scotlyn, i’ve been thinking about this since i read it….i think it’s a pretty profound thought. and mainly for the exact opposite reason. if you look into someone’s eyes and see ugly, maybe that has a little to do with how they feel about you, but really it’s how ugly they are inside or how ugly they feel they are.

First, we got rid of our television when the kids were small, and the first thing I noticed was how startling it was to find I was now spending so much more time looking at the faces around me – my children, my husband, any passing visitors. It was great – the lack of a screen distraction meant I was seeing mainly eyes – and reading eyes. And the interesting other thing that happened then was the realisation that if I looked at the way I was reflected back to myself through the eyes of people around me who loved me – I was beautiful. They looked upon me and were pleased.

Second, I don’t look at these kind of mags, because they instantly do the opposite. They reflect ugliness back at me, and I won’t have it. Nevertheless, inspired by a seminar on emotions, I did try a trick it recommended when I was confronted with a raft of anti-”women’s” mags in a doctor’s waiting room. I used my fingers to frame the eyes of the pictures of the models and celebrities, trying to guess what emotion they were actually feeling. And you know, they are not a happy bunch.

Finally, the word choice comes up here, as in other places, and it’s an idea I want to develop further, but it strikes me that choice and power are two different things. Choice is airbrushing, power is beauty. Choice is saccharine, power is rich chocolate cake. Choice is fake, it is the illusion with which we are bought and sold. Power is what we actually need to reclaim, to have, to use, and to share.

It’s like that moment in The Devil Wears Prada, where the interns’ sweater is revealed to be just as much of a product of the fashion industry as one that cost three times the price. No article of clothing in circulation today isn’t based off of articles of clothing that was “the style” and in magazines everywhere as what people wore. For example, if you go back in the 1960s, you’d have to scour special boutiques to find a corset and/or petticoat to wear on a daily basis. Go back five years or earlier, and you could find one easily. Today, it’s even harder to find a functional corset that isn’t expensive.Nowadays, people don’t wear corsets every day, but they sure as heck used to. That said, it may be appropriately sexy to wear a corset on it’s own, but it cannot be said that the corset is a stranger to the naked body. It just hasn’t been out in the fresh air.

To anthropomorphize and issue, we’re complaining about living in our cruel grandmothers’ basement, but we haven’t made enough cash to buy our own apartment…yet. Until then, we have to eat her horrible bran muffins and say gold leggings are a great idea until we can think of something we haven’t discussed, or she hasn’t lived through on her own( “remember the fifties?” “Yes, I wore a nice flared dress with pearls”. “Remember the 90’s?”, “Ah, I remmeber those years well. That’s when I got introduced to heroin and forgot what fit me”). Of course, one could argue weather the styles on the street influence the fashion or the fashion influences the styles on the street. I have yet to see a good outfit on a street style blog that hasn’t had an element taken from a magazine or current trend.Of course, I’m into the more extreme styles such as lolita and visual kei, thus it takes something extremely over the top and rediculouse for me to be floored. Look at any Angelic Pretty advert and anyone could feel like they’re a bit boring. Some of these girls are wearing fake cakes in their hair! They just don’t sell fake cake headbands in America, so I am not yet convinced we’ve hit a wall in sartorial possibilities unless we can wear pastries like that. BTW: brands like Baby The Stars Shine Bright and Metamorphose have items that come in sizes that can go into inbetweenie range , and sometimes the clothes stretch even further with enough shirring. Considering Japanese sizing, that’s more variety than some American brands.

The moral of the story I’m failing to communicate is that so many of the things people are wearing is connected to fashion, and we’re still not at the point where our sartorial choices are 100%independent from the ones made by designers and magazine editors. As you can see, I’m very devoted to this, and probably need to find a better hobby…or move out of my parents’ home ._.

I can relate to whoever it was who said that she continues buying fashion magazines just for the love of design and inspiration. I did the same thing for a long time with the house/decor porn magazines, and while I couldn’t bring myself to buy the women’s magazines, I’d still pour over them at friends’ houses.

But oh how I love the internet, and this is one reason why: it gives people the opportunity to find and create another source for that beside that of rich, powerful people who motivation is solely to manipulate me into giving them more money. It’s totally weaned me of my desire to look through those mags, because actually it’s even better. Because it’s grass-roots, it’s much more subversive and there’s more variety. I’m more likely to find my interests represented somewhere online by someone just putting up their own stuff, than I am looking through mags in the grocery store. I’m in love with groups on Flickr like “wardrobe remix” and “corners of my home”. Looking through fashion mags just makes me depressed and jealous. Looking at photos of what real people are doing is what inspires me to create my own life, because it’s accessible and realistic.