Belt still not included
The WaPo’s Robin Givhan has a few words for those of us who look slightly askance at $5,000 jeans:
It’s always a bit discombobulating when people raise their voices in anger because they’ve gotten wind that designers are making and selling $25,000 dresses. After all, it’s not as if the existence of a dress that costs as much as a car negates the availability of cute $25 frocks at Target. And it isn’t as though edicts have been issued that all women must now dress like one of the superheroes on Balenciaga’s runway.
For personal and sometimes tortured reasons — I can’t have it so no one else can! — observers declare that they just don’t understand the attraction of these strange and expensive clothes. That would be a fair argument if those same complainers lashed out at people who spend thousands of dollars on Redskins season tickets, vintage wines, first-edition books or midlife-crisis cars. But those industries don’t stir nearly as much ire from people who are uninterested in them.
Everyone has a passion that is lost on others. And to be fair to the fashion industry: It may be struggling, but so far, no government has had to bail it out.
I was at Target yesterday, and didn’t spot any cute $25 frocks, but admittedly I wasn’t looking for such. And even the lowliest automobiles cost thousands of dollars. Still, “season tickets” are where she’s got me dead to rights, even though it’s possible to see 41 Thunder home games for less than $1000, or about 13 pairs of Levi’s.
(Via Style Rookie.)
McGehee »
24 October 2009 · 2:52 pm
And God knows Marie Antoinette’s cakes weren’t responsible for that curious bread shortage.
fillyjonk »
24 October 2009 · 6:47 pm
I’m not sure you could find a cute $25 frock even at Target these days. $50, maybe. Possibly a very, very lucky thrift-store find would net a cute (maybe even vintage!) $25 dress.
I believe I heard somewhere that Target was apparently contracting with designers to make some “fashionable” clothes at budget prices. (I just hope the designers in question weren’t people like Alexander McQueen.)
I dunno; most of the stuff that passes for high fashion passes me by, emotionally and style-wise. I don’t really care whether or not $25,000 dresses exist other than to remark that I could get a new car for that. And I know how to sew my own dresses.
Kay Dennison »
24 October 2009 · 10:15 pm
I wait for the end of season sales at Dillard’s et al. Last year I bought a pair of $72 jeans for $12. And when my son got married I bought a lovely satin and lace dress marked down from $250 to $60. It’s called patience and determinaton. I refuse to spend huge amounts on clothes If it isn’t marked down 50%, I don’t spend a cent.
miriam »
24 October 2009 · 11:00 pm
Fashion used to be an art form. Think the elegant Audrey Hepburn. No-one dresses like that any more. The fashions of today are grotesque, were never made to be worn by actual people, even rich people, and are designed to sell the designer’s perfume.
The American people dress appallingly. Little girls and teens dress like hookers, and everybody else is drab and sloppy.
McGehee »
25 October 2009 · 10:25 am
Miriam, I think what happened was Picasso and Dali were assimilated to fashion design and never left.