From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: Ah, Fashion.
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 14:26:11 GMT


In articrumple <1992Oct1.172914.7349@spdcc.com>
rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue) scores fashion:

>Beauty is internal, not external.

Knowing as I do, my dear, that this subject lies beneath one
or more of your hot buttons, I shall tread right on said
buttons, out of a moral conviction that baby's being tossed
with bathwater.  If you're nettled, consider that a nettle
rinse can be good for your hair.

>Fashion is a way for people to make money off of other
>people's insecurities.

And a good deal more.  The fact that it's absurd (most
things are, in various ways) doesn't make it illegitimate to
make money.  Market forces are not *all* bad, *all* the
time.  If 501s went off the market, I could get by in
Wranglers, but if 100% cotton went off the market, I would
not be pleased by cotton/poly or <cotton/anything else>
blends.

And if a person doesn't want to look the same all the time,
who's injured?

>When you "go in for fashion" you're buying this demoralizing
>and dehumanizing crap lock, stock and barrel.

This only holds for your own, unique definition of the
operative phrase ("go in for"), I think.  Calling it
dehumanizing or demoralizing is sizably to overstate the
case.  Military training is dehumanizing.  Bigotry is
demoralizing.  Fashion gadflies are not victims, they are
perpetrators.

>You don't *need* to wax to look good, sexy, interesting,
>etc.

True, but no reason not to if you want to.

>You don't *need* to be thin, tan, blond, smooth, muscular,
>young to have self-worth and to be found attractive by other
>people.

And a good thing that is, too.  But I've been all of those
things and am none of them now (oops, I'm still thin, but I
wasn't always).  Self-worth is an interior matter, though
discovering that can take quite a bit of time.  Being found
attractive by other people is not interior, in any case.

>It's time our community started casting off these things in
>favor of liking each other for who we are, not who we're
>told to be.

These are not mutually exclusive classes you're talking
about.  You don't have to "cast off" a thing to like a
person for what they are (including yourself).

>We dont' like it when the phobes treat us as things, why are
>we so willing to let GQ/IM/EL/LLBean/etc. to do the same?

You're confusing markets with concentration camps.

>Admittedly, looksism did provide the mechanism for most of
>the bear and G&M community to form out of, mostly for
              ^^^ ??
>self-preservation, but these same elements can and do
>permeate these sub communities.

Huh?

>The next time you find yourself judging someone because of
>how they look/dress/etc...  ask yourself: who is telling me
>to come to this conclusion?

And what if it's me myself, do I impeach that too?

>Then next time you see/hear/read something telling you "you
>really want to look like THIS" ask yourself is that the
>*only* possibility there is?

Always a good question.

>We as a society (mainstream) are too fashion-addicted.

Arguably true.  But much of this is a matter of aesthetics,
and the mainstream society (whatever that really is) seems
to rather undersupplied with a sense of what that might mean
in their own lives.  

When it comes to fashion, I've been bearded or shaved,
dressed up or not, long-haired or short, in various fabrics,
cuts, and combinations.  That I wear what I now wear is
merely today's waystation in a long sequence of changes.
I've followed fashion and I've rejected "fashion," according
to my own aesthetic.

While my own taste is my general guide, I assure you that
when I go to an occasion requiring it (yes, requiring), I
will get out my navy-blue Brooks Brothers three-piece suit
and my black dress shoes, with my black cashmere topcoat and
my dark grey suede gloves.

That suit and those shoes are 26 years old, the topcoat
older yet.  A comparable rig would set a person back about
$3,000 these days.  It's fashion, after all, that lets you
buy something good and never be out of place in it.  It's
aesthetics that tells you what to buy to achieve that end.
Rejecting fashion categorically makes as little sense as
following its every shift.

<> I am many things, and it seems artificial to rank them.  At
<> dinner time, I'm hungry first. -- Rob Bernardo
-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
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