Misfits and Me
Perhaps I am alone on this, but I find the fashion industry to be a very strange one, indeed. Today, I was on Haight Street, a veritable mecca for edgy, youthful fashion. My mission was to find some jeans to fit my rather prominent hindquarters, while also not breaking my bank. My limit was $20. Ambitious? Oh yes, but I am the Queen of the Sale Rack. However, this is not the point of my story.
At one of the many used clothing stores located on Haight, I perused a sale rack full of jeans. As a side note, eyeballing jeans is difficult for me. Invariably, I end up with a dressing room full of 15 pairs of pants, each of which is either too small to pull up past my knees or larger than the tent I take camping. But they all look exactly the same to me while I'm scanning the merchandise on the rack.
Miracle of miracles, I found a pair that fit. I handed my heap of rejects back to the girl working near the fitting rooms. She was a work of art in Youth Fashion World. With her alternating green and black hair cut short and swept up in a very Flock of Seagulls way toward the left of her head, she exuded punk rock sensibility. She also sported one of the largest nose rings I've ever seen, causing her appear as though she was about to take off into a corn field to pull some heavy farm equipment. Her jeans were ill fitting, making her belly and back squish out over the top of her worn-out belt. Without looking up at me as she took the stack of jeans from my hand, she said the obligatory, "How did these work out for you?" And I, of course, made a self-deprecating joke about the size of my heiny. Chilling silence. She turned her eyes to me disdainfully and smirked her response. It was quite clear that she was trying to be polite, all the while yearning to kill me with her bare hands.
And there I stood, in front of this early-twenty-something, feeling awkwardly uncool, as though I was back in high school, while simultaneously wondering how much it hurts to get a nose ring that large installed in one's face.
At the checkout, it was the same situation. There were three people working there, each one a virtual disaster in the real world... frizzy, badly dyed hair; jeans that were too tight around the ankles and saggy in the ass region; poorly done make-up all around, boys and girls alike; shoes that were too large or worn through. It was like an 80s punk concert and a heavy metal hair band had some bastard children and put them to work at a cash register in San Francisco. And yet, when they looked me over, I felt somehow inferior.
These are the same people that, if I were to come face to face with them on public transportation, I would make fun of relentlessly in my head. I would make up stories about how their parents screwed them up in such a horrific way that they would choose to present themselves to the world looking like vagabonds and misfits.
The power of fashion is, quite plainly, inexplicable.
(Or perhaps, I have come to the same conclusion as I did in one of my other recent blogs. I am too old to understand this silliness anymore. If that is the case, I have to say, hooray for my 30s.)
At one of the many used clothing stores located on Haight, I perused a sale rack full of jeans. As a side note, eyeballing jeans is difficult for me. Invariably, I end up with a dressing room full of 15 pairs of pants, each of which is either too small to pull up past my knees or larger than the tent I take camping. But they all look exactly the same to me while I'm scanning the merchandise on the rack.
Miracle of miracles, I found a pair that fit. I handed my heap of rejects back to the girl working near the fitting rooms. She was a work of art in Youth Fashion World. With her alternating green and black hair cut short and swept up in a very Flock of Seagulls way toward the left of her head, she exuded punk rock sensibility. She also sported one of the largest nose rings I've ever seen, causing her appear as though she was about to take off into a corn field to pull some heavy farm equipment. Her jeans were ill fitting, making her belly and back squish out over the top of her worn-out belt. Without looking up at me as she took the stack of jeans from my hand, she said the obligatory, "How did these work out for you?" And I, of course, made a self-deprecating joke about the size of my heiny. Chilling silence. She turned her eyes to me disdainfully and smirked her response. It was quite clear that she was trying to be polite, all the while yearning to kill me with her bare hands.
And there I stood, in front of this early-twenty-something, feeling awkwardly uncool, as though I was back in high school, while simultaneously wondering how much it hurts to get a nose ring that large installed in one's face.
At the checkout, it was the same situation. There were three people working there, each one a virtual disaster in the real world... frizzy, badly dyed hair; jeans that were too tight around the ankles and saggy in the ass region; poorly done make-up all around, boys and girls alike; shoes that were too large or worn through. It was like an 80s punk concert and a heavy metal hair band had some bastard children and put them to work at a cash register in San Francisco. And yet, when they looked me over, I felt somehow inferior.
These are the same people that, if I were to come face to face with them on public transportation, I would make fun of relentlessly in my head. I would make up stories about how their parents screwed them up in such a horrific way that they would choose to present themselves to the world looking like vagabonds and misfits.
The power of fashion is, quite plainly, inexplicable.
(Or perhaps, I have come to the same conclusion as I did in one of my other recent blogs. I am too old to understand this silliness anymore. If that is the case, I have to say, hooray for my 30s.)
posted by Bert at 5:46 PM
1 Comments:
I've never paid much attention to what I wear. Until now, I've not exactly had the funds to be picky about clothing, but there are ways to be presentable without spending a fortune. I think an even more heinous crime against fashion than fat squishing over the top of one's jeans is when women buy jeans so low that, when they sit down, I can see a full moon. What were they thinking?!? My eyes... my virgin eyes!! :-/
Post a Comment
<< Home