It's Fashion Friday!: Monstrous Marketing Muck-ups

            Whenever I find myself in an airport, I can’t resist buying a magazine. It’s pretty much the only time I spend the money on print media. I find that looking at pictures on airplanes is an acceptable activity. Looking at pictures and sleeping. Now I own a laptop, so a whole new world has been opened. As you’re getting to know me I can hear you thinking, “Sarah, do something different? No way! She bought a magazine anyway!” It’s true. I did. And as much as I wanted to buy the copy of The Economist calling out to me with it’s headlining article about the crisis in Syria, my shallow side won out and I picked up the latest issue of Vogue with the sole intention of reading it to rip it apart. What is it I have against Vogue, you ask? I don’t know. Maybe I just never forgave them for eliminating their horoscope section.

This is not appealing unless you are a
purple martian looking for a new bathrobe.

            Lucky for Ms. Wintour and her bland publication, I didn’t even get to their content before I found myself completely overwhelmed with distaste directly resultant from marketing failures. Did I go to sleep and miss some sort of shift in reality? I was under the impression that print advertisements, especially fashion print marketing, were to entice and encourage you to desire and purchase product. An effective marketing spread makes me not only want the clothing, shoes, and jewelry that the model is wearing, but also the life, looks, and location of the model. I want to BE the model. I want to be standing by that pool, drinking the martini, wearing the diamonds, having the perfectly tailored chiffon empire-waisted gown gently floating in the breeze as my pool boy waits for further instructions.  Right?

            Well, I opened up the August 2012 issue of Vogue and found myself staring at Lindsey Wixson decked out in giant purple slabs of agate (Maybe? That’s what it looked like. I’m no gemologist), with the most dreadful lilac space age bob, carrying a rock-like minaudière that resembled a coffin for a boutonnière, sporting all black Chanel. Perhaps in a different setting Karl Lagerfeld’s designs would have been appealing, but I looked at that picture and thought, “Good grief I don’t EVER want to look like that.” 

Hat trashcans - the portable way to make sure you have somewhere
to dispose of your recycling after lunch.

            Not many pages later, I found myself staring at some print from Louis Vuitton (they just can’t catch a break with me this month). Now I will say, the handbags these young ladies were photographed with were somewhat smart. I could like them in a different setting. The stylists RUINED it. These girls have upside down trashcans on their head. Felted wool trashcans. Millinery on LSD. No, scratch that. On LSD they’d at least be in pretty colors. It’s Millinery on meth. Toothless, dirty, ugly hats. The peasants in My Fair Lady had nicer hats. 

Little Miss Muffet sat under her tuffet, watched Edward
Scissorhands, and lost her mind (in quadruplicate).

            Even so, LV doesn’t take the cake for the worst showing in the magazine. It’s funny - these are the kind of weird photographs I expect from D&G, Miu Miu, Balmain, and the like….in comparison their ads were so tame. The winner of the worst editorial marketing photo of the year is…… drum roll….. Juergen Teller for Marc Jacobs!!!!! When you turn the page and see a bunch of dumpy anorexic girls in white cake makeup, with faux? Real? Fur hats (although they were big enough to be tuffets for Pomeranians), dowdy sweaters and brocade jackets, and think “Is THAT JOHNNY DEPP?” you know you’re in trouble. I don’t want to look like Johnny Depp. I don’t want to wear a fur tuffet on my head. And I certainly don’t want to hang out with anorexic girls in ugly sweaters. I want pretty dresses, diamonds, and pool boys. If anyone in your marketing department told you otherwise, they were sadly mistaken. 

It's Fashion Friday!: If Mr. Green Jeans Could See You Now...

           When I decided to start this blog, one of the platforms was that not all people with an interest in fashion are vapid, superficial nincompoops. I’ve always found it pretty offensive when people have expressed to me comments like, “You’re too smart to be a musician,” “You’re too smart to work in retail,” “You’re too smart to WHATEVER.” There are intelligent people touring all walks of life. People’s intellects should not be judged based on their professions, hobbies, or interests. That being said, we cannot escape the fact that there are plenty of superficial, idiotic morons walking amongst us (some of them even have ivy league diplomas). While these people can be infuriating, they also provide much fodder for our entertainment.

            Thanks to a friend, I was directed to this article on Gizmodo: “Skinny Jeans Are Damaging Your Health.” I don’t wear skinny jeans because I find it really uncomfortable to have such an anaerobic fabric as denim clinging like Saran Wrap to my calf muscles (and my legs are quite chicken like, so I don’t know how the chunky lower leg crowd can stand it). Overall, I don’t have a problem with them. And there are several people who have managed to find pairs that fit and didn’t make them look like they were suffering from a bizarre case of edema in the thigh/ass region. (You know… very thin on the bottom, but looking like there might be a circular life preserver around the hips underneath the pants.)

            According to the article, some of you out there have taken the vanity thing to an extreme and are actually wearing pants that are giving you nerve damage. NERVE DAMAGE!!!! I can’t stop laughing when I think about this. Your jeans are compressing the outer nerve in your thigh into the bone at the top of the hip joint. You may have numbness; you may have pain. Now I happen to be familiar with nerve pain. I have suffered from sciatica, caused by compression of different spinal nerves, on and off for years. And I can assure you that nerve pain is one of the most jarring, excruciating sensations I have ever experienced. So, I am just shaking my head at the fact that anyone would allow themselves to suffer nerve pain from wearing pants that are too tight.

            In addition to this, I can’t figure out how you are getting these tight jeans on your body without spraining back muscles and giving yourself a hernia. I wear leggings and tights, and they are fairly tight and a pain in the ass to put on, but not tight enough to cause nerve damage. These skinny jeans have to be even tighter than support hose. Right now, I’m picturing someone trying to put a pregnant sow into one leg of some pantyhose, because that has to be an equivalent simulation of what is going on here.

            Vogue.com thinks they have the answer with this fall’s “The Perfect Fall Pants.” In print they are claiming that bootleg and straight leg pants will be the new skinny jean. I can agree with the sentiment. The examples they give, on the other hand, make me wonder what kind of crack was passed around at their daily morning meeting the day this was compiled. Their cover photo exhibits some Rochas brocade pants to the tune of $1540. (Rochas makes some beautiful clothes, but their Fall/Winter 2012 collection looks a bit like they were trying to outfit Professor Trelawney – crazy divination professor/Emma Thompson – from the Harry Potter movies.)

            Filipa Fino (Vogue) claims, “Being fitted on top and flared at the bottom, these pants accentuate a feminine shape…The key to these pants is a heel, and they’re great if you’re short and want to hide it!” That may be true if the pants were not this horrific pattern. Not only do these pants scream pajamas, but these circles are going to make any tiny person look dumpy, no matter how flared the silhouette. To be honest, they look more like a wide leg than a flare.

            Sadly, it doesn’t really get any better. Aside from this beautiful pair of trousers by Prabal Gurung (which could be perfect if they weren’t $1125), the other selections in the editorial are either ugly, impractical, or both. Ankle zips on high-waisted white pants that appear to have front pleats by Doo.Ri. Ankle length skinny pants from Gap (didn’t they say they were going to show us something different than skinny jeans?). A couple of pairs of putty colored pants with slanted pockets at the hip courtesy of Gucci and Balenciaga. A Helmut Lang cropped pleated pant. I love Helmut Lang without question, but I have tried on enough of his pants to know that they are made specifically for boy shaped bottom halves.

Need I go on? You can look at them yourself. The colors are bland and boring and none of them will look good on anyone who isn’t a curve-less size 4 or below. This leads me to believe that these people working for Vogue don’t know much what they are talking about. Nor do they understand what a flared leg actually looks like.  Maybe their pants are just too tight and they’ve gone daft from the nerve damage.