How to Read Fashion

I think I've finally figured it out. High-fashion (as in, runway models, couture, fickle designers) is like really, über-esoteric art (or, indeed, writing)--you know, like those three-minute videos in galleries set on loop, with a close-up of a woman's belly-button and a fly buzzing around it. Bear with me--I think this one is good.

The way I see it, each is as obscure as the other. Pretty to look at, maybe, sometimes, and kind of interesting, if you're stoned, or feel like entering an upside-down world where nothing makes any sense, but otherwise empty.

Enter the fashion magazine: our guide to the fashion world, a dictionary, if you will, an art-history major for the catwalk. Today, you see, I walked to Tesco (the longest walk, in my current state) to buy soup, drugs, and a Vogue.

My Vogue, as it turned out, came with bonus material: The (Topshop-sponsored) Ultimate Catwalk Report. I was so excited! I eat this stuff up! Pages and pages of high-resolution photographs of Popsicle-sticks-with-lips strutting (or whatever it is they do) down the runway in....you name it. Jumpsuits? Check. Toutous? Check. A snakeskin-print bag "that's part luxe backpack, part roomy tote"? Check. Pyjamas? Check! See-through dresses? Check! (Who says men aren't interested in Vogue?) A swimsuit with belt, heels, and leather trenchcoat? Che-eck. (Yep, you heard it here first: Spring is all about pairing your old bikini with a designer coat to give it new life--that's some sharp credit crunch thinking!)

It's like a freakish combination of pornography, people-watching, and well-timed comedy rolled into one glossy, and very colourful, package: amazing.

In the midst of my elation, I started thinking: how do they do it? How do they look at all these clothes (clothes? can you call them that?), at all these images of models dressed up like the emaciated dolls of our nightmares, and determine that there's a pattern for the upcoming fashion season? Like, wow, this poor model was made to wear a plastic yellow bubble over her head (check it--page 34--if you don't believe me), so that means that flamboyant hats are the thing for Spring!

No: honestly, I think they're making it up. I think if you put a group of editors in one room and another group of editors in another, and didn't let them talk to each other, they'd come up with completely different visions for Spring/Summer '09 (as it's called, apparently). I think they see what they want to see in the designer collections, and interpret it for us. To be honest, it's good of them: that stuff needs translation. They give us the trends with such authority, but frankly, I think they're probably sitting in their offices right with a glass of champagne thinking, whew, fooled 'em again!

And then, there are the pet-trends. The ones that they mention every year, the one they throw repeatedly against the wall of consumerism and pray sticks. Like the Midi-length skirt, which crops up every few seasons and looks like a good idea (but then again, what doesn't on a life-size pencil): it's a long skirt, no, it's a short skirt, no, it's--in between! But then you try one on and you realize that unless your legs are six feet long on their own it's never going to look anything but frumpy, and besides, you can't walk properly.

Or the jumpsuit. "Vogue still loves...jumpsuits," says this month's issue. "Get to grips with the all-in-one. It's here to stay." I'm sure it is: in the pages of magazines. Have you actually ever seen an ordinary woman walking down the street on her way to work, or to the pub, or to go shopping, in a jumpsuit?

Neither have I.

So I salute you, high fashion: for your ingenuity, your artistic endeavors, and, mostly, your balls. And I eagerly await the day when someone realizes that anyone can interpret what's happening on the kalediscope we call runway. In the meantime, I'm off to consult the encyclopedia Vogue in the bath.

Words, Words, Words (again)

It's official.  I--to use a delicate and especially eloquent term--blow at regular blog updating.  Is it because I feel stretched thin between all the hard work I do at work (four hours a day is a long day indeed, after all, especially when it's a mentally taxing job that involves filing paperwork, printing out certificates, invigilating English placement exams, sorting mail...I could go on...) and the hard work I do at my writing (essays don't write themselves, obviously--as this blog is becoming a testament to!)?  Or is it because Spring, in some strange and elusive guise, is finally, almost, sort of, here?

Both, probably.  Today I went out into the garden to drop some wilting lettuce into the compost bin and discovered that our neighbors have installed a trampoline in their garden, complete with a mesh border (so that exuberant jumpers can feel safer, even if they aren't, really).  It was so warm out that I considered lingering, maybe even sitting in the grass and reading.  But I was afraid of the slugs (they crawl into your shoes when you're not looking), and it wasn't sunny.  I just couldn't get excited about a springtime saturday spent loafing in the garden without the sun.  I came back inside, locked the back door, and set to work doing boring household things that make me feel as if I've accomplished more than I actually have (whoever came up with the idea of filing bank statements is a genius, as is the inventor of cleaning counters).  Now I'm sprawled on the couch convincing myself that a run up the hill to Headington would be a good idea, and not a painful exercise in seeing how out of shape I really am, sipping tea, and feeling disgustingly pleased with myself.  Lord, what would I be like if I actually accomplished things?

The other day at work, we wondered what the universal term for "I kissed him" would be.  The office of an international school is a pretty good place to wonder this.  Apparently a dutch girl had come in and asked how to say it: she'd used the term "hooked up," a quintessentially American phrase, and been giggled at by her colleagues, who either didn't recognize the meaning or automatically assumed that it referred to sex.  All she had meant was that she had snogged the boy--except that "snog" is not a term you will ever hear, really, in America (or likely in other parts of the world except Britain).  I, for one, spent a long time thinking that "hook up" was just another way of saying "make out," until someone pointed out that common use of the word includes all the bases; then I started to use it that way, and now I can't go back.  Possibly she thought the same; until corrected.

  

She could have, my colleagues reasoned, said "got off with" except that this could conceivably also imply sex; she could say "got together with," but this might not convey enough physical contact.  And of course, she could have just said "kissed," but where's the fun in that?  I wondered: where do these ridiculous rules come from?  And how do we know where the line is, in any given phrase, between playing innocently in the dark and inhibitions-to-the-wind-sex is if we keep moving it?  Why is "I slept with him," or, "I shagged him" acceptable in friendly conversation, while, "I had sex with him" is only reserved for very serious discussions?  And when you get a group of people together from all over the world, how on earth are you meant to communicate with such nuanced language?  We invent these phrases to work for us; but we end up working for them. 

If language is the chosen tool of the human race, why are we so crap at letting it get the best of us all the time?  Why, when I have so many words, do I find it impossible to commit to committing them to paper with any regularity?  They hide when I seek them; and come bubbling to the surface when I need them most to be subdued.  A few cocktails in, I have all the words in the world at my fingertips, but my fingers are too clumsy to maneuver them; in the starkness of morning, I have the ability to sculpt at will, but find that either my will is gone, or the tools themselves have retreated into the darkness for a nap.  

"What do you read, my lord?" said Polonious; and

"Words, words, words," said Hamlet, alighting upon, in my opinion, one of the greatest truths in all of literature.  And as if to prove the ridiculousness of words themselves Polonious then asks:

"What is the matter, my lord?" and Hamlet responds, (as he is well justified in doing!),

"Between who?"

"I mean, the matter that you read, my lord."

They say that God has a sense of humour; but so, I would argue, do words.