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i'm too sexy for this year.
VOICE OF AMERICA - "SPECIAL ENGLISH" WORD BOOK - yeah, this is a particular form of simple ESL for listeners in other countries. Interesting, but not terribly.
Now it's time for the seasonal "FASHION SUCKS" rant.
FASHION SUCKS RIGHT NOW.
I'm serious. I get catalogues in the mail. I see stuff in stores (though not that much, because I honestly haven't been clothes-shopping that much lately). Now, I know sometime last year I was begging for the horrific prairie thing - with all the shredded brown polyester lace attached to weirdly cut stretch calico skirts, and the fringe, and the general ickyness of it all - to go away. It seems like it mostly has, but it's been replaced in the trendy stores by something as bad or worse - imitation Diesel, imitation Triple 5 Soul (the real things are bad enough). These are clothes printed to look old and beat up, reminding me of the shredded jeans trend of the late 80s. Then they're taken apart and pieced back together very strangely, with intentionally-visible welt seams and so forth. There's also been this idiotic teen trend combining Gwen Stefani's look of like two years ago with Avril Lavigne (who just looks like she's hiding behind her hair & should not be any kid's fashion icon - that look of BDU pants and men's tanks only works when it's antifashion). All of this is a freaky worst-of-the-80s pastiche and I fear there is more coming.
The good news is that some mod stuff with clean lines and elegant design is starting to creep in. I'm never going to like the helmet hat, but it's a gigantic improvement over the driver and newsboy caps of the last couple of years. (For the record, my favorite hat shape is a buckety cloche.) I see bright, well-constructed, flattering coats beginning to show up. There's still an excess of puffed cap sleeves (which, hello, only look good on people with sticks for arms) and weird gathers and shirring in the wrong places and crappy off-the-shoulder or shoulderless disco-type wear and random horizontal stripes, but a few refreshingly pretty and smart items are showing up, if you look for them.
It's just a good thing that I haven't been buying many clothes lately, because if I had been, I'd be depressed. Sometimes being broke can be its own reward.
(It's also absolutely sickening that of all the catalogues that come in, the only one that's really had anything I liked was Penney's (!) - if you're crazy curious, it's the grey jacket on pg 70 of the winter catalogue and the long black skirt on pg 71. They have a sort of "Victorian dressmaker following a military trend" look to them, without looking 100% Victorian or military-inspired. I will probably hate these in person. I'll be surprised if I buy more winter clothing than a couple of v-neck sweaters and pairs of winter pants, this year. Oh, yeah, I am also liking Irregular Choice London shoes and the knockoffs that Target has been feeling compelled to make. Some of the ICL shoes are really astoundingly ugly, but some are cool, and at least they're interestingly ugly in a detailed cartoonish way rather than just ugly because they rely on shoddy construction.)
If you're curious, today I am wearing an offwhite rayon crepe sundress that comes just past my knees, with little red and brown-black chess pieces printed on it (the overall "feel" is a pink with darker red spots).. I'm wearing a tight black zipup v-neck 3/4-sleeve cotton hoodie over it. The housebuyer stopped by earlier with no warning, with yet another contractor, and I was sitting in the livingroom wrapped in a towel from my shower, so I had to duck into my room (close to me, far from where they were) and throw on some clothing before I could go into other parts of the house. I just grabbed what was available. I almost packed this dress the other day, thinking that it'll be out of season by the time I get to Ohio, but it's still just fine for here. I wore the hoodie A) so I wouldn't be cold and B) so that my big wide grandmariffic padded brastraps wouldn't show under the dress's much more delicate straps. Oh, and dull-but-comfortable rusty-brown Born slides.
Now it's time for the seasonal "FASHION SUCKS" rant.
FASHION SUCKS RIGHT NOW.
I'm serious. I get catalogues in the mail. I see stuff in stores (though not that much, because I honestly haven't been clothes-shopping that much lately). Now, I know sometime last year I was begging for the horrific prairie thing - with all the shredded brown polyester lace attached to weirdly cut stretch calico skirts, and the fringe, and the general ickyness of it all - to go away. It seems like it mostly has, but it's been replaced in the trendy stores by something as bad or worse - imitation Diesel, imitation Triple 5 Soul (the real things are bad enough). These are clothes printed to look old and beat up, reminding me of the shredded jeans trend of the late 80s. Then they're taken apart and pieced back together very strangely, with intentionally-visible welt seams and so forth. There's also been this idiotic teen trend combining Gwen Stefani's look of like two years ago with Avril Lavigne (who just looks like she's hiding behind her hair & should not be any kid's fashion icon - that look of BDU pants and men's tanks only works when it's antifashion). All of this is a freaky worst-of-the-80s pastiche and I fear there is more coming.
The good news is that some mod stuff with clean lines and elegant design is starting to creep in. I'm never going to like the helmet hat, but it's a gigantic improvement over the driver and newsboy caps of the last couple of years. (For the record, my favorite hat shape is a buckety cloche.) I see bright, well-constructed, flattering coats beginning to show up. There's still an excess of puffed cap sleeves (which, hello, only look good on people with sticks for arms) and weird gathers and shirring in the wrong places and crappy off-the-shoulder or shoulderless disco-type wear and random horizontal stripes, but a few refreshingly pretty and smart items are showing up, if you look for them.
It's just a good thing that I haven't been buying many clothes lately, because if I had been, I'd be depressed. Sometimes being broke can be its own reward.
(It's also absolutely sickening that of all the catalogues that come in, the only one that's really had anything I liked was Penney's (!) - if you're crazy curious, it's the grey jacket on pg 70 of the winter catalogue and the long black skirt on pg 71. They have a sort of "Victorian dressmaker following a military trend" look to them, without looking 100% Victorian or military-inspired. I will probably hate these in person. I'll be surprised if I buy more winter clothing than a couple of v-neck sweaters and pairs of winter pants, this year. Oh, yeah, I am also liking Irregular Choice London shoes and the knockoffs that Target has been feeling compelled to make. Some of the ICL shoes are really astoundingly ugly, but some are cool, and at least they're interestingly ugly in a detailed cartoonish way rather than just ugly because they rely on shoddy construction.)
If you're curious, today I am wearing an offwhite rayon crepe sundress that comes just past my knees, with little red and brown-black chess pieces printed on it (the overall "feel" is a pink with darker red spots).. I'm wearing a tight black zipup v-neck 3/4-sleeve cotton hoodie over it. The housebuyer stopped by earlier with no warning, with yet another contractor, and I was sitting in the livingroom wrapped in a towel from my shower, so I had to duck into my room (close to me, far from where they were) and throw on some clothing before I could go into other parts of the house. I just grabbed what was available. I almost packed this dress the other day, thinking that it'll be out of season by the time I get to Ohio, but it's still just fine for here. I wore the hoodie A) so I wouldn't be cold and B) so that my big wide grandmariffic padded brastraps wouldn't show under the dress's much more delicate straps. Oh, and dull-but-comfortable rusty-brown Born slides.
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what i wouldn't GIVE for a personal shopper who could find me good things for very little $$$!
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seriously, though. the last few years. it's not that i'm THAT picky. my style is sort of a punked-up or indie-rock variation on jcrew (which is Kind of Expensive). it's not that it's hard to find bland boring stuff in department stores if that's what you want. it's that it's hard to find NOTbland NOTboring semi-trendy stuff that's actually wearable. Because I am old enough to have worn some of the popular stuff right now in 7th grade, I am too old to wear it currently. (What did I have? Well, yoke skirts, off-the-shoulder shirts, that kind of thing. Take the Avril and J.Lo out of the current Delia*s and it looks like an ironic take on what I wore to school in 1987-8. WHICH IS NOT A GOOD THING IMO.) Some styles can be recycled on women 25+ who wore them as young teens, if the style is neutral and sharp enough, but this current bad-80s-stuff run is not one of them. where is "beautiful tailoring" and "smart dressing" these days? *sniffle*
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