Editrix Abby |
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FashionThis past week was Fashion Week in Manhattan and I have to ask you, is fashion sexy? If it promises a new season of short skirts and bare shoulders, it could be. However, once that long-legged look has been knocked off by K-Mart and you're seeing way too much thigh on 40-year-old housewives, fashion starts to look frumpy. When you're gazing deep into the endless cleavage parading up the red carpet at The Academy Awards, yes, what you're so enthusiastically appreciating is fashion--and it's definitely sexy. But when your mammary revery is interrupted by the nasal commentary of Joan Rivers, any carnal fabrications are immediately deflated. And when Victoria's Secret's web site crashes because every nine-to-fiver in America was ogling the online lingerie show instead of doing his damn job, fashion is most definitely sexy. That is, if you're one of the lucky ones who gets an eyeful of eye candy before technology delivers a digital cold shower.Sex certainly sells. And sex sells fashion. Which is a damn good thing, because fashion would have a hell of a time selling itself, because the answer is no, fashion isn't sexy. Who wants some magazine editor telling you that brown is the new black? Or that to be fashionable you have to wear the look of the moment. Yes, designers send 17-year-old pouting girls with preposterous hairdos down the runway in clothes that no one would wear outside of Manhattan or South Beach, and they do it all with the seriousness of nuclear war. Fashion magazines make proclamations with an equal lack of levity. This season, one designer was inspired by the homeless, presenting his pouters sporting actual garbage. How many of you have popped a chubby passing by a bum? Forget how politically incorrect it is to exploit the troubles of the less fortunate; it just isn't attractive. Mind you, Courtney Love wore one of those garbage gowns to The Golden Globes, but she was always trash anyway. Now she's just expensive couture trash. The most hilarious thing about fashion is that when you take a look around, the whole damn country--if not the whole fucking world--is wearing the same goddamn thing: khaki pants. It's like some sort of uniform. Americans seem to be saying, "Look, I have enough to think about. I just want to be comfortable and I don't want to have to make any sort of fashion decision." Bottom line: We just want to be slobs. We have made some progress, though. Once upon a time, when hemlines were down, they were down, and your chances of catching a glimpse of thigh were practically non existent. Women slavishly followed the fashionistas' directions and it was a cold war against knees. Or waists. Or whatever. Thankfully, along with all their other independence, women declared their freedom from the dictates of the fashion czars and now, regardless what the word is coming down from on high at Womens Wear Daily, you can still see thighs, waists and a whole lotta whatever. Even if hems are supposed to be over the knee. Which brings us back to, is fashion sexy? Not really. What is sexy is the person in the clothes, not the clothes themselves. The sexiest ladies of Fashion Week, as far as I'm concerned, were the women on the catwalk of the Lane Bryant lingerie show. Plus size broads in transparent negligees, giving more enthusiasm than attitude, wiggled and wobbled and won the hearts of even the harshest critics. Hey, that Anna Nicole Smith is one hot mamma! So were all the other size fourteens. And for those few flimsy moments on their Barbie doll mules, fashion was sexy. [Written in the late '90s...I think!] |
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