Sartorial styles change from age to age, and from era to era. Fashion is purely a 20th/21st century phenomenon, wouldn't one say? - designed to create lines for rapid turnover without consideration of lasting qualities; and to fit figures deemed ideal for standardisation. I can't remember who it was (Berger??) who, citing the nude female figures in Reubens' paintings, pointed out that what constitutes physical attractiveness changes from age to age. Compare with the Twiggy look of the Mary Quant generation to which I belong, or today's shorn back-and-sided six-packed males compared with the quasi-feminised long-haired 1970s look in restricting shoulder padded velvet hues, hardly figure-flattering, and non-hugging flares. And so with the clothes required to optimise said physical qualities. Standardising ideal looks creates the idea in impressionable young minds of attainments, often unreachable, expected to be complied with in order to be a fully belonging status stake-holding member of society. Failure to "measure up" (
) fosters the accentuation of the isolated individualised soul suited to market targetting to status-confirming ends in a capitalist society set up to create winners and losers at all levels.
Leaving aside general observations about fashion, male "fashions" are crap, and have been for at least three decades now. The truism of their importance is revealed in the public's blind obedience to the demands they make, however visually absurd the results. But I'm probably rationalising all this because I've seldom found anything to wear that really looks right on me.
) fosters the accentuation of the isolated individualised soul suited to market targetting to status-confirming ends in a capitalist society set up to create winners and losers at all levels. Leaving aside general observations about fashion, male "fashions" are crap, and have been for at least three decades now. The truism of their importance is revealed in the public's blind obedience to the demands they make, however visually absurd the results. But I'm probably rationalising all this because I've seldom found anything to wear that really looks right on me.
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