Continuing along with yesterday’s theme, I want to suggest that while giving outfit feedback is all well and good – and it CAN be extremely helpful – telling someone what they ought to be wearing to fit in with your own personal idea of style and fatshion is a sucker’s game.
If I dressed everyone in the world, especially all the fat people, y’all would magically be wearing rhinestones, feathers, stripes, bold colors, platform shoes, velvets, laces, and hats. The world would like Velvet Goldmine had put on some weight. It would be deliciously glam, let me tell you.
And I’m sure, if other people dressed the world, we’d all be sitting here in Ann Taylor preppie clothes.
My major in college was English with a focus on creative writing (run with me on this, I promise, it’s relevant), which means I spent a lot of time in workshops. You’d slave over a story, 25 pages of deeply imaged prose, characters drawn from the back of your eyelids. And then 30 people would read it and give you constructive feedback.
The first workshops were always a disaster. Filled with people saying, “Well, if it were MY story, I’d blah blah blah.” But it wasn’t their story. They didn’t get to make those decisions.
The helpful feedback was always more along the lines of “Well, as a reader, I am curious about xyz and thrown out of the story by abc and could you explain why this character does something so out of character?”
So, when I see people questioning the validity of a style, or telling someone they should wear something in order to conform to the “normal” expectation of fashion, what it sounds to me like they are claiming a control over the other person that doesn’t exist.
You don’t get to tell me what to do. I don’t get to tell you what to do. We can share feedback and information and I don’t even have to like your style to do so because I can say to myself, “Okay, her look runs more along boho lines.” And then I give feedback based on fit and color and what I know about boho. Someone can look at me when I’m ready to go dancing, in all of my shiny finery, and they might not care a whit about glam or industrial or goth but they can still say, “You know, the straps on that top are falling down, maybe you should alter that because it looks too big.”
We don’t need to be locked into little style boxes where we never consider that someone else has a different style that works perfectly well for them. There is no need for us to try to shape those other styles to more closely resemble our own.
That’s why shows like “What Not to Wear” kind of irk the hell out of me on general principle. (I’m sure some of y’all are fans and, honestly, I love watching make overs, but the idea of “I’m an expert and you are an idiot” bothers me – false authority!) Who are you, in your khakis and twin sets, to tell me what clothes are going to make me feel more truly like myself? Who are you treat all women as interchangeable variations on the same theme?
This is my story, my outfit. And that is your story and your outfit. Let’s help each other out without trying to assume control.
22 Comments
y’know….i like WNTW sometimes…mainly for the personalities of some of the contributors…and, ‘cos i think nick arroyo is hot….but, i digress….
i’d totally love it if you DID dress everyone like velvet goldmine!!!!! after i saw that movie, i was seriously coveting plenty of velvet and satiny thingies!
i hate it when stacy & clinton say no skinny jeans for big girls! uhhhhh….why not? i don’t agree with them 100%, but i will agree on the whole undergarment argument….especially up top! LOL
they’d prolly run screaming into the night at the leather pants i just got! *insert evil grin*
you are correct when you say they are treating all women as interchangeable variations on the same theme…..it’s always, a jacket over everything! why?
i’ve got jackets in my closet, but come on now!
I was reading an article about dressing your age. I rather dress in sleeveless blouses and short shorts in the summer. I think I look good in them. I’m not going to cover up because I’m on the other side of forty. I just bought a half dozen on long sleeve shirts from the junior department (I don’t have to shop the misses department.) I’m going to wear tight jeans and slinky blouses as long as I like what I see in the mirror. I refuses to dress old.
I think the point of WNTW is helping people who haven’t really bothered to develop a sense of style. They don’t really care or know what they’re wearing, and most of them are at stable points in their lives or trying to get new jobs. ANYWAY, on that note, I agree with you. I hate feeling guilty, though, because other people discuss things that aren’t ‘cool,’ and I realize I like the ‘uncool things.’ Then, I feel guilty because I can’t help but taking up other people’s opinions into my mind. I’m only human, ya’ll.
But thanks for the ‘fight the crowd,’ post. 
Hehe. Your last article rang true with me, but this one even moreso, since, though I’m not an english major, I took an intro to fiction writing class last term, and know EXACTLY what you’re talking about.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again. It’s none of my business what you wear, and it’s none of yours what I wear.
I think there can be some value to encouraging people to try things outside their comfort zones, in the relative safety of the change room (and I realize that changerooms are not places of relative safety for everyone, but I can’t think of many other places a person can go to try on different clothes without buying them—maybe a similarly-sized friend’s closet?). Not because their “normal” clothes are wrong, but because sometimes we get stuck on our own ideas of what we like, or what we’ll let ourselves wear, based on out-dated ideas, or because someone, once, told us that we should always wear blue and that stuck.
Case in point: I was the Lady-of-honour for a close friend (a lady-of-honour is the name we decided on for someone who was too experienced to be a maid of honour, and too divorced and single (as well as insufficiently matronly) to be a matron of honour. I got to choose the style of dress I wanted. Left to my own devices, I’d probably have chosen something with a full skirt and fitted bodice, because I have a notion that my hips demand full skirts—something like this if you can imagine it in navy blue, worn by someone considerably curvier and shorter than the model. And that would have been fine.
My friend persuaded me to try on a mermaid-dress “just for fun, because I don’t get to see you very often, and we never try on clothes together, and I want to see how it will look.”
So I did, and while I didn’t wind up buying the dress I tried on, seeing myself in a style that I wouldn’t ordinarily have considered for myself did open up my eyes to the fact that, yes, I can wear more fitted styles (in the correct size, with the correct underpinnings), and that I can indeed pull off a more sophisticated look, if I decide I want to.
The difference is, I think, that the bride wasn’t telling me what to wear—she took pains to make it clear that I should wear any dress or outfit I wanted, if it could please be in the colour she requested—she was asking me to try something different and make up my own mind.
I wound up in a very sophisticated looking dress—one that I’d love to have another occasion to wear.
This makes me think very fondly on the teacher of the one creative writing class I took who had a strict “don’t tell people how to fix a problem; it’s not your story” rule. (She also had a “you can’t speak or respond when people are critiquing your story until the next week” rule, which was terrifying, but I digress).
I watch What Not to Wear sometimes and have had the same reaction as you. Who cares if this young woman likes to wear fairy wings sprinkled in glitter. At the same time I enjoy the makeovers and so rationalize it on the ground that sometimes it’s useful to have a suitable work wardrobe (that someone else is paying for), but depending on the makeover that rationalization can ring pretty hollow.
Lillian: Now that I’m over 40 I have realized that a lot of those “dressing your age” articles are targeted to me. And they seem to assume that all of us are shaped the same way and have the same lifestyle and taste. It’s taken me years to find clothes that make me feel good, and I’m not going to give them up now.
I’m going to out myself here. I want to get behind this concept. I really, really do. But the image that’s burned into my brain is that of a petite 50+ woman, wearing denim miniskirt and pink, glitter-spangled, puff-sleeved T-shirt, as she pawed through my 10-year-old daughter’s outgrown clothing at our yard sale. I guess I need to point out the difference between “making a statement” clothing and wearing things you love, and just wanting to be able to say, “I got this top for 50 cents! It’s a little girl size 12!”
LilahMorgan, I have had several teachers with rule and it is always the hardest thing in the world. But useful, I must admit.
Christine, that is just the sort of thing I am talking about, though – there is no way to determine why she dresses that way – and even if you don’t like it, she isn’t under any obligation to dress in a way that anyone funds pleasing. Acknowledging that doesn’t mean you have to find her stylish, just that you don’t get to dress her. *grin*
Why are you all in my frontal lobe this week?
Have I told you lately how much I like you?
If I ever get into your area of the country we are shopping together and then having pie. While wearing stripey socks and I will provide tiaras.
Yeah I have nothing to say but “word.” Big, big word.
Actually, I do know why she dresses like that – she was telling anyone who would listen. It was all about “bragging rights” to how cheaply she’d gotten the clothes, and how she could fit into children’s sizes. It was kind of gag-inducing – and she really did seem oblivious to how silly she looked in clothing that was so obviously meant for little girls.
I had no desire to dress her, although I did briefly fantasize about refusing feed her habit and telling her to step away from my GapKids and Gymboree. *grin*
Most of my wardrobe would give Clinton and Stacy a heart attack. I wear the colors I feel good in, the cuts that I find attractive and comfortable, lots of velvet, lace, and sparkles, and I virtually never go out without a hat of some sort.
There’s nothing like watching a woman discover her own beauty through clothes that make her heart sing. I work in the wintertime at the Dickens Christmas Fair in San Francisco for one of the clothing designers. His stuff is all hand dyed velvets, satins, etc. The colors are deep and rich, the velvet is trimmed with lace and metallic braids, the cuts come from The Arabian Nights and fantasies of Camelot.
Each winter I see women timidly approach the clothes, certain they can’t wear them. Each winter I see a few more of them give in to temptation and try them on.
My favorite last winter was a girl who came in thinking the clothes were far too extreme for her to even try on…who almost literally danced out of the booth dressed in a glorious velvet dress with glittery trim and a much lower neckline than she was used to wearing.
I would never tell a woman what she should wear…but I would absolutely encourage her to try on anything she thinks is pretty. After all, the worst that can happen is that you discover it isn’t really for you.
The best that can happen is that you might find a new side of you that makes you happy.
TR, I want to live in YOUR world!!
Velvets and silks and sparkles for all!!
I stopped reading fiction because I found that no one writes as awesome as I do. =3
Besides this blog. But this blog is truth.
The timing for this is really weird. I attended a career fair today as a requirement for a grad training program that funds my research. One of my classmates also attended. It was requested that we wear “professional dress”. To me, that a lot encompasses a lot of things, but not necessarily what my friend wore: blue jeans, four-inch high shiny turquoise stiletto pumps, gray T-shirt under baggy button-up shirt. She already looks very young for her age (24- looks 16), and I’m afraid that if she turns up for job interviews like this, she won’t be taken seriously as an adult.
OTOH, I wouldn’t want her to feel like I’m squashing her style. I don’t know if I should say anything, if I should take her shopping before the next career fair, or what. I know she’s never had a job before- when she went from stipend to research assistantship, I had to explain the tax and social security deductions on her paycheck. I just don’t think anyone’s ever explained professional dress to her. For the other 99% of the time, I think her quirky and casual style is really cute and is an extension of her personality, and wouldn’t dream of criticizing it or her. But I don’t want it to hold her back the other 1% of the time. She works really hard at her research and I want her to be respected for it.
I’m several years older than her, and in some ways she treats me a bit like a big sister. Any thoughts on how to approach this or if I even should?
See, now, and I would be highly distracted and Bothered by the fact that there were sequins flashing on my boobage (I is ADD)and be falling all off the platforms cause I have no sense of balance and fall into things and sit down abruptly all the time.
But I loves me some velvet. It’s just so expensive…I mean, the real stuff, in natural fibers, not the polyester stretch velveteen stuff. (sigh) Velvet is good.
I thought ‘What Not to Wear’ was mindless fun, untill they degothed some poor girl. I stopped watching after that.
…of course, I do have some half-formed dreams of getting MTV to run a goth/punk/hipster/whichever version thereof.
I used to love a programme on UK TV called “The Week of Dressing Dangerously”. Each week a woman would be given a series of outfits to wear in different situations. She might go to work in a black leather mini skirt, ripped tights and biker boots, or visit a garden centre dressed as a showgirl in sparkly heels and a feathery headdress. And each person would see how differently she felt in each costume, and how differently people responded to her, and would learn things about who she wanted to be and how to express that person. And it all looked such fun!
I wish we all had access to such a dressing-up box that we could play happily with all these different styles, colours, fabrics and accessories, and show different aspects of our selves in safety…
I thought ‘What Not to Wear’ was mindless fun, untill they degothed some poor girl. I stopped watching after that.
That one meade me sad on a personal level, but I completely quit watching after they put a young graphic designer in the most traditional/white bread clothes I have ever seen. If they don’t have enough sense to research professions for what is actually apprpriate to creative jobs, then they shouldn’t be dressing anyone outside a corporate office.
Those outfits would have actually kept her from getting hired at most of the firms I’ve worked for.
In response to i-geek (if you’re reading this, and it’s still relevant/not too late) maybe discuss what you’re planning to wear so you introduce the guidelines for what’s appropriate for a work environment, and then ask her opinion to show that you like her style? For example, saying to her “I’m trying to decide between this black suit and this brown suit. Which do you think looks better on me?”
Otherwise, maybe try bringing it up subtly in a bitching session? Like, “it’s so hard to find nice work shoes that are comfortable!” or “I wish I could wear my lucky socks, if only they looked more professional!”
It takes the focus of the conversation off of her and what she’s doing.
Last option that comes to mind is take her shopping with you to buy yourself job clothes and point out some things that would look good on her. Flattery can be useful!
Hopefully that made sense, I’ve been having sleep issues lately so I’m writing this at almost 4 AM!
If you try any of that let me know how it works out, my email is memichellese@yahoo.com (just put something about this site in the subject line so I don’t send it to the junk folder)
Actually, there were 2 episodes of WNTW where they de-gothed someone. The one everyone’s probably thinking of is the mother-daughter episodes where S&C accuse the poor girl (who is 18 for God’s sake) of “making herself unapproachable”.
The other one was with a 24-year-old interior designer who was more punk than goth. I’m not so much mad at S&C for that one, because her boss nominated her calling her “unprofessional”. I think once she gets her feet wet in the industry, she needs to leave that job.
The good news was that she was ultimately unhappy in the end and said that while she would integrate some of her new clothes into her wardrobe, it was basically a wasted trip. This was also the closest I’d ever seen to compromise on that show, giving her a patch of blue hair that you can only see when you lift the rest of it up and the makeup job Carmindy did.
Overall, the problem with WNTW is that S&C are slowly getting out of their depth when it comes to their makeovers. They can dress body shapes, but more and more they’re failing to take age into account. The women under 30 on that show are often made to look older than they are. Considering half their platform is “age-appropriate-ness”, that’s a shame.
Nick and Carmindy still do a decent job, though. Nick still screws up now and then when he has to do ethnic hair. (Remember the Paris episode?) And Carmindy can’t detach herself from the nude lip. Sometimes, I want to wear red. Not that sheer, glossy red, either…a bright, streetwalker red. Is that so wrong?