Dear world,

please give me a job, that would be nice.

Thanks.

Fashion snobbery...

It's an interesting thing. I like to think I'm very open to other people's style but I was thinking about it and I'm not. I like, in my snobby fashion brain, to think that yes, I am very accepting of other people's style as long as they do in fact, possess style. Let me explain...


We have just finished a semester long paper which involves being split into groups and designing a collection for a certain NZ knitwear designer. (Won't mention the name as it's too soon to not hate them down to the core of my very being) To cut a long story short it's run by a 50-something year old man who likes to describe their clothing as "sexy"...... so we gave him sexy. A black and silver metallic dress slit to the navel and backless to be precise. At the end of the presentation he commented on the whole year as a whole saying "Our clothing is much sexier than anything you have shown us here today, our customers in Sydney want sexy clothing, this kind of stuff could possibly sell in Melbourne, in Sydney the people are a lot like they are in California" this proclamation was met with silence and I swear I saw tumbleweed roll by. 


We didn't know what to say. So fundamentally, people in Sydney dress like sluts? My fashion snobbery flared up. Overt sexiness is not something that I even consider fashion design, but clearly there's a huge market for it. It is a fashion truth that makes my brain hurt, and by the collections shown by my fellow classmates, they also hate overt sexiness. What is it that makes us recoil from it so dramatically? 


Think of contemporary fashion icons; Lady Gaga, Kate Moss, Carine Roitfeld and even Michelle Obama. The styling couldn't vary much more drastically than between these women, yet they are all fashionable. Lady Gaga could be said to dress sexily, but I don't think she does? She has a lot of flesh on show but it's not sexy per say. She does it to shock, not to make you want to sleep with her. Hmm... I do struggle to grasp "sexiness" as a concept that isn't as a result of good tailoring, styling and confidence. This is why I hold the label in question in distain as I don't think they get it. To look like you are trying to be sexy immediately destroys the illusion and having skin on show doesn't guarantee sex appeal, it just makes you look like a prostitute. 


When he left I think he thought we were idiots and that our fashion school was disappointing, I'm secretly smug as this opinion. It reaffirms my belief that we are great. 

Hand-ins are over....

I'm just supposed to be writing a materials report with a large section on pilling......SO HELLO BLOG.

My current train of thought goes something like this:

eat, sew, talk about it, stress, sew, sewing, I'm oh shit, stress, eat, unpick, sew, sew, eat, eat, stress, talk about it all again, try organise models, stress, sew, go home for tea, eat, remember I have a business assignment due in two days that I haven't looked at, decide to watch Space Jam because the temporary joy that gives me is greater than actually having done my work. Turns out this is not an effective long term solution. stress.

RWC observation no.2

Canadia you are my favourites.

I went to the NZ vs. Canada match last week and it was joyous. The All Blacks were joyous as they won by a country mile and the Canadians were stoked as they scored two tries.

To quote the man sitting in front of me:
"We're Canada, we don't expect to win, we're just happy to be invited to your world cup party!"

It was the friendliest sporting fixture I have ever attended, next week I am going to a semi-final which is going to be the exact opposite... ah well I'm planning on devising some form of kiwi costume so that will be magnificent.

"Anti-fashion"

The Anti-fashion movement has always somewhat perplexed me. I tend to file it in the disdainful section of my brain that also houses vegetarian sausages, alcohol-free beer and the phrase "have your cake and eat it".


I just don't understand these things and why they exist so I choose to file them away in a dusty corner of my cranium and pretend I don't have to deal with them. I do however live with a sporadic vegetarian, work in a bar and have excess weight due to cake consumption followed by empty plate despair; as such it's probably about time that I tackle these demons. 


Anti-fashion according to wikipedia.org:
Anti-fashion is an umbrella term for various styles of dress which are explicitly contrary to the fashion of the day. Anti-fashion styles may represent an attitude of indifference or may arise from political or practical goals which make fashion a secondary priority. The term is sometimes even used for styles championed by high profile designers, when they encourage or create trends that don't follow the mainstream fashion of the time.


This helps with my confusion a little but I still struggle to comprehend fashion shows that display the Anti-fashion. At what point does one switch from one to the other?


 Chanel is one of the most recognisable fashion brands in the world. A person who wears Chanel (convincingly) is widely regarded as a highly fashionable person. However according to Elizabeth Wilson, Chanel's style was described as "anti-fashion" by Cecil Beaton with her look being called "nihilistic".

From what I've gathered about Gabrielle Chanel, I think she would be pretty stoked with her clothing being
 regarded as mainstream (if exclusive) fashion. Chanel was about practicality and her own vision  of how a 
woman should look and dress and clearly is it possibly to move from the Anti-fashion umbrella into a world 
of haute couture and style celebration.

One of the biggest Anti-fashion movements is Punk. For me it immediately springs to mind as soon as
Anti-fashion is mentioned. How bitter must the original punks be when they see little teenage-avril lavinge-
types dressed up in tutus, doc martins and tartan?! I know I'd be bitter. The rebellion is gone, the sentiment
twisted into over-sexed commercialism. The philosophy of Punk shall be a topic for another day but it 
brings me nicely onto a hero of mine, Vivianne Westwood. For those who don't know Vivianne's history 
it is important to note that in the 1970s she, along with Malcolm McLaren, her husband and manager of the
 Sex Pistols, opened a boutique fashion store in London called Sex. The Sex Pistols wore clothing from
the store and it flourished, going against the anti-materialistic nature of the punk movement. I guess it's like
any anti-commercialist movement- it's only a matter of time before someone starts making a profit. (Che 
Guevara T-shirts being the ironic example I shake my head at most.) But getting back to Anti-fashion, 
when googling Westwood I saw that on many sites her clothing was still described as Anti-fashion 
(despite her success as one of the world's most successful designers). And her clothing doesfit the 
wikipedia definition, it is often contrary to the fashion of the day/today. So Westwood creates 
Anti-fashion fashion..... my brain hurts.

I just want to screw up everything - Vivienne Westwood

 Well Vivienne, you've screwed up my brain. I think my problem with comprehending this topic is my black and white view of the world and it's time to accept that Anti-fashion can be fashion.... it hurts just to type that. I feel like it's a concept that I can see and keep trying to grasp it but slips between my fingertips.
It's like non-stick glue, it shouldn't exist?! So I think I shall have to put it down to a nuance of the english language, fashion has far too many meanings. Can we rename Anti-fashion as Anti-mode? Ok this new
naming business is easing the stress on my brain.

Here's my new definition, one that will help me think about anti-fashion in the future:
"Anti-mode is a style of fashion that goes against the most popular trends and conventions of the time."

Hmmm... still not overly convinced... I think Chanel and Westwood would laugh at me and feel smug.

Cohese cohesion.

Is cohese a word?

As in, "chalk and cheese do not cohese"

I think the answer is no, but it should be yes. I am aware that it should be "are not cohesive" but I used cohese in conversation today and it had a wonderful ring to it so I don't care.

Cohese coheses. accept it.