Deconstructing Kari

Fashion confounds the mind, explores desires and dreams, expresses individuality and invites the world to take a second look, when it is done well. When it is not, fashion is just a hot mess.

I find myself growing more and more frustrated with the fashion scene. At one time originality, elegance, creativity and glamour ruled the runways. I now see a hodge-podge of recycled looks. The cuts of the clothes are from the eighties, the styling is reminiscent of the late seventies, the colors and the fabrics are from the sixties and the whole thing leaves me yearning for something fresh. The models have gone from thin to barely living and what once was a showcase of luxury that the common woman could not afford has been replaced with what the common woman cannot wear.

I wonder who these designers are designing for these days. Certainly not the women I encounter on a daily basis. Women from the bank downstairs are not going to sport gladiator heels and exaggerated shouldered blazers with harem pants to work. Not unless they want to get written up or mocked relentlessly. Women in the shopping malls might sell the clothes, but these same women are not wearing them while they work the cash registers and clean the dressing rooms. Women working in the art galleries and design studios might infuse creativity into their everyday lives. Yet these women will not stand for hours a day in nine-inch stilettos. Women with hips and breasts and curves and those who measure in at less than six foot tall (which includes the VAST MAJORITY OF WOMEN IN THE WORLD) are unable to wear so many things that I see touted as ready-to-wear fashion. The tulip skirt, the leather legging, the harem pant, and the tent dress are fashion disasters for most women. Yet these have become the staple shapes of the fashion industry of today.

As a result, the common woman yearns to bring the trends of the runway into her reality. She saves her funds to invest in these designer pieces, proud to sport the cutting looks. With her hips, curves and normal-length legs, these trendy tulip skirts and harem pants make her look wretched. She sees herself, grossly disproportioned in these awful cuts and compares her image to that of the six foot tall, 100 pound model on the runway. The typical woman feels the pangs of defeat and disappointment and rather than seeing that the clothes are wrong for her, thinks herself terrible. She sees the flaws in her own body, sees the curves as imperfections, sees the hips as oddities, or even sees the breasts as limitations. She does not stop to think that perhaps the flaw lies in the clothes themselves.

Perhaps I feel this way because I am one of those typical women with hips and breasts and curves and those who measure in at under six foot tall. Perhaps I am just speaking for myself and perhaps I just sound jealous of those that can pull off these looks. I wish that I could properly convey how much this is a flawed perspective. If a woman is able to wear these troublesome looks, that’s great for her. I would probably see her walk by and gaze in a complimentary fashion as she walks by. I do not envy her ability to wear those clothes. I am smart enough, and confident enough, to realize that certain things work for me and certain things work for other women. My frustration simply lies with the majority of designers seemingly turning their backs on the greater part of the women in this world. Those women that cannot work these unforgiving pieces, those that cannot make these looks work, those women that could be investing millions of dollars in that designers clothing line. It seems beyond ignorant, prejudiced and simply bad business.

I wonder what measures it will take to truly change the industry. What will be required of the magazine industry and the retail outlets that support this misguided direction that the designers are taking? What will be required of the woman that is spending her evening staring longingly into the magazines and yearning for the new Yohji Yamamoto? What will be required of the people infusing the funds into the fashion industry to make it fundamentally change? Perhaps we just need to keep our wallets closed for a while and maybe then they will get the message.

Until then, I will happily put aside my Vogue and Bazaar magazines, pick up good old Glamour with its figure flattering clothes, its respectful representation of affordable clothing and its range of models from straight to plus size, and hope that the industry starts to take notice. Not that losing my subscription dollars will put a dent in their respective pocket books, but at least I am exercising my opinions rather than just feeding the beast.