Protean, elusive, capable of great good and appalling evil, but mostly harmless
click to enlarge — captured by jarcob
Cover from A2 (insert in The Age, Melbourne)
23 February 2008
Yes, ladies, you too could have that moontanned look of the moment.
Tawdry. Petulant. Immature. Unwell.
She’s wrong and she’s sorry, ba-a-aby...
Labels: fashion
posted by Jacob A. Stam at 2/23/2008 03:55:00 PM
at
23/2/08 4:09 PM
Father Park at
23/2/08 4:12 PM Caz at
23/2/08 11:03 PM at
24/2/08 12:02 AM Caz at
24/2/08 12:17 AM Father Park at
24/2/08 11:36 AM Caz at
24/2/08 1:50 PM Father Park at
24/2/08 2:02 PM Caz at
24/2/08 2:07 PM Father Park at
24/2/08 3:27 PM at
24/2/08 8:02 PM Caz at
24/2/08 8:57 PM at
25/2/08 12:09 AM Caz at
25/2/08 7:23 PM at
25/2/08 8:37 PM at
25/2/08 10:16 PM at
26/2/08 7:16 PM Caz at
26/2/08 11:28 PM Caz at
28/2/08 8:56 PM at
29/2/08 9:54 PM
20 Comments:
* And she's got one hand in her pocket *
* And the other one is jamming her finger down her gullet *
Ha ha. Says it all actually.
Forget the picture Jacob, did you read the article?
"Driving next week's Melbourne Fashion Festival are people who are twice to three times the age of their typical customer."
So gushes the brainless journo, who insists that the target market for the designers in the story are teenagers and early 20s lasses.
I bought a Bettina Liano (one of the designers in the story) top on the way home from work only last night. One hundred percent silk, a flimsy little thing, barely anything to it, $195. I bought another Liano top last summer, that was around $250, also 100% silk.
Soooooo: where are all those teenagers and 20 year olds who can AFFORD these clothes, at a couple of hundred for a single top, around $500 for a single pair of jeans, and around a starting price of $600 for one frock?
These people are DELUDED: the designers AND the journalist who wrote the story.
Good comment, Caz!
Basically my answer is that this post is a brainless, dilettantish, and visceral response to that splash cover.
Did I read the article? Hell no!! Being profoundly unfashionable myself, I tend to regard the 'fashion world' with impatience if not disdain. For precisely the kinds of reasons you've outlined. (And anyway, yeah, I'm such a bloke!)
Where are all those teenagers and 20 year olds who can AFFORD these clothes?
The few who can, I'd guess, mostly are living with affluent mumsies and dadsies in places like Toorak, Brighton, etc.
In short, the designers and the journo are anything but deluded and brainless. They know exactly what they're doing. Aided and abetted by corporate Fairfax, bless their sox.
And bloody hell, Caz, you paid c. $200 (twice!) for a "flimsy, barely anything"??!! Undoubtedly you must have looked pretty ho-o-ot.
But, inadvertently, you've helped price the non-Toorak/Brighton babes out of the social/sexual desirability stakes.
I'm figuring, regardless of where they live, they aren't working part time jobs at Macca's or Sportsgirl.
Are there really tens of thousands of rich Mum's and Dad's out there, not only paying these prices for their young adult children, but also picking up the dry cleaning bills (ouch! trust me on that one, truly, ouch!).
Even if I do say so myself, very hot! The top from last year is a dreadfully cute white apron style number (think maid outfit, but only the apron), as in, frilled straps, neat square low cut bodice, waist tied in a bow at the back, and a little flared skirt to about hip level (one has to wear trousers or skirt with it!), barely decent to walk out the door, but on a very hot day, looks dead sexy, yet still casual - a touch of insouciance?
The new one is a little more demure, only just.
Perhaps I could get away with wearing it?
Yes, you could Father.
Not much protection against cooking splatters, but you would look adorable.
So, I'd wear it well eh?
Wow, Rod Stewart used to be young.
No, no - not at all. It's an Industrial Light and Magic special effect.
Key Alec Guiness...
Use the beauty cream Rod! Use the Ponds...
Guiness...now there's an idea.
I'm starting to worry about our dear Father Park. But at least I know who I can off load the cute little purple and pink pinafore I got stuck with after the Chrissie sales, cost a fortune but the colours clash with my toe nails.
We always knew you were a man of many toes, err, talents Justin.
You make frocks?
How utterly wonderful.
Kind of you to offer Father a pretty pinny.
"Are there really tens of thousands of rich Mum's and Dad's out there..."
Caz, my sense is that what the fashion 'drivers' claim about their market-demographic is really all about engineering a market-demographic. Dry cleaning is probably neither-here-nor-there when moving product off the shelves.
By the way, we seem to have lost Kath. Hopefully it's because she is busy enjoying actual real-life, and not because Mike and I mercilessly dissed on Babs on the other thread.
The great irony, or insult, is that many of the designers in that article are around my age Jacob, but they'd gag on their celery sticks at the notion that women like me might, just might, be their real buyers, their regular customers. So, yes, I agree whole-heartedly with your thoughts on engineering a market demographic, and that demographic must be YOUNG, YOUNG, YOUNG, and HIP, HIP, HIP!
The fact that young, hip things haven't got a hope of being able to afford this stuff, at least not until they've been working for a decade or two, won't ever get in the way of the image-makers.
And it's somewhat peculiar that these designers would swoon and vomit to think that their demographic, in practice, is women their own age. Oh, the horror, the horror, the horror!
Have to admit to being perpetually amused by *older* folk - and it seems to be ALL of them these days, a new phenomena - who sincerely cling to the idea that others of their age are over the hill, while they themselves miraculously maintain a youthful look, a youthful state of mind, and are delightfully young at heart. Indeed, they seem to think they invented these things.
There's something a very sad and pathetic about all of that.
(It's a little akin to young folk who believe they invented drinking, drugs and sex. Somewhat embarrassing - for them - and all rather yawn inducing.)
Oddly enough, our Kath, she of our Ilk, does venture out into her real life from time to time Jacob. She is, as far as I can tell, well and happy.
Sorry Jarcob, have had a busy weekend. Also had a 21st to go to on Saturday night(believe Mike went to one too)Had a great night.
Unfortunately I lost count of the glasses of chardonnay after three!!!
Can't remember the speeches.Don't remember leaving in the taxi or arriving home.
Hubby tells me that when I got out of the taxi, I tried to go across the road to a neighbours house!!!(shakes head)
He did say that I conducted myself in a repectable manner(phew!)No stripping off or dancing on the tabletops. So that was a relief!!!
Should of eaten more I think!
Too busy drinking and dancing!!!
Next thing I remember was waking up at 6.00am the next morning.
Fortunately no headache, but felt seedy all day though.
Oh well we all have to cut loose now and again eh?
Kathy
Ps Awww shucks, ya missed me.
How sweet.
Yeah Kath, you were indeed missed. But, of course, actual real-life beckoned so no 'sorry' is necessary.
Sounds like a splendid time was had, particularly as you don't remember it.
Yes Caz, it's the curse of the 'now' generation of baby-boomers that, one day, they (we!) will age and not "d-die before I get old."
It's perhaps the confrontation with the possibility of their own mortality that puts them in denial. Mortality is a problem each generation must confront, of course, but 'Boomers seem to be doing it especially tough, poor possums.
"No stripping off or dancing on the tabletops. So that was a relief!!!"
Not for me.
Yeah, well, so the night was a bust. It happens.
Next time we expect stripping, dancing, tabletops and photos.
Finally got around to flipping through the rest of the paper Jacob (I do TRY to read the weekend papers before the next weekend rolls around!), and funnily enough, there was this little thought in the same section of The Age, in one of the regular columns:
"Vogue is aimed at women with the money of a 50 year old and the face and body of a 14 year old."
Sums it up nicely.
Not just Vogue though, the entire fashion and cosmetics industry, really.
Yeah, Caz, it's the business of creating expectations, envy, etc.
Success guaranteed by the inevitable majority who will always be but at least one step behind, or otherwise just don't quite measure up.
Good grief, what a jaded commenter I'm being this evening. Sick, sick...
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