Fashion elitism rears its ugly head*
Nothing gets to me quite like the infamous Fashion Snob Squad. You know the type. They travel in packs and not only judge you by your tax bracket or how you talk, but also by how many labels you can incorporate into one outfit on a daily basis.
I generally distrust any and all members of this special breed of fashion dictators. So how I ended up agreeing to have lunch with one of them on my day off some time ago remains a mystery.
Granted, she was an acquaintance. And Miss Fashion Snob - as I choose to call her - does have some redeeming qualities, most notably her impressive collection of shoes. But I digress.
So there we were at the restaurant, waiting for our entrées to arrive and fiddling with our napkins. I was feeling particularly retro that day and had shown up in a Pucci-inspired halter dress and leggings, while she was very obviously channeling Nicole Richie in her black playsuit, arms loaded with wooden bracelets.
"Those are lovely bangles you have on," Miss Fashion Snob purred, her narrowed eyes coolly appraising my wrist.
"Hmm?" I glanced down distractedly at the items in question. I'd spent the whole morning on a serious shopping rampage, and I had the shopping bag handle burns to prove it. Between my hunger and the post-spending exhaustion creeping over me, let's just say I wasn't at the top of my game. "Oh, thanks."
Then came the million dollar question. "Are they from Tod's?"
A moment of silence. I stared at her with bemusement. "Er, no. I got them from a boutique in Bangsar."
Obviously, I'd chosen the wrong answer. The expression on her face hardened. "I see." Something told me her esteem of me was steadily dropping several hundred points as my confession hung in the air like a bad smell.
*
*
The offending bangles
*
To the average fashion elitist, nothing is more devastating than discovering that your occasional lunch partner's spending power doesn't come anywhere close to matching yours. Or worse, that your occasional lunch partner doesn't seem to mind 'roughing it out' in clothes, jewellery or accessories of dubious origin. The horror!
Miss Fashion Snob seemed to struggle for a bit to recover from the shock of my admission. Nevertheless, she forged ahead. "Well...have you seen those new bangles from [insert name of snooty designer here, because I sure as heck can't remember his/her name at this point]?"
Well, if the ship's already sinking, what difference does another hole make? "Um...nooo?" (I couldn't help drawing out the last word. I hadn't the faintest idea where the conversation was headed.)
If Miss Fashion Snob looked horrified earlier, she was by now looking positively disgusted. I may as well have told her I listened to death metal and bit off bats' heads every morning for breakfast.
As you can imagine, the rest of lunch was an awkward affair.
Tell me, how did it come to be that a small group of rabid fashion Nazis were allowed to dictate a person's appreciation of style? When did it become acceptable to judge someone based solely on what they wore?
Style is not the exclusive right of the financially superior. Fashion is fluid and all-encompassing, and for that reason can never be pigeonholed into a rigid list of specific labels or designers. Buying into the belief that style is governed solely by the designer and/or label of the moment is tantamount to losing the most fundamental understanding of style.
As the inimitable Sebastian Horsley once said: "Style has little to do with wealth; it is a way of being yourself in a hostile or indifferent world. To be 'well dressed' is not to have expensive clothes or the 'right' clothes. You can wear rags, so long as they suit you."
*
NB: For those of you who want to find out how much of a fashion snob you secretly are, try out this quiz. It's a hoot!
*
No comments:
Post a Comment