Thought I would quote one of my least favorite songs up thurr with that little Usher number. Anyhow, here they are. There's a good possibility that this is going to be very disorganized and scatterbrained but that is fine with me. And now I'm going over the quick notes I jotted down in my phone to help me remember all this and I'm wishing I had done a little more than jot. I always tell myself that I'll remember things--what page I'm on in a book, the lyrics to a song I want to look up later, the more important details of a rant I plan on sharing with the internet--and alas, I never fail to forget. But I'll try anyway.
Disclaimer: I was about to write "I wrote this in the heat of the moment. I'm sorry if anyone is offended". But to be completely honest, I'm not sorry. If you're offended by something like this then I can't help ya.
Last Thursday, during a long traffic-filled car ride from the city to my wee hometown on the other side of the bay, I passed the time flipping through an old Elle, the most recent edition of San Francisco, and the most recent edition of 7x7 (which really pissed me off because those bastards stole the name of my future business. More on that later) which is a magazine also based out of and on San Francisco. And just like every other time I look through fashion and lifestyle magazines, I found myself getting increasingly irritated and impatient. And annoyed and about a hundred other adjectives that have to do with judging other people's lives. I'm not sure how to build up to this, so here it is. I cannot stand the Fashion World. I hate fashion magazines. I do not frequent Style.Com and on the few occasions that I have, I wanted to throw something out the window. I love style, and exploring style and my personal style and the personal style of other individuals but to me, that's worlds apart from the Fashion World. I have it in caps the way one might put Wall Street in caps. It's an entity. A breathing beast. And in 2 seconds I've managed to turn into Andy from The Devil Wears Prada in the unforgettable scene where Meryl Streep kindly explains to her just where her bargain blue sweater really came from. I get it. The clothes I wear, the clothes you wear, are or were at one time decided into existence by the Fashion World and it's affiliates. I am a piece of it whether I want to be or not. I know. But I felt the need to make my feelings clear here as a way to stop kidding myself into believing that I'm happily suckling at the fashion teet. I don't follow designers. This doesn't mean that I don't respect and revere artistic brilliance when I see it (Alexander Mcqueen, and not just because he is recently deceased. I've never understood why death makes mediocre people geniuses). I don't seek out trends, but I'm aware of their influence on me and try to be as conscious of that as possible. I do not blindly step into a harem pant simply because it is a harem pant and I find it infuriating when people do. I don't appreciate the ploys used by fashion magazines and websites to create an inclusive yet exclusive feeling: "what we're loving right now", "who we're wearing", "how to get our look for less". Screw you. Sorry, it had to be said. I don't like the person I am when I read these magazines. I start feeling like I'm not doing enough, and it won't be enough until random people know my name and my business. I hate that. I feel immediately better when I close the magazine, or get off whatever site I'm on. I don't need 15 minutes of B-list fame to feel like I'm doing what I'm meant to do with my life. Yes, I want to be successful yes I'm ambitious. Yes, I love personal style and panache. And yes, I'm okay admitting that much of what is incorporated into my style is influenced and determined by Karl Lagerfeld and his friends. But I have always been this way. Before I even knew what a fashion magazine was. It's just one of the many ways I express my creativity. So why? Why do I feel the need to tag along behind this beast that I don't particularly like and mock when it's not looking? For the record, I don't judge those who are good friends of the beast. I don't judge the beast itself. I wish I didn't have such strong feelings about the beast because in a parallel universe, I could inhabit it's world easily. But in this universe, the one that I do inhabit, I find it frivolous. And don't think that I don't scrutinize myself for my own frivolity because believe me, I do.
This didn't quite come out as eloquently as I planned but there it is. I'm not going to continue putting fashion content on this blog unless it really strikes a chord with me, and so far that is how it's been for the most part. But I gotta cut the bull shit. That's it for now. I don't feel like checking over it for mistakes so I hope there aren't any!
-LG
Edit: I just reread my poorly jotted notes and realized I left some details out. And then I just tried to fill those details in, but I can't really. This will have to do.
Edit 2: By "fashion content", I mean runway shows that I didn't watch, blurbs on designers that I know nothing about, or trends that I find ridiculous but see everywhere I go. I'll continue posting outfits that I want to share.
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