It's Fashion Friday!: Dressing For the Dogs

Pepto-pink for all occasions

           Now I know the reason that anyone watches the Westminster Dog Show is for those adorable, happy, furry friends, and certainly not for fashion. With that in mind, is there some sort of Dog Handler Ugly Suit store out there?! These people have clearly spent a pretty penny on their outfits for this event. The judges are dressed to the nines in their gowns and tuxes. If you are going to spend that much money on an outfit for a nationally televised event, you would think that the idea would be to not detract from the dog.

Even that dog sees those knees and thinks HAMBONE!

            I’m noticing a LOT of shorter than knee length pencil skirts. Since the dogs are close to the ground, this means we’re seeing a lot of ladies old knees, and calf muscles, and the dreaded cankles. I bet they didn’t think about that (DUH, doghandler ladies, DUH!). I have a dog. Clovis could never go to Westminster as he is half Labrador, half Golden. Those snotty show people are such mutt bigots. Anyway… I know from taking Clovis outside for walks and playtime that his 110 pound self can be a bit difficult to handle, and that’s not running. I can tell you for a fact that if I tried to run or prance with my dog while wearing a pencil skirt, I would land face first in the lawn and Clovis would take himself on a grand adventure.

Pencil skirts look GREAT when you push
your bum out at people's faces like that, don't they?

My mutt, Clovis

            I’m not saying these women need to wear pants suits (although that would be wise), but how about something that flares a little, or comes below the knee (so I don’t have to look at them), or actually allows you to move your legs? While I’m tearing apart the doghandler women and their poor taste, I must also say that I also do not understand the matching brightly colored skirt and jacket. If you want to be all one color, why not wear a dress? 

           If you’re going to the trouble of wearing two pieces, don’t match them. It’s like matching twinsets. And matching velveteen jogging suits. 

It's Fashion Friday!: It's A Bird, It's a Plane, It's UGLY PANTS!

            When I see the word “hero,” I think of Bette Midler singing in the movie “Beaches.” More specifically, I remember a hairless child singing the song “The Wind Beneath My Wings” (because there’s the line “did you ever know that you’re my hero?”) as a Karaoke selection at the Roller Kingdom indoor roller skating rink while I was at someone’s birthday party in the 80’s. I also think of the magnificent Strauss tone poem Ein Heldenleben with loud, hard, gratifying horn parts, a delicious sushi restaurant in NYC, and Superman. What I do not think of, ever, are clown pants – hideously printed, wacky, brightly colored, tacky, expensive, louder than the special effects in an action film at the movie theatre pantalones.

Hey guess what, I don't want your personality.

            Not too long ago Net-A-Porter sent out their weekly style mag discussing a trend called “Hero Pants.” Of course, I thought I missed the memo when I pondered, “What the hell are hero pants?!” The handy dandy Internet allowed me to discover that no one else knew what the hell Net-A-Porter was talking about either. Hero Pants or Victim Pants, really ugly printed pants seem to be a big hit this fall. I had almost forgotten about the whole shebang until I was reminded by the ocularly offensive ad Anthropologie sent to my Inbox on 9/24/12. They called them “Personality Pants/ Pants that go Pow.” I think the best part about the girl’s outfits in this email is that she looks like she did her hair with an eggbeater (I hope you remember what one of those is - see picture below if you don't). And I can actually say that is not an exaggeration. YOW. The webpage that email loads hurts to look at. 

Egg beater

            Let’s get back to this whole “hero pants” concept. As far as I can tell, the only requirement of “hero pants” is that they be ugly, based on the selection at this Net-a-porter trend page. In case you don’t feel like clicking through to that, I’ve selected a few of my favorites to show here. And I truly hope that you can envision the look on my face as I view them. If you don’t know me and/or haven’t been shopping with me, it’s something similar to the look on the face of the girl sitting in the lawn chair reading the book about Hitler and friends, except the eyes are bugged out a little bit more, brow raised and furrowed, and my mouth would lie somewhere between breaking out into uncontrollable laughter and a clown frown. 

I’m not sure which is the winner, Tablecloth Crotch, Leprosy Legs, or Golden Girls’ Next Door Neighbors’ Bathroom Wallpaper Print Pants.

            I recall one of my first visits to Century 21 (the discount retailer, not the real estate agent) on Wall St. I was 20. I had a tendency to like ugly things, sometimes. (Top secret information: I still like really ugly things for myself sometimes and that is why I rarely go shopping alone) My ultra-fashionable friend Alicia had taken me – I’m not sure if this is the visit when I bought my first pair of Prada shoes or a different visit. Anyways… I found these pants that I was certain I had to have. I’m pretty sure they were Etro. They were denim and they were covered with sequined apple trees. I can see you wrinkling your nose at me. It’s okay, I can take it. Thank heavens for Alicia, then Parsons student, now designer for Juicy Couture. She took one look at the pants I had in my hand and gave me a look that indicated that if I even contemplated picking them up off the rack we would no longer be allowed to continue our acquaintance. These pants could EASILY have fallen into the “hero pants” category. The real hero in this situation is Alicia. I don’t know what I would do without you.

It's Fashion Friday!: Help Hiawatha Get His Groove Back

On SALE at Nordstrom for $18.90!!!!
(scrunched up "are you kidding me" face)

           Do you remember Cherie Johnson? Please tell me you watched Punky Brewster. Some of my fondest memories are of watching Punky Brewster in Pennsylvania with my Pop-pop (grandpa), in the basement of their little house in Intercourse. The back of the room would be lit up fairly bright – that’s where Grandma had her sewing machine - and the front of the room where the television was much darker. Pop-pop thought Punky was pretty cute. This was early Punky, before the episode about refrigerator safety. Does anyone else think it’s strange that children are no longer told that it isn’t safe to play in refrigerators? If you have not the foggiest idea what I’m talking about, Cherie Johnson was Punky’s friend from across the hall. She lived with her Grandma and wore headbands the wrong way on her head – in a latitudinal direction across her forehead, as if she were trying to show you that her face went below and her forehead went above, like little Hiawatha might have worn except without a feather.

            Despite Cherie Johnson being a pretty popular person back in the 80’s, I don’t recall anyone emulating this head division by rubber band trend. I realize it was popular in the 70’s to tie things around your forehead. The hippies did it a lot, but those people were all high. In hindsight, I don’t see that anyone really advertised this as a good or trendy idea. In Hiawatha’s case, I understand. He wanted feathers to stick straight up out of his head. Naturally, the logical way to do this would be to have some sort of band to stick them into, and thus the forehead band is the perfect choice.

            Being a bit of a girly girl, I quite enjoy the hair accessories. I noticed in a recent trip to the Nordstrom accessory department that they had several large elastic headbands that looked much too large for the normal size head. I saw pictures of them online and realized that they are meant to be worn on the forehead. 

$48 at Nordstrom

$38 at Nordstrom

$28 at Nordstrom

That is NOT a hair accessory, by the way. That is a forehead accessory. It doesn’t keep anything out of the way of your eyes or tidy your locks in any way. I can’t see something like that doing anything other than giving you a headache. So how did this become a trend? Who is responsible for this ridiculous idea? It just makes you look like a dumbass. Upon Googling the concept, one can find pictures of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie sporting the things. See prior sentence.

            If you want to tell me some load of quadruped excrement along the lines of “It’s fashion forward! It’s so on trend!” or some other string of words that doesn’t really make sense together but you’ve pushed together in the misguided hope that it will make your superficiality sound smart, save it. I saw not a single European person trying to slice off the top of their head with an elastic in the week I was there. I consider the people of Italy, Switzerland, and Germany to be pretty fashionable. I think that Hiawatha would agree with me. I bet that he was a function before fashion kind of guy. Don’t you think he’d be pretty annoyed that all of these ditsy girls were stealing his thunder? Perhaps we can encourage him to make a reappearance the next time Elvis comes to visit. He and Elvis could take a road-trip across the nation, stealing forehead bands in the night. Elvis and Hiawatha – the midnight forehead band-its! 

It's Fashion Friday!: Dressing Your Child In Versace Is Not Cute, It Is Repugnant.

Young Versace store in Milan - not my
photograph and I'm too disgusted to care

           I went to Milan on Tuesday. I had never been there. Visiting one of the supposed fashion capitals of the world, I had expectations of being surrounded by beauty, art, and awe-inspiring textiles. I think I expected something along the lines of Paris, where art is around every corner, buildings are gilded, and luxurious textiles are about as common as cracks in the sidewalk. What I found in abundance was commercialism. Excess. Rude tourists. Greed. And very little art.

            I was quite taken aback by the fact that I found four Prada stores within a five block radius of one another. It seemed unnecessary. The tourists hobbling like weeble-wobbles because they had so many shopping bags hanging from each hand were comical in a Tim Burton-esque sort of way, rushing down the sidewalk to get to as many stores as possible before they expired. What I found most distressing was the number of designer label children’s clothing stores I came across – Versace, Moschino, Blumarine, boutiques with D&G. The fashion houses are not creating museum quality garb for wee ones. They’re hocking status symbols for mum and dad. To quote Helmut Lang, “Not every fashion is great fashion; not every art is great art.”

            When does art stop being art? The line blurs when commercialism and the laws of supply and demand are mixed in with anything artistic. Is it the act of putting a price on something that diminishes the art? Is it mass production? Or is it the change of mind of the artist from “This is my passion.” to “This is my job?” True art evokes feeling. The inside of the Duomo was evocative, whether it be art or spirituality could be debated. For the most part, Milan left me feeling empty and the abundance of commercial luxury for children was the most repulsive piece of all.

            I keep coming back to thoughts of the recent suicide bombing outside NATO headquarters in Kabul (Sept 8 ’12). An old friend of mine is there teaching music and has been posting stories about the children who died in the blast, yes, children. Innocent children – as innocent as they could hope to be growing up surrounded by war. These sweet souls will never grow up to know what it is to live away from bombs and guns. And the children of visitors to Milan will, perhaps, grow up dressed in Versace. The victims of this “act of courage (so say the jihadists)” sold trinkets for food while these other children wear clothes that cost more money than I have in my bank account.

            Children are supposed to play, laugh, learn, and get dirty. They are not supposed to know fear, war, terror, or hunger. Sadly, those things are a bit beyond our control. Elitism, greed, bigotry, prejudice, ingratitude, and entitlement: these are learned behaviors. Dick and Jane don’t care who made their clothes. They’ll only care if someone tells them to. Children learn these from their parents and those that surround them. In teaching these ideas, we also contribute to the theft of innocence.