What the crap is wrong with me? Why is it that I don't squeal or eeek at the sight of Carine Roitfeld, Emmanuelle Alt or Anna Wintour? Why am I so stonily unaware or disinterested when a FRESH bit of Balmain (as of tomorrow, I'm sure Alt will be wearing the A/W09-10 stuff for sure the next day...) comes trooping out on someone's shoulders? Those Balenciaga shimmery stranded, almost fibre-optic dresses on Anna della Russo - why am I not bowing before her scuba-booted feet in a "I'm not worthy" manner? Why do I not swoon at the so perfectly Marc Jacobs slash Alexander Wang-attired Teen voguettes who embody the exact contents of where they work, an admirable feat, no?
In the past few weeks and I'm sure in the coming week as I hang out with streestyle photographers who excitely snap these people with great rapidity, I have been asking myself these questions and will continue to do so. It's surely not down to being jaded, seeing as my fashion week experiencing seasons are few. It is partially down to my annoying trait of not really looking up to people as style 'icons'. Speaking to a girl outside the Topshop venue during LFW, she said of Kate Lanphear "Isn't she a goddess?" and I was silently thinking that there was no need to start bringing deity-talk into the matter.
I'm beginning to see why it is I'm one of those odd few who aren't treating these people as 'goddesses' (I'm not even sure they themselves would like to be treated thus but anyhow...). It's not to take away ANYTHING from their style which is of course their own, and belongs to them entirely and of course is admirable. But it is that their clothes, so recognisable and so iconic in their own right (as they have the pick of contacts and fashion cupboards...) and the EASINESS of their provenance that are lost on me. The challenge doesn't exist if you ask your chum Decarnin for a piece from his collection. Wearing the latest seasons from head to toe is of course a fiscal challenge but not for the editors who can pull things just like that. Then the act of instantly being able to label everything a person is wearing in one quick glance (Tommy Ton...!) is something quite disconcerting to me, owner of about a gazillion unidentifiable bits and pieces. I then start feeling feeble and silly without anything new-seasoned to bring to the table and this is therefore an unhealthy path to go down that would probably end up with me behind bars for credit card fraud and sitting in a pool of my own faeces.
The core of all of this is that....I think my lack of enthusiasm comes down to the fact that I prefer an outfit to be a bit ambiguous, have a bit of mystery about it. I might be the only one here and I am of course still questioning why I don't get excited about the latest seasons so-and-so being on the backs of ppl and the perfection of their style, so feel free to jolt me back into non-idiocy by saying "Urgh...how can you call yourself a fashion lover?"
I like overhearing snippets of conversation where people are explaining to a Japanese streetstyle magazine what they are wearing that go something like this..."This corsage I found in my mum's closet...think it came off her wedding dress, these are a random pair of Camden Market leggings, the Marni dress is a few seasons old and the shoes I had custom made by a Japanese designer Daikamura and the coat came from an designer consignment store." This could be interpreted as some sort of superiority complex whereby because my own style is higgelty piggelty I therefore decree that the sort of style I find interesting is like my own. That may well be true. Still, I am trying to get excited and squeal and all of that. I really am. I'm off to Paris to find my fake squeal pitch this week.... wish me luck.
