THE FASHION VICTIM by MICHELLE LEE Fashion makes fools of some, sinners of others, and slaves of all.

Josh Billings, 17th Century lecturer WHO IS A FASHION VICTIM? By most accepted definitions, a fashion victim is someone who follows trends slavishly, a person who is not necessarily captivated by the beauty of a new garment so much as he or she is by the mere novelty and fleeting social standing of it. In everyday life, the people who we typically refer to as fashion victims are tagged as such for one simple reason: they dont look good. The fashion victim is the balding small-town male hairdresser who pours himself into tight leather pants, wild imported silk shirts, and fluorescent-green alligator boots; the bulbous-bellied talk show guest in stripper-esque spandex who slaps her own behind while howling, I look good; the high school typing teacher still stuck in her disco youth with wide polyester lapel, mushroom-printed shirt and high-waisted flares; the A-list actress who struts the red carpet at the Oscars in a pair of unflattering bike shorts (somewhere in Idaho, Demi Moore is still embarrassed). We catch one glimpse of these misguided souls and cant help but proclaim them fashion victims. But these eyesores arent the only ones who deserve the label. One day, on a sidewalk in Manhattans Nolita shopping district, an ultra-hip neighborhood nook lined with cafs and cutesy boutiques, a chic twenty something walked out in front of me dressed entirely in Burberry plaid, from her bucket cap to her jacket to her skirt right down to her shoes. She was the type of girl who nearly everyone, upon laying eyes on her, would agree was cool, although being wrapped in the trademark checks was obvious overkill. In the same way that fashion darlings like Chlo Sevigny and Kate Moss can pull off outfits that would make a good number of other people look foolish, this girl made it work. Did she look good? Yes. Was she still a raging Fashion Victim? Absolutely. The point is: We are all slaves to fashionsome just do a better job of conforming to the socially-accepted picture of good taste. The Fashion Victim is all around us. The Hollywood starlet whos personally dressed by Donatella Versace is no less the Fashion Victim than the small-town salesgirl who hops on every fad at her local JC Penney. The genteel lady in the Chanel suit toting her toy poodle in his Louis Vuitton carrier is no less a Fashion Victim than the Japanese teen swathed in full-body Dolce & Gabanna with ankle socks and white pumps. The Latin crooner in the long Armani jacket and collarless shirt is no less an offender than the club kid squeezed into silver leather pants and faux fur jacket. The hipster with the Prada sneakers and Herms bag is no less a Fashion Victim than the soccer mom with the faux snakeskin pants and bad Fendi knockoff. A Fashion Victim is anyone who has ever looked back at old pictures and cringed a reflex induced by the realization that fashion at some point in their lives had been able to manipulate their brain waves with some sort of ninja mind control. Its anyone who has ever worn a scratchy sweater, tight jeans, a stiff collar or unyielding shoes just because they looked good. Its anyone who owns more clothing than they reasonably need (Id venture that this includes about 99.9 percent of you reading right now). But most of all, Fashion Victims are people who, no matter how many frustrations they can

list about fashionthe cost, the tyranny of style, the ridiculousness of trendsheartily continue to play along. All this being said, fashion is not some mighty force that sweeps over us, leaving us incapable of making rational decisions. Throughout history, peoplewomen, in particularhave been regarded as slaves of fashion. Those who concerned themselves with dress were referred to as vain or foolish by the high thinkers of the early 20th Century, and still today. The image put forth by some theorists was of malleable consumers being pushed in certain directions by an oppressive fashion system. Even today, theres still a tinge of shame associated with caring too much about fashion. In the August 2002 issue of Vogue, Chlo Sevignyupon seeing a dress with a leaping stallion across the front at a 1930s costume design exhibitremarked, How Stella McCartney, adding, Its so sad that I know that. But for the most part, we are far from defenseless victims. On the contrary, we are Fashion Victims by our own volitionstyle masochists, if you will. We jump into the sometimes-ridiculous world of fashion head first. Even an article of clothing as excruciating as the corset was not something thrust upon unsuspecting wearers. For years, fashion historians referred to the tight-laced garments as a sort of torture chamber, imposed on women by men in the wicked hopes of making them quite literally the weaker sex. But as Valerie Steele argues in her book The Corset: A Cultural History, it was actually a tool women willingly used to make themselves more powerful. Likewise, the modern woman who dresses in slinky minis and low-cut blouses isnt necessarily succumbing to the masculine majority, but may instead be exerting her own feminine force through self expression. [...] The styles and labels we wear reveal our membership in certain groups. A jacket is not just a jacket, but also a lifestyle ingredient. As Ralph Lauren once said, I dont design clothes. I design dreams. When a man buys the flat-front linen Regent pant and Yarmouth shirt in gingham twill from the Polo store, hes not just buying an outfit; hes buying an attitude. Another reason that fashion has also lured so many avid followers over the years is that its an attractive world associated with glamoura fusion of art, entertainment, and business, all rolled into one. Were drawn to the sheer excitement of everything we think it stands for. Fashion is built on contradictions. It is fun, but frustrating. Its creative, but commercial. Fashion brings people closer together, but also drives them farther apart. It can make us feel beautiful, but also ugly when we cant live up to the established ideals. Fashion makes us strive to attain, but it also makes us think about everything we dont have. Thanks to these contradictions, most of us harbor a love-hate attitude toward clothing. We love how a nice outfit can brighten our mood one day, but hate the frustration of having nothing to wear the next. We love shopping for clothes to relieve stress, but hate looking at our credit card statements at the end of the month. We love how high heels make our legs look, but hate covering our blisters the next morning with Band-Aids. Fashion, as enjoyable as it can be at times, often highlights how warped societys priorities can be. Today, being well-dressed can elevate a person to mythic proportions. How many times have we seen a so-so actress rise to the ranks of a screen idol simply because she shows up to events in designer gowns? On the flip side, fabulously talented people are sometimes swept aside because they dont play the fashion game. Unglamorous Sissy Spacek, for instance, gave a knockout performance in the 2001

film In the Bedroom but her presence on the red carpet at every awards show was severely overshadowed by her couture-wearing competitors. For all the crazy things fashion encourages us to do, many of us simply accept that it steers us in certain directions, without questioning why it carries so much weight in our lives. We have the power to change how we feel about our clothes, but rarely do it. Cant stand swimsuit shopping? Then why buy a new one every year? Hate exorbitant price tags? Then why continue to spend so much money? Tired of seeing everyone wearing the same clothes you see in stores? Why shop at the mall? Frustrated by the pace at which handbag shapes come and go? Why snatch up the latest styles? Sick of rail-thin models and celebrities in magazine layouts? Then why subscribe to three different fashion glossies? This year, the average American will spend $1,729 on clothing, racking up more than $200 billion in annual sales for the industry. That same average Joe (or Josephine) will make four trips to the mall each month (interestingly, the same number of times the average American has sex per month). Hundreds of millions of people around the world buy clothes every year. Theyll spend a good chunk of their mornings pondering which pants to pair with which shirts, but few ever truly contemplate their own motives behind having those clothes in the first place. Millions of research dollars are poured into understanding the basic human drives of hunger, thirst, sex, self-protection, and security, but what about the drive to be fashionable, which in some people is just as strong? Its not as though fashion is something easily overlooked; in fact we seem to have formed a dysfunctional bond with it. Our modern-day hunger for more clothes and faster trends, as well as the premium we put on looking good has deteriorated our self-esteem, our health, the environment, our finances, our moralsbut we continue to be more ravenous than ever. The purpose of this book is to examine how fashion has become enmeshed in our everyday lives and to illuminate the many ways it has affected society, both good and bad. While I cast a critical eye on the industry and on the concept of fashion itself, I certainly dont undervalue the ways in which fashion enriches our lives. Who can deny that a bride glows ten times brighter when shes wearing her dream gown? (When my boyfriend and I get married, were going to register for gifts at Gucciwho needs silverware and fancy china when you can have suede boots and finely crafted Italian pants?) Fashion has also contributed aesthetic beauty and extraordinary art to the world. Many designers like Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano are artists who happen to work with the medium of fabric on bodies. And clothes serve the purpose of memorializing many wonderful times in our livesthe dress you wore on the day you met the love of your life, the fuzzy yellow jumper your child toddled around in when he took his first step, the outfit you were wearing the day someone asked, Arent you that famous model? My fathers favorite shirt in the 1970s was a cornflower-blue T-shirt with his name Benny ironed on the front. To this day, the mere thought of that shirt makes me smile.