Joyce Minor

Women are fashion sheep

Minor Musings
Published: November 21, 2010

In the world of fashion, what goes around comes around. If it was in style 20 years ago, you can bet your bippie it will soon be back in vogue.

For instance, remember a style known as "color-blocked" that was popular in the 1970s? Color blocked clothes were designed with squares and rectangles of several solid colors placed at right angles. Strips of another color, usually black, connected the blocks. Color-blocked clothes made everyone look fat, but they were in style, so everyone had to have some.

A few years ago the color-blocked style reemerged, and all the young women, including my daughters, loved the "new" look. They had no idea it was really an old look till one day my eldest daughter and I were looking at some family photos from the 1970s, and there I was in a color-blocked dress. It was actually one my mother had made for me and I loved it at the time.

Erin said, "Mom, that dress is cool. Do you still have it?" Of course, I didn't. I got rid of it 30 years ago when it went out of style. Like all young women, I thought no one with an ounce of taste would ever again be caught dead in such a thing.

Now, another old fad has reared its ugly head, or perhaps I should say its butt. Skinny jeans, the tighter the better, are the "new" fad and all the kids just have to have them.

People my age recognize those jeans; we wore them in the 1960s, only we called them pegged jeans. I was never so glad to see anything go out of style. Now, here they are again, warmed over for 2010, and like yesterday's lunch, they have not improved with age.

I have yet to see a single female, young or old, boney or curvy, who actually looks good in skinny jeans.

If you have hips, forget wearing skinny jeans. These britches and a bulging backside are a lethal combination. They actually make you look top heavy, like you're about to fall over.

If your body is thin, it's even worse. Skinny jeans make a thin woman look like a walking stick, a denim-covered skeleton. And that's supposed to be sexy?

The point here is that designers rarely come up with anything really new because they don't have to. It's easier, and almost always effective, to simply repackage the old. Even ridiculous styles that never did look attractive can be slightly reworked and pawned off as new. Designers know what we consumers don't want to admit - that women of all ages, economic levels, and body types will follow the trends like a bunch of sheep - always have and always will.

Too many young, fashion-conscious women will swallow almost anything to be hip. Aging women will re-swallow anything if they think it makes them look young.

We rarely reject any trendy offering, even if it's truly unflattering. Take gladiator sandals, for example. They make even long, thin legs look short and fat. But that fact is totally ignored. Young Hollywood is wearing them, so the rest of the country follows.

Today's women are intelligent, savvy, and strong in every other way. Yet we allow ourselves to be manipulated and mocked by a bunch of lazy, mostly male, "designers" who are not really designing anything, just repackaging, and getting rich at our expense.