How to dress - for fashion

... I've been pondering over this for a while, and so I'd like to share a loose chain of associations and thoughts with you.


On the one hand, it is quite clear that fashion is essentially about getting dressed and dressing up (while we also know that there is more to fashion than just clothes...). And yet, whenever I drag my limp body to some kind of fashionable fashion reception or similarly stylish event - let alone the Paris shows or whatever, and despite my long-standing fondness for fashion -, I cannot help feeling a little bit puzzled by what surrounds me.


The fashion circus (and not only the fashion circus, of course) is a lot about people who make a statement with the clothes they wear, who turn themselves into someone (else), and maybe that is really what you are supposed to do, "love fashion more than life itself" in the extremest case (as someone said referring to the rather exceptional case of Diane Pernet), and as a consequence, sooner or later, the most prominent exponents of fashion and everything that surrounds it seem to feel the urge to construct their very own FASHION PERSONA.


Be it the strictly geometrical haircut plus sunglasses as traditionally sported by Anna Wintour at a fashion show, be it the Suzy Menkes trademark quiff - both of them relatively modest when compared to the greater part of those fashion bloggers flying up and down the dusty alleys of the tuileries (Anne aka Blica's recently published some thoughts about one of them) - and then, of course, there is this entire, and very prestigious, Anna Piaggi - Isabella Blow - Lynn Yaeger fraction of the fashion flock...


... just as there are the countless street photographers eagerly capturing those infamous "outside the tent/off the runway"-looks ...


... and then, on the other hand, there are intelligent observers and theoreticians of fashion the likes of Alison Clarke who (quite rightly) states that "the street is dead because it looks like Vogue" - and then, somehow, you really have to start wondering whether "outside the tent" you still see any trends emerge, a profoundly creative way of dressing, the appearance of noteworthy ideas and things and stuff...

... or whether the greater part of this is just about styling skills, about selecting from high fashion collections, about a clever pick and mix of expensive designer clothes, and then you wonder, when reading what Suzy Menkes states in a Pudri-interview, namely that dressing up for fashion shows has always been a common thing to do, whether "back then" the dressing up bit may not have been a wee bit more creative, whether people didn't actually create some "new" kind of look instead of just replicating and pushing forward already existing avantgardes...

... and that's when you get to the point where you stop wondering and musing only to realise that maybe, after all, you should keep your musings to yourself rather than blab them out on your blog.

But then again, that's the raison d'être of a blog, isn't it...

note 1: this is also where refreshingly different views of fashion in the sense of what's being worn and by who become ever so vital, just think of Stil in Berlin or Anders Anziehen... (as opposed to the rather annoying self-enactments incl. the beautiful city of Paris on Alix' Cherry Blossom Girl blog, I mean - Karl may like it...)

note 2: and that's also the point where I realise that dressing up and trying to get away with as much as you can, fashionably, aesthetically, seems to be about courage, too, as I used to be tremendously courageous fashion-wise some years ago, while I seem to just fade away in reduced monochrome pieces lately. Maybe that's something I should change, actually (with the Paris shows coming up, ha ha!)...