Failures in Fashion

Its blogging time again, and this blog is unfortunately inspired by late night fashion television and women who lack eyebrows.

Fashion is one of the most puzzling industries I will ever encounter, I mean there are other industries who pride themselves on ignoring practicality but sometimes the fashion industry takes things to a whole new level.

Case, point, match: Prada's hip wader high heel boots.

Now for those who do not follow the seasons of fashion, you may not understand the pressures involved in creating a unique, cohesive and appealing line. Actually most people don't understand the couture fashion world at all. I would like to say I am one of them, however, I seem to harbour fashion as a guilty pleasure, and indulge in fashion television from time to time. This does not mean that I understand fashion, but I do enjoy some of the creative or overall ridiculous attempts at clothing.

The simplistic intention of clothing is to cover your body, but fashion is an entirely different beast. Fashion can be an expression of individuality, conformity, class or lifestyle. Fashion is a social construct whereas clothing is a basic need, that is a human adaptation to regional climate. You don't see someone in the arctic wearing a bikini on main street. But if you wikipedia why we wear clothes, you find the following results: clothing functions to a) serve hygienic purposes b) address environmental conditions c) to establish personal identity.
All of these reasons for wearing clothes make sense, whereas fashion on most accounts does not. But this addresses a sociological perspective towards fashion.

Looking at fashion from a logical perspective, is a little more depressing, and a lot more impossible. Fashion is an artistic expression, and sometimes doesn't fit into the activities of daily life. For example, hip wader high heel boots. I think in order for anyone to rationalize wearing high heeled hip wader boots, they would need to be a competitive fly fisher or at the very least a sewage worker.

However, fashion becomes intriguing if you try and apply it to real life. I know that if I wore many of the outfits from this years spring collection of Gucci, or Valentino, or Dolce & Gabbana I would have difficulty walking, eating, and keeping on a lot of the clothes I tried to wear.

What I would like to commend though, are the people that do ridiculous things in the name of fashion (this is where the lack of eyebrows comes in.) Fashion composition is so much more than just clothing, shoes, and accessories (which seems like a lot to begin with) but fashion also includes hair, makeup and aesthetics in general. But one thing I will never understand is how eyebrows can go out of style.

Most women, and some men participate in some form of eyebrow maintenance.It is a task that has been common practice for at least a few generations; but lately I have been noticing a trend that I thought was kind of peculiar. People have started to shave their eyebrows off and then redraw them, in various shapes and colours. Now I may be wrong, but to me, this is just a demonstration of faulty logic, I mean if they were there in the first place why get rid of them to redraw them? I know everyone who practices this tedious aesthetic task could give me a myriad of reasons as to why this is a better method of eyebrow maintenance, however, I can think of a pleather or reasons as to why this is a bad idea.

1. I think it would be exceedingly time consuming, what if you only have time to finish one eyebrow?
2. I also believe it would be exceedingly difficult to match them in length, shape and height.
3. What if it starts raining and your eyebrows start melting?
4. Every time you shave them your eyebrows grow back thicker and bushier, plus there is the awkward growing out phase.
5. You run the risk of looking surprised all the time.
6. You have the potential to scare small children, or have people tell you, you look like Cruella De Vil.
7. You run the risk of looking angry all the time.
8. You run the risk of looking "unnatural" aka like an alien.
9. People will judge you.

So there you go, nine slightly exaggerated reasons to why "hacking and whacking" is a bad idea. Because face it, people without eyebrows look strange. I am sure this is a very intriguing, and complex topic that takes up a lot of your mental capacity (not). After listening to the topic of my blog, a guy friend of mine sarcastically commented that he thinks about "powdering his eyebrows for at least an hour a day."

So although this isn't a high intensity topic, its amusing, and out there. So beware of melting eyebrows, and hip wading couture.