15 September 2008

Boots To Teach In

There's nothing like the start of the semester to make you totally not care about regular blogging! However, today a student approached me after class to tell me that my dress was totally "awesome," and how I didn't dress "normal for a teacher." I guess that's good? More exciting than my dress, which is futuristic in the way that only the '80s can be, are my boots, which make me think I should get myself a steel tiara with a red star, a la Wonder Woman.

Homeless Chic

"The people with the best style, for me, are the people that are the poorest. Like, when I go down to like Venice Beach and I see the homeless, I'm like, oh my god, you're pulling out like crazy looks. They pulled shit out of like garbage bags." - Erin Wasson to NylonTV* (posted to Fashionista)

"It is currently 'in' for the young and well-fed to go around in torn rags [most recently seen as "hobo chic," or "dumpster chic," as best embodied by Mary-Kate Olsen v.2006], but not for tramps to do so. In other words, the appropriation of other people's dress is fashionable provided it is perfectly clear that you are, in fact, different from whoever would normally wear such clothes." --Judith Williamson, 1986, "Woman Is An Island: Femininity and Colonization," in Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture, Tania Modeleski, ed., Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 116.

* It's as if NYLON can't stop being ridiculous.