So folks, it's time for Voirrey to take the gloves off (which her true friends know rarely happens). First, a word about the title of this essay, which long before he made it a hit song, Mr. Jim Steinman is rumoured to be the voice crooning it to Bonnie Tyler so long ago in Alan Gruner's expert indictment/celebration of the dance/club scene, "Getting so Excited." http://www.metrolyrics.com/getting-so-excited-lyrics-bonnie-tyler.html
Now that I've dated myself, let me get to the point. It's really a question: when did so much American dressing become exclusively about sex? And more to the point, cheap tawdry sex? It's time we said we don't need that to find love or love ourselves, it's time we remembered elegance, innocence, sophistication, fun, futurism, classicism, uniqueness and play.
No, I'm no prude, what I'm saying is, we can have all those things in the way we dress, and yes, any one of those things can be damn sexy too. But somewhere along the line American women, or at least those who design for them and contrive the images they see everywhere, have lost the capacity to look beyond sex as the primary reason for getting dressed in the morning.
For example here at Voirrey Central, where I often write and design, I'm afraid to say that the tv is almost always on in the background. Just a few nights ago, a show unimaginatively called "Jersylicious" came on, and as the member of our team who is , ehem, more than a little addicted to television moved to rescue us all from the epic tales of Snookie and her peers I held up my hand for pause, as a narrator doing his best tribute to the crocodile hunter soon had us all screaming in laughter as he detailed exactly of which I speak, a culture that views decorating the human body exclusively as a means to procure the gender of their choice, but in the most tacky and I must say lazy way possible, repeating cliches hardly removed from those of either a cheap b-reel Western or an even cheaper 80's porn video. And they are supposedly workers in the beauty industry!
Given their age and culture, I suppose I can forgive those young people (though not those who put them on the air, I'm afraid). Before I close, though, I must call one of my own peers on the (red) carpet. Joe Zee, Mr. Joe Zee, heir apparent to Andre Leon Talley as THE American arbiter of high style, what are you thinking? For those too busy for the tube, even he has gotten the reality show bug, saving young designers from themselves, all in one tidy little hour of film. But please, I have to object. In one episode he was bemoaning the lack of taste in one of his proteges, and then in the next little snippet proceeded to talk about how to embrace the "latest" thing. I just have to say this: Joe, if you're going to say that putting a cat face on a t-shirt dress is not design, I must say to you, dear boy, that throwing a blazer over a a truly "blah-zay" leopard print boustier is NOT style!
To tidy up this diatribe and make it au curant, I'd just like you to note what's going on at this year's Cannes film festival, now in progress. Take a look for yourself, Hello Magazine and Telegraph.co.uk are great sources, and I'm sure if you look closely you'll notice a difference between the international performers and many of those who act for the US market, no matter their culture of origin. Our nation is represented by way too much skin, in dresses way too tight, not for beauty but for some vulgar sense of sexuality! My apologies to the exceptions that prove the rule.
 |
| Rachel McAdams at Cannes, a slightly more creative boustier |
In coming blogs in this series, my team and friends from around the world will weigh in on this sort of thing, the American market being sold a vision of dressing that calls for cheap "inner wear as outer wear" as I've heard ad nauseum lately. It's the start of our seasonal 5 ways not to dress and 5 suggestions for ways to indeed cover and express yourself. We'll give many examples but a thread will run through indicting the design firm that most used American cliches in its dressing this season, and I bet you haven't even given it a second thought. I also dare you to guess who before I get the next chance to write. It's all going to be quite revealing, and oh, so very, Voirrey.
