Fashion: n. The prevailing style or custom, as in dress or behavior
Fashion: v. To adapt, as to a purpose or an occasion; accommodate.
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A couple of months ago, while shopping in the garment district of LA:
–that sentence makes it sound like I’m a jetsetter. Like last week I was in LA, next week I’ll be in London, and who knows what September will bring. The reality is that I’ve spent almost the entire last 8 weeks in an area about two thousand feet across, and half that from top to bottom. I get vertiginous just thinking about it.
So a couple of months ago, while shopping in the garment district of LA, a shopkeeper
–Jesus, that word paints a picture so fundamentally different from what this lady actually was. The word shopkeeper makes me think of old mother hubbard and/or diagon alley. This was not that. This was the urban/walmart/fleamarket version of that.
(I will stop interrupting myself.)
Anyway, said shopkeeper (sigh) asked me “what my style was” and I had no clue.
Is this something that people have on deck, like their blood type and home phone number? For a second I thought the lady was just screwing with me, but then she went on to say that her store is part pretty boy, and part hip-hop. I suggested she merge them to “Hip Boy.” She laughed.
“Better than calling it ‘Pretty Hop’, which sounds a bit like a gay rabbit.” I said, she laughed harder. Then, not falling for my distractions, at all, she asked me what my style was, again.
I called a friend of mine and asked her what her style was: “Modern Bohemian.” Instantly. No hesitation. Later, when I had the nerve, I asked her what my style was. Plenty of hesitation. She told me that I always dress “Situation Appropriate.” Which is a nice way of saying “I’m pretty sure you don’t have a style, but I have never seen you wearing croakies, so I guess that’s okay.”
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Getting dressed, in my world, is like eating. something you have to do, but not something to revel in, except for rare occasions, when you get to dress or eat up, Weddings. Dragonfly. That kind of thing.
[Dear Dragonfly. Can we have a casual dress dragonfly day? I want to see everyone in t-shirts and shorts in there just once. I think it might cause the world to end, not entirely unlike the Large Hadron Collider]
Normally, getting dressed is mathematical for me. Want the recipe for my secret clothing sauce?
(Pn + Li) + Ds / No = X
Pn =Percentage my nose crinkles upon having said garment thrust under my nose.
Li = Likelihood I will bump into someone who I don’t want to olfactorily offend.
Ds = Days since last seen wearing same garment with same group of friends
No = Number of Options for that garment.
X= Will I wear this garment?
Point being, if No = 0 then the whole equation falls apart, and X is irrelevant.
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Well, I started spending a little more time with my Modern Bohemian friend, and I noticed the amount of pleasure she derives being a modern bohemian.
Getting dressed, for her is, on some level, a chance to be creative two or three times a day, and more importantly, she has a lot of fun doing it. While some people get dressed up for others, she has fun just getting dressed just to hang out at home.
Initially, I wrote it off as female insanity, but shit after a while I kinda got into it.
It seems that if I’m going to do something every day (I have no desire to join a nudist colony) I might as well try to make it fun and/or interesting, and take a conscious glance at whatever I’m throwing on my body.
–> Next, more fashion stuff in part ii.
tagging: Dragonfly people. Just because I said dragonfly.
[Is this a nice bite sized chunk for reading? Trying not to overwhelm]