Author: wdfyfe

Before WD called himself a writer, he worked at a number of different jobs from stacking lumber to interior design. He studied English at UBC and creative writing at ASU where one of his teachers, Rita Dove, taught him the importance of the tale. He has written for radio, magazines and newspapers, but never television. He’s published both fiction and nonfiction in Great Britain and the US. He reads French passably and speaks enough Spanish to get from A to B and find the toilet. He has interviewed John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Margaret Drabble, Kenneth Branagh and enough other famous people to make him a hopeless name dropper. His not-so-secret passions are history and trivia, and he has never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit — although he did come 4th one drunken Quiz Night at the Uxbridge in Notting Hill. He lives on the Pacific Ocean, although, not close enough to see, so he spends his days looking at a computer screen. It’s a wonderful life and he has only one regret: he can’t type faster.

Fashion: Listening to Your Inner Child

There’s a slippery slope that happens in this life, and it doesn’t end unless you find yourself chasing the garbage man down the alley in nothing but your Buzz Lightyear boxers and a beltless bathrobe. You might do this ‘cause it’s important; that trash is going to smell like dead hobbits the day after tomorrow. And you may even rationalize it by saying, “That trash is going to smell like dead hobbits the day after tomorrow.” But, you still know you’ve just stepped through the looking glass. What was once an intimate detail, known only to your mother and a few significant others, is now available to the general viewing public. More importantly, you hope none of your neighbours caught your Batman imitation on their cell phones.

We don’t all end up on Pinterest as “Meanwhile at WalMart” memes — but we could. There’s a charming little voice in everybody’s inner adult that whispers “What the hell? It’s only the Drive-thru. This shirt’s good enough.” So we grab the keys instead of listening to our inner child, who would scold us into, at the very least, changing our underwear. (I was nearly 10 before I realized clean underwear didn’t actually prevent traffic accidents.) It’s that same voice that urges us to wear pink with plaid and refuses to part with the UCLA T-shirt that was printed when Zorro was a boy. We all have it. Our parents warned us about it, but all of us still listen. Bad mistake!

Back in the day, mostly mom (and sometimes dad) taught us that going out in public was a sacred trust. People were looking at us, and we needed to show some respect. Neat was important, but clean was essential. As we got older, that sage bit of advice translated into sex, straight up and down. You need to look your best because nobody is going to sleep with a slob. Unfortunately, adulthood and cohabitation dulls the echoes of our parents, and more and more we end up relying on our own resources.

At first, it’s okay. We dress for work, go out with our friends, flirt with the cashiers at the grocery store and leave our private face at home where it belongs. However, eventually, those sweatpants are just too damn comfy not to get trotted out to mow the lawn. But that’s okay too: we’re in our own yard, they’re clean, and they still kinda fit in the crotch. Besides, they cover up that extra 10 lbs that’s been hanging around all summer. Oops! This is where it gets problematical.

As we get older, we tend to spread in all directions. Clothes just aren’t as friendly as they were back when we were twenty. And this is when our inner adult comes calling. “Hey, buddy! You’re a grown man. You pay taxes. You have a mortgage and a Mercedes. You haven’t eaten liver or lima beans in 12 years! If you want to wear socks with sandals, screw the hippie who says you can’t!” And we listen. But the socks with sandals (or your personal equivalent) are just the thin edge of the wedge. Pretty soon, it’s only work, weddings and funerals that get a tie. Family functions are all informal, and those sweatpants that kinda fit – question mark — have migrated from the back yard to the shopping mall. It’s unavoidable.

The thing to remember, if you don’t want to end up dressing like Robin Williams in The Fisher King, is that your inner adult is a spoiled brat. He thinks that whatever he says goes, and he pouts if he doesn’t get his own way. You’re far better off to listen to your common-sense child, who’s very aware of what not to wear. The parents explained it to him.

My point is that, as we get older, we all dress for comfort, not for speed, but you don’t get any points for running amok. Therefore, it’s best to cool your jets or you’ll end up as the Flying Dutchman of the Internet, repinned and reposted as The Old Man in the Leopard-skin Leotard.

A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

For a man (moi) writing about women is never a good idea; invariably, he’s going to piss somebody off. The problem is, despite what every amateur sociologist with a pen will tell you, women do not speak with one voice. Therefore, regardless of what you say, somebody is going to get mad at you and point out what an incredible handicap that Y chromosome really is. However, since women are half the population of this planet, and I’d rather not publically admit my cowardice (again) I’m going to write about women and, more courageously, one of the strangest things they do.

Just as the worm follows the plow, here on earth summer is followed by Fashion Month. All over the world supermodels are being dressed up like anorexic Barbie dolls in a hip-swinging, heel-to-toe, catwalkathon that dictates what women will be wearing when the snow melts again next year. These masquerade balls might be centred in New York, London, Paris and Milano, but there isn’t a person alive, male or female, who will not feel their effects. This kind of power is worthy of comment.

FYI: Just so you know, I’m a big fan of the fashion industry. I believe the way we adorn ourselves is central to our species and, more immediately, fashion, like trash, is virtually recession proof. A good thing in these troubled times. But I also have to admit I have absolutely no creds when it comes to fashion itself; I’m still wearing the Levis and sweatshirt uniform I wore when I was 20, allbeit in the new roomier, rumpstrung size. Don’t get me wrong: I’d wear Armani if I could afford it, but the lapels would probably be circa 1975.

However, to continue, one doesn’t have to wear this year’s fashions to notice that they’re godawful hideous — the culmination of the four decades of godawful hideous that came before it. In fact, women’s fashions have been off-and-on godawful hideous since Mrs. Grog the cave woman accidently tore her leopard skin and invented décolletage. Historically speaking, women have dressed in some of the weirdest contraptions imaginable. You don’t have to go much past panniers and bustles to figure that one out. Nor have things changed that much. After all, skinny jeans, a direct assault on the circulatory system, can’t be comfortable, and they must take upwards of an hour to get into. This kind of time and trouble certainly explains why, centuries ago, fashionable women were sown into their clothes every morning and stitch-picked out of them every night.

It strikes me that, given the evidence, fashion designers may have seen women, even examined them closely, but they have no idea what women are about. Otherwise, they wouldn’t harness them up like this. However, the more important question is why do women put up with it? Obviously, back in the day, they had to, but here we are in the oh-so-enlightened 21^st century and the fashion industry still generates billions of dollars telling women what to wear, and most of it looks like crap.

Here’s the deal! Women don’t dress for men, anymore. They don’t have to. If they did, the only retail outlet in the mall besides Starbucks would be Victoria’s Secret. These days, women dress for other women. Why else would somebody willingly pay money for a shapeless, strapless gown that straps her in like an L’Oreal cosmetic test bunny? Respiratory problems? It’s the female equivalent of the macho man, zero-to-sixty bum-numbing sports car or the bone-shattering mega-bass. I-can’t-hear-you stereo. Women style and profile for other women mainly because other women style and profile for them. And it all starts on the runways of Paris et al.

Take a look at any Give-Me-An-Award Red Carpet TV program. Who’s watching the show? It ain’t Ben and Gary from lamps and lighting at Home Depot, even though Selma Hayek’s going to be there, falling out of most of her dress. Nope, it’s Sara from plumbing who wants to know what dress Selma’s wearing, what Joan Rivers and her band of witchy critics are saying about it and where she, Sara, can get the knockoff so the girls back at HD will be green with… you get the idea.

Of course, there are some who would say this has always been the case, but I don’t think so. In the old days, attracting a man was a necessity for women, and marrying well was an art. Fashion played a huge part in this game of reveal and conceal. These days, while sexual attraction is still part of our makeup, nobody really cares what we cover it with. Witness Miley Cyrus’ recent VMA performance. Would she have done better in Yves St. Laurent? I doubt it.

I’m sure that the last thing any woman wants to hear is she’s a slave to the fashion industry. Or that in the caring, sharing 21^st century, she’s in direct competition with every other woman on the planet. However, as the man said, “It is what it is.”

And let the emails begin.