studiocrawfish

[studiocrawfish]

on fashion’s hypocritical exclusivity

One of the key aspects of wealth, and by extension, luxury fashion, is a culture of aspiration. We aspire to climb the economic and social ladders, and participating in fashion’s fabricated — see what I did there? — exclusivity helps us buy into a dream of somehow attaining the unattainable. Emulating the ruling class lets us believe that we can rise above our stations and become more, become powerful. If I just get that bag, if I’m able to afford these shoes, I’ll have made it. As soon as our material dreams become actually attainable, they are deemed undesirable and tacky by the taste-making rich. Once the styles are co-opted by the lower class, a trend is dead. If knock-offs are sold at Walmart, if you can get the same look without taking out a second mortgage, it’s time to move on to the next “it” item. The way that trends die has less to do with our shrinking attention spans than we think.

Take, for example, the Gucci Marmot belt. Gucci’s haute-couture designs grace the figures of the rich and famous, but the GG belt can be found in the closets of everyone from bloggers to upper-middle class moms to sorority girls. Knock-offs can be found on Wish and in small town boutiques. Now that it has become part of the mainstream, it is no longer aspirational. We don’t want something everyone has, and if the PTA president can get her hands on a Gucci branded belt, the dream is dead. Is it really the flashy logo we find so offensive, or is it simply because those belts are more accessible than other items in their extensive archive? If an influencer with millions of followers was spotted with a Michael Kors tote, it’d sell out in seconds and they’d be lauded as a style icon. If Jane Doe from Raleigh got one, we’d assume it was from Belk’s Black Friday sale, or from Nordstrom Rack. Champion sweatshirts used to be a sign you shopped at discount stores, now, they’re marked up on Depop.

It goes beyond specific articles of clothing to patterns, fabrics, and even language. If a trend doesn’t die, the way it’s worn dictates its trendiness. When on white, thin, wealthy people, a style is “elegant”, but on anyone else, it’s trashy and in poor taste. Leopard print is a staple in “high-class”, elegant wardrobes, but it has a negative association when worn by the lower class. Do today’s influencers really have good style, or does their whiteness and wealth trick us into believing so? They often wear styles cherrypicked from the cultures of POC, and are praised for wearing clothes others were bullied for. The same can be said for the rich dressing in clothing that is deliberately distressed, while those who wear their clothes until they are naturally distressed are mocked for their “sloppy” dress. The exclusive nature of both high and mainstream fashion is hypocrisy doled out by those who dictate what is in and what is out. Anything is “in” if you have the capital to make it so. To truly be immune to the death of trends and make anything seem Pinterest-worthy, you must possess at least one of the following: wealth, whiteness, and a slim figure, but having more helps immensely. 

I am privileged in that because of my whiteness, there is a level of assumed wealth that comes along with it. While not model thin, I fit relatively within society’s idea of a fashionable body, and I can dress in any way I please. Those who do not fit in with this ideal do not have the same luxury. Do I have “good style”, am I someone with a true eye for fashion, or am I buying in to the capitalist and classist notions of luxury and exclusivity? There is no rhyme or reason to the styles that become enviable, it is mere artifice separating us from the wealthy aesthetics and lifestyles we crave. That belt isn’t going to make you rich, fashion houses are just dangling arbitrary items in our faces with the promise that these “it” pieces will catapult us to stardom. Exclusivity breeds aspiration, and marketing tactics allow the mind under capitalism to justify fashion, true capital “f” Fashion, being held at exorbitant cost.

#fashion #fashion blogger #classism #capitalism #anticapitalist fashion #style #gucci #dior #prada #balenciaga #stylist

[studiocrawfish]

confessions of a reformed fast fashion addict

My Saturday mornings used to be spent perusing dusty racks of once-worn sweaters, eagerly searching for my Cool Item of the week. I’d come to school after the weekend, beaming with a sort of pride that’s difficult to explain to those who have never spent hours combing through miles of hangers and blue bins covered in chipped paint. “You like it?” I would say, whispering conspiratorially to anyone who dared to speak on my outfit choices. “It’s thrifted.”  

Ah, thrifting. If you told ten-year-old Michelle that her high school weekends would be spent at Goodwill, she’d probably cry. I used to lie about where I got my borrowed duds to the cool girls so that they’d like me and invite me to sit with them at lunch. Girls with shiny vlog cameras made thrift store hopping cool. In 2012, the word “Goodwill” left my mouth with the same disgust as the word “vomit.” When my dad would get paid, I begrudgingly got in my mom’s 2007 Civic to try and replicate the outfits of the girls I wanted to be (think overpriced Southern t-shirts and ill-fitting knockoff North Face jackets). I was a weird, overly talkative little girl with few friends, and the fact that we couldn’t (or my mom didn’t want to) afford most name brands was a source of constant embarrassment for me. I was a brat. A tween-aged, materialistic, brainwashed brat.

Skip forward a few years, my dad got a raise, and in my desperation to seem cool and normal, I developed an awful shopping habit. Fast fashion brands were my crack. I was in a brand new outfit each week, trying to impress boys I didn’t like and girls I pretended not to care about. It was addictive. The constant want for new clothes, new things, and just more didn’t feel like a want anymore. It was a need. I was a 14-year-old junkie; Forever 21 and my cripplingly low self-esteem waved the needle in my face. I spent so much money filling a void that the fashion industry convinced me I had. 

Maybe it was an intervention from a higher power, maybe it was fate, but videos speaking out against fast fashion began to litter my Youtube recommendations. I don’t know what possessed my haul video obsessed mind to start watching, but something clicked within me. I decided I was going to quit fast fashion cold turkey, and it actually worked. I began buying exclusively secondhand. It was better for society, better for my parents’ wallets, and helped me to branch out as an individual. I was putting together unique outfits, and people liked them. I was different, but this time in a way that didn’t push people away. 

I feel almost like an archaeologist, in a way. I’m unearthing pieces no one else has, and I know that each unique item has a story. It’s taught me to take risks, to step outside my comfort zone. In a thrift store, I choose clothes that I like without blaring music and trendy employees making me feel SO uncool (I’m looking at you, Urban Outfitters). That weird insecure little girl has turned into a butterfly that rejoices when she finds Liz Claiborne jeans, and I couldn’t be happier.

#fast fashion #fashion #slow fashion #sustainable #thrifting #clothes #thrift #thrift store #fashion blogger #writeblr #sustainability #secondhand #depop #poshmark #ebay #forever 21 #urban outfitters #zara #shein #romwe