I went shopping yesterday, and because I'm just really cranky for my age, I came home pretty annoyed. First of all, these things are everywhere. Rompers. Onesies for big people, basically. First of all, you have to weigh about ninety pounds in order to get the advertised look (which is what? toddler-chic?) and second of all, I'm guessing that unless you're really talented you have to take it all the way off to go to bathroom. (or have a quickie, for that matter.) Also, they look ridiculous. The rule I apply to my clothing is imagining my kids looking back at pictures of present-day me twenty years from now. Will they think I look like a circus freak? Yes? Back away from the romper. My parents, while not the snappiest dressers you ever met, are classic dressers. I look back at pictures of them when they were my age and they don't look ridiculous--they're in button downs, blue jeans, t-shirts, sweaters, pencil skirts, khakis. Maybe it's a boring way to think about fashion, but they don't have fashion-- they've got style.
There's not a lot of style going on these days, especially when it comes to clothes marketed to people my age. As far as I'm concerned the biggest offender on this score is American Apparel. Now, my primary complaint about AA is that they advertise on Texts from Last Night, splashing their porn-y crotch shots and nipple flashes all over a site that I just want to use to waste time in class. I feel pretty uncomfortable having some Asian girl in a black lace body suit that leaves nothing to the imagination just sitting there and staring suggestively at me from my computer screen, especially when all I’m trying to do is not pay attention in sociology. Maybe the gentlemen don’t mind so much, but I’m guessing they’re also not the target market of the clothes.
I’m pretty sure I don’t own anything from American Apparel anymore, although I did have some of their T-shirts. I was pretty taken with the whole “we pay our workers more than a dollar a day” philosophy of the company for a little while, but that was before stuff got so a.) expensive, b.) tacky and c.) skeezy. Okay, maybe it was always semi-skeezy. And those gold-lame-Spandex jumpsuits are not exactly the epitome of class unless you’re Ziggy Stardust. But this? WHAT IS THAT?
It's a Nylon Spandex Stretch Floral Lace Unitard. Now, unitard seems like a better word for anyone who would wear this than for the actual article of clothing, but that's beside the point.
The point, if I have one, is that we have to stop buying this shit. It's not classy, it's not aesthetically pleasing, and it definitely makes it hard to go to the bathroom. And our kids are going to laugh their asses off at us.
Style Rookie Tavi Gevinson's brilliant post on American Apparel: http://www.thestylerookie.com/2010/05/can-i-just-say.html
No comments:
Post a Comment