More on Clothes

Mel responds to my post.

One of the things -- both annoying and wonderful -- about writing is how it takes on a life of its own once you've let it go. It always amazes and frustrates (and also inspires) me when people respond to my writing in ways I didn't intend or anticipate. Which seems to happen a lot with blogging, perhaps due to the nature of it all: hastily composed and read posts floating around linking and being linked, comments appearing (or usually not) and taking things into new directions.

Anyway, Mel says:

is Kate beginning with a quote from me advocating a thoughtful and open-minded way of analysing one's feelings about clothing one doesn't wear or like, and then finishing by saying her preferred mode of engagement is mindless mockery?

My immediate response to this way "aargh no that's not what I meant at all!"

Mel continues:

I couldn't disagree more with the idea that some clothing choices don't merit attention other than to dismiss them as 'ridiculous', 'silly', 'weird', or, in generationalist terms, as just one of 'those things' that 'the kids of today', aka 'Gen Y', do.

I also couldn't disagree more with this position, and it certainly wasn't what I was reaching towards with my little ramble on fashion. I don't think clothing should be dismissed as silly or weird or stupid, even if one initially finds said clothing silly or weird or stupid. Unless, you know, it is silly -- like people who don't wear enough clothes in winter, or the way that summer fashion for women seems to encourage unhealthy tanning. And so on.

But I do reserve the right, as I originally said, to have that reaction in the knowledge that it's not a useful reaction to have, and to enjoy things like Go Fug Yourself as a guilty pleasure (frankly, I think it's healthy to poke a little fun at the cult of celebrity and 'fashion' and Chloe Sevigny as a fashion muse and what have you. I think Go Fug Yourself does that, but it also crosses some lines that I'm not comfortable with, aka calling people 'saggy tits' and so on. Still, I read it and I laff and laff, and I'm not going to pretend I don't).

Indeed Mel's closing paragraphs in her post map out ways in which mockery or 'finding things silly' is a form of social control, and that's a real thing too: witness the mocking of emo kids or goths or mods, or anyone else who looks 'strange'.

Anyway, I said something else in the comments at Mel's which I wanted to repeat here:

Oddly enough, in Claremont, I tend to feel excluded from the 'community' by dint of being less well-dressed than other people, and perhaps there's an element of sour grapes in my own negative response to what I'd consider daring fashion choices.

There's a class-age-weight thing going on for me when I regard young women in 'daring' -- do I sound like a Nanna when I use words like daring? -- or high-end or expensive clothes. I can't afford those clothes (see my comments in the last post on shopping mainly at Target), I have the wrong body shape for most of them, I don't 'need' nice clothes for my day to day job, and I do tend to feel a bit envious when I see well-dressed young women for those reasons.

At the same time, I find a lot of women's fashion really stupidly sexualised, and I personally don't want to wear clothes which make me uncomfortable because I feel like my boobs are going to fall out, for instance. I also don't like physically constricting or painful clothes.

Throw into the mix my feminism, and my desire to not participate so much in pointless consumerism, and I find my 'relationship' to fashion and clothing -- including well-dressed people -- is somewhat complicated. The ideal solution, of course, is to 'wear what I want and stop caring'. But... but... it's not that easy, right?

Well, yeah, it probably is, but where would the fun be in that?

My other solution to my own personal fashion dilemma is that I'm going to buy myself a sewing machine for Christmas. I've been reading A Dress a Day for inspiration. (Oh and Twisty's posts on fashion and femininity, which you really should do yourself a favour and read, even if just to disagree violently.)

Anyway, I'm really fascinated by Mel's discussions of fashion and hipster culture, and if you want to further that particular discussion, please do so at Mel's blog. Alternatively, if you want to call me self-obsessed and boring, the comments are your oyster. Or something.

Comments

[Laura]

The sewing machine is a good idea, Kate. It's not a perfect solution - you'll have some disasters which will make you feel like you've been wasting time and money - but in the long run you'll end up with well-made clothes that you like which fit you properly.

[anthony]

This has been bothering me all day. The problem is that you weren't treating shortsuits with the seriousness they deserved?

[Kate]

They're playsuits Anthony, and I daresay I will never treat them with any sort of seriousness.