I’ve been reading fashion magazines (as one does when the world economy crumbles) and I am baffled once again by the forecast that “pale white skin and bright red lips” constitute a major trend for the autumn/winter season.
It is a look I’ve been fronting for well over a decade, in several different countries and the most fashion forward communities, without meeting more than maybe five other people who also ascribe.
This particular trend prognostication happens about every eighteen months, with no discernible impact on street culture. It just doesn’t work for a lot of skin types, and anyway, the hassle factor is quite extreme.
Who would bother? Only the most obsessive, and you know what? We aren’t doing it because some random magazine dictated the choice.
In a similar vein, the menswear guides are pushing posh.
Now, I live in the most rarefied of all the British cities, and often hang out with landed gentry. For real. Still, I know precisely one person who routinely wears three piece suits with all the accoutrements: my son.
In fact, he finds it disturbing that his school uniform consists of a casual jumper and slacks. He hurries home to change into more civilized garments. Like a waistcoat and bow-tie.
Of course he started dressing like this when he was eighteen months old, for his own idiosyncratic and compulsive reasons. I doubt it is a style that could be acquired otherwise.
The main point though is that we are not fashionable. We’re just freaks.