I mentioned awhile back that I’m working on a fashion/beauty brand now. I also alluded to a certain amount of irony that I’m hairless, the complete polar opposite the beautiful and know nothing about fashion. That wasn’t entirely true.
I’m a bald, odd looking fellow it’s true, but a terrible false modesty habit makes the bit about knowing nothing about fashion and women’s relationship with how they look a bit of a lie. Some of that is down to growing up with two older sisters, but much of it is being interested in everything.
If you’re the kind of person who absorbs interesting stuff, if you have a genuine interest in culture – and let’s face it, if you’re a planner you bloody well should be – you’ll have working knowledge of lots of stuff whether you like it or not. One thing that struck me before, and does even more now is the disconnect between fashion culture in the media – and what really goes on in the lives of real people.
Consider this quote – "Everyone who is smart says they hate fashion, that it’s a waste of time. I have asked many super-serious people, "Then why is fashion so popular". No one can answer that question."
Miuccai Prada
It seems that the fashion media consists of either super serious commentary on the importance of a £1,300 handbag as this season’s must have and how bootcut jeans MUST NOT BE WORN ON PAIN OF INCARCERATION FROM THE FASHION POLICE…….or fashion people who turn it all into some kind of mystical puzzle that mere mortals are not supposed to ever understand – impenetrable rules for poor buggers who actually work for a living and contend with every day reality of baby sick. public transport and mortgages.
Then there’s the accepted wisdom of the ‘quality press’, that would have you believe that the fashion press brainwashed women into believing they HAVE to buy stuff they don’t really want or need – dullards who needs protecting from nasty Vogue.
But there’s far more to the female species (and male!) than that. A sharp brain and a pair of shoes to die for are not mutually exclusive.
Fashion can, and should be about making people feel good about themselves. When you look great, you feel great – confident, attractive, individual. That’s the real truth about fashion and beauty – but the bulk of editorial, and virtually ALL of marketing around it is about beauty for beauty’s sake.
It’s sad that the whole fashion industry has come to be seen as opposite of something that give you self confidence. A few preening designers and writers have managed to turn what is generally a good thing into something seen as evil and manipulative. They need to expand their physical ideal in general, but that’s only the half of it – much of it is celebrating what fashion does for everyone. There’s nothing wrong with having an ideal – a top tier of unreachable stuff most of us dream of…that’s the point, but the power of it is little to do with how look, rather it’s what that does for you.
And anyway,really silly, inappropriate clothes are most of the point. This is supposed to be fun. Sometimes the clothes flatter, sometimes they look ridiculous – and it matters that the uninitiated tut and go ‘That doesn’t look comfy, I’d never been seen dead in that’. It’s no different to me feeling great, confident and YOUNG when the older generation slags of the music I like – they just don’t get it which makes me love it more.
So I’m wishing the whole fashion and beauty industry would stop patronising us, and doing everything it can to make us feel small. In the end, it should empower you, fill with joy and confidence that’s the point.
You can have the impossibly beautiful women sashaying into the bar, everyone looking at her…but the girl who feels a bit more confident walking into the boardroom, or the Mum who’s new coat brightens up her day – and makes the baby sick smell a little less rank matter too………….maybe more?
NORTHERN PLANNER 
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