in groups. Looking forward to that is very exciting.

I have a few ideas about what might happen, and I’ll probably post some of them later. But for now, I just want to predict (and pray) that before too long, we’ll start being able to say, “I’m wearing head-to-toe [blank],” and be proud of it.