8.23.2004
In honor of fashion week, I would like to fart in the general direction of the entire fashion industry. Despite the fact that it employs a few of my friends and cohorts, I abhor everything fashion-related. Several years ago I made a conscious decision to become a conscientious consumer on all accounts, meaning I basically started to boycott the support of institutions with which I disagree, like I stopped shopping at places like the GAP, not only because they run some of the largest, most unchecked sweatshops in the world, but also because they promote that idea that by spending your money at this choice of corporate outfits, you are somehow asserting your individuality. It’s as though by choosing one of a prescribed number of sweater sets to go with your boot cut/ankle cut/relaxed hip hugger fucking come fuck me like a dimestore whore jeans, you are saying to the world, “Look at me, I am so unique, me and the other billion people who like red and purple together”. Whatever, it makes me truly ill. The sweatshop thing is the other biggie for me, but more difficult to avoid. I now check places like this before jaunting off to spend my precious moolah. And it’s not just clothing, I pretty much try to support local business as much as possible, regardless of the few extra dollars.
So that said, I see the fashion industry as the big, pulsating white head of the big fat pimple of American consumerist culture. I mean, fashion really does it all, from perpetuating unrealistic and unhealthy ideals of the female body to the most extreme cases of slave labor to the end cut of millions upon millions of dollars going out to the people who decide how to cut this season’s 3/4 inch sleeve. No offense, but shame on you anyone who employs their time and intellect towards the fashion industry, shame on you.
:: Shericat 9:55 AM [+] :: speak
4 comments
4 Comments:
Fashion? Bah, there is no more fashion industry, hasn't been since 1970. Back then, failing to obey the minutest dictates of the fashion elite would kill a woman socially and professionally.
What passes for fashion these days is a loose set of guidelines, and anyone who simply ignores them suffers no consequences at all, except in the shallowest (and youngest) circles.
Fashion the Bitch Goddess is dead. May She rest in peace.
no fashion industry?? then what, pray tell, do you call that thing that rakes in billions upon billions of dollars every year by telling us what to wear and how much to pay for it? the fashion industry is very much the sum of its parts, the magazines, the fashion shows, the advertising, the anorexic models, the silk cargo pants some poor woman was paid less than a dollar to make and we pay over $100 to buy, the list goes on, and if that doesn't make for one hell of a thriving industry in this country, i don't know what the hell does.
If i'm a part of the industry, but it's a part that makes _really_ terrible stuff (and for 'plus' sizes), i'm not really in the fashion industry, am i?
i have the shame nonetheless. see above.
Okay, there's still such a thing as Fashin with a capital F, but it's nowhere near the deadly-serious matter that it once was. It's like the difference between war and field exercises.
Really, no kidding, it used to be orders of magnitude worse. Ask your mother.
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