When I was a child my larger than life imagination led me, not only into a world of phobias and fright, but into the magical land of fancy dress. It was my favourite past time, as was shopping for any and every dressing up outfit around; the Disney store racks in particular were raided on one too many occasions by myself. As I have grown, so has my love of clothing. Each and everyday I wake up and thoroughly enjoy playing dress up for my day! I understand that for some the fashion industry is daunting, a cruel and well dressed monster that can chew you up and spit you out onto Oxford Street if you aren’t careful. For me it is solitude. I’ve never been the most beautiful girl in the world, but as long as my hair is in a semi-appropriate place and I have a costume on that makes me smile then I feel that smidgen more confident in myself.
Apparently some poor, unfortunate souls fail to share my appreciation. This morning Tanya Gold published an article on the guardian entitled “
Why I hate fashion.” Oh god the outrage! To begin with anyone that cites
“I spit at Vogue” was NEVER going to be my friend. She asks
“Do men flee my fashion-free person?” Men do not choose a partner based on their fashion choices. Many women choose to express themselves through their clothing, I myself am one of them. The way you dress inevitably whispers ones personality into passer-by’s ears. Other women would feel like a bull frog in some of my outfit choices, they are the jeans and t-shirt gals. I always wished I could wear a pair of jeans and a tee and instantly be cosy and comfy. This is not the case. While others extract confidence from a pair of denims, mine is sourced from my £1 Primark opaque’s. It’s naïve and silly to believe fashion is about pulling. Or even about men. Fashion and style is to women, what sport is to many a man.
“And don't forget shoes! Surely I love shoes, the icons that Carrie Bradshaw worshipped instead of a god? No? I must be ill. Weep for me in my giant knickers. I am outcast.”
I wear big knickers! Big knickers are pretty much mandatory wear in seasons filled to the brim with body-con. And I have never been overly fussed about shoes. I can look at a shoe and think it is the most beautiful creature in the world, yet at 5ft 7” high heels turn me into Jo, the jolly green giant currently occupying a slot on Saturday nights Take Me Out. Alas, unlike Tanya I am confident enough in myself that I’m not embarrassed by these confessions.
Tanya also describes the anger she feels at shops. Through years of retail work, including two years at Evans, I have watched women of all shapes and sizes reject and accept numerous fashion fads or even simple items of clothing. Personally, I believe from experience that it is all in confidence. Some of the women I served had beautiful bodies, they looked amazing in the clothes. However, when I informed them they simply shrugged off my opinion believing my main aim in life was to sell that item to them no matter what. I have never been anything more than honest and genuine with customers, yet their cynicism concerning the consumerist society and fashion and shopping in general led them to believe I was lying. It was even a disbelief in themselves, that they could not possibly look good enough to deserve a compliment. This doesn’t concern solely the customers of Evans. Even when working with the supposedly glamorous shoppers of Karen Millen I had the same battle of convincing a customer they were beautiful. With an acceptance of our bodies and a little self confidence, shopping and clothing can be thoroughly enjoyable.
“How I enchanted. How I belonged. I thought I looked just like the effortlessly beautiful girls at school. Except I didn't. And, very soon, I realised that I didn't. All that weekend job money and childish angst and still I looked like me. That was the first seduction – and the first betrayal.”
Tanya did not fall in love with fashion. She was a teenager. At 13, I also believed I had fallen in love with fashion when I owned my very first (fake) Louis Vuitton. When I even knew what Louis Vuitton was. But I hadn’t truly. I had simply followed the masses of fellow 13 year olds who owned the same bag and it has taken me a few years to truly forget those masses of girls and attempt to branch off. Tanya gave up on fashion before she had given it a chance. And it was not the betrayal of fashion, it was the cruelty of supposedly childhood innocence. Teenage girls are the complete bitches, not the clothing they adorn.
I personally try to follow fashion as little as possible. I know what I like, I enjoy charity shops and the market stools of Bangkok, the last thing I enjoy is looking at the girl next to me and seeing a mirror image of my own outfit. But this was not always the case.
“Can't you ignore it, you may ask? Can't you squeeze yourself into a library and have an inner life instead? Ha! Anyone who thinks that has never been a young woman staring into the window of Topshop. Sophisticated weapons are employed to make us need the rubbish. And so we do.”
Well isn’t that just a complete slap in the face! Apparently my beautiful clothes (that I am also brain-washed into buying) signify my large lack of intelligence. Because I enjoy dressing myself I also do not enjoy a good book. It angers me that fashion can be shrugged off as a shallow and useless sector of our lives. Fashion is everywhere. Everything is fashion.
“This... 'stuff'? Oh... ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff”
Miranda Priestly, The Devil Wears Prada.
I’m not silly enough to believe my boyfriend remembers many of my outfits, but he admits himself he likes to see what I’ve put together for the day. However, I have never dressed to impress boys. I dress for myself, it is the confidence that accompanies my outfits that will impress the opposite sex.
“And always, because designers produce just one tiny dress for all the advertising campaigns and magazine editorials”
To insult the creativity, the hard-work and the livelihood of a designer by describing their beautiful creations in this way is almost as cruel as her previous description of a young girl’s death.
“I still think about that young woman on the train tracks, though. What did she pay for her shoes?”
This is Daily Mail style propaganda and only the naïve would believe the reason that girl died is because she wore a pair of high-heels that she was “told to wear” by the fashion houses. God, I’m a fashion student and I fail to feel obliged to saunter around in heels.
“And I couldn't help suspecting that had she been wearing a shoe designed for movement, rather than to push her breasts out and her pelvis forward, she would be alive.”
God how insulting.
“Fashion can't, I now know, make even itself happy”
Well what can I say? Yes, my overzealous consumerism makes me happy before I check my bank balance and realise I am a foolhardy young girl without enough pounds to pay her rent, let alone eat for another month. Nevertheless, when I purchase my copy of Vogue each month, when I flick through and study images of season’s and season’s worth of clothing, when I watch a girl saunter past me in the street in a gob smacking combination of garments, a genuine smile crosses my face because I know I am not alone in my true love of fashion.
Keep up to date on Charlotte’s own voyage and read my upcoming contribution (ahh scary!) to her blog here. 
Keep up to date on Charlotte’s own voyage and read my upcoming contribution (ahh scary!) to her blog here. 
Isn’t it momentous when just one aspect of life (in this example an e-mail) opens up a world of opportunity. OK this isn’t that momentous, but it entertained me in my boredom, a feat that Facebook is failing to conquer.
The illustrator has worked with so many publishing houses and designers. Bordering on vulgar, her dry sense of humour shines through her drawings allowing us to laugh with her. She also confesses to hating Perez Hilton, I instantly admire her!
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