From: ro@panix.com (r l reid)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Ah, Fashion.
Date: 2 Oct 92 21:06:35 GMT
Organization: MOTSS CABAL, NO MORE CHINESE FOOD DIVISION

In article <1992Oct2.142611.28583@macc.wisc.edu> anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:
>time.  If 501s went off the market, I could get by in
>Wranglers, 
But Jess, havn't you heard?  501's are not fashion.  Everybody
would still wear them even if they didn't spend MILLIONS
advertizing them.

>but if 100% cotton went off the market, I would
>not be pleased by cotton/poly or <cotton/anything else>
>blends.
You LIKE ironing?  I appreciate cotton, but for a nice crisp white
shirt with a perfect collar (is it fashion?  Depends on who's
wearing it!           When I wear a white shirt, I WEAR it), there's
nothing like 35% poly - when the dryer stops, you pull it out,
give it a quick *SNAP*, hang it, and an hour later the blessed
thing has ironed itself!

Or do you, like most men who do not live with women, send your shirts
"out"?

>
>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
>Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson
>NeXTmail w/attachments: anderson@yak.macc.wisc.edu  Bitnet: anderson@wiscmacc
>Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888


-- 
		r l reid	ro@panix.com
Newsgroups: soc.motss