I am lucky enough to have her as a friend and occasional fashion stylist on our trips out together (my extremely bizarre hair and make-up is entirely my own OTT work, but I have allowed her to put rollers in my hair and paint on my face with eyeliner before because I trust her completely). She also supplies my vintage fashion addiction as she runs the most amazing vintage business which overflows with exquisite pieces at such great value that you can fast turn into a vintage junkie in her capable hands.
sitting on art in Cardiff with the divine Miss Peelpants 
at a New Rom club (she's wearing her divine purple Sarah Whitworth)
Now to the subject of her post and the mention of everyone running around everywhere in PVC mini dresses with bacofoil trimmings. She is against the idea of it. Unusually I'm opposing in opinion to her and am totally for it.
I want everyone to really try hard at expressing themselves with their appearance and having fun with fashion. Mainly so that I can get away with wearing the clothes I love and not stand out so much, but also because it would make life more interesting and exciting with so much wonderful fashion expression at every turn. In Yorkshire I'm starved of it as everyone has a copycat, drab, blend in mentality. They're afraid to step out of line and draw attention to themselves. If it weren't for the quirky yet stylish fashion haven of Leeds and the hippie mentality of Hebden Bridge I'd go crazy in this wonderfully beautiful and kind hearted county. Without those two places I am made uncomfortable to exist in my own clothes and starved of both colour and inspiration.
I am the sort of person who will stop someone on the street (okay, so I pause in wonderment and then end up chasing after them most of the time) to ask what make their outfit/bag/etc is. But there are so few opportunities to discover fashion in this way for me. I think that's why I crave another style of life even though I know the glamourous parties would bore me rigid. The outfits around me would delight me and I'd have an excuse for all the outrageous clothes I want to wear.
I won't fight to become a part of it though. I spent my childhood being treated to trips to beautiful places by my father who wanted to teach me the nicer things in life. He was encouraged by my mother who had lived the high life as a child and saw in me the appreciation of beautiful things and graceful company. Despite my love of decadence and need to be around people who are cultured and well brought up I then spent my teens trying to claw my way out of boarding school. It was infested by people whose only love was money and who delighted in trampling upon anyone who didn't reach their expectations or wear what Vogue told them was the thing to have. I'm softed hearted so I fought for everyone they trampled upon and insisted on doing my own thing despite the trouble it caused for me. My mother insisted that I try to fit in and bought me the clothes I needed for that but I felt alien and just couldn't do it. So I quickly aquired an attitude of "this is me, deal with it!"
I finally settled in my late teens and early twenties into the music world. I'm not a musician but I love and breathe music and seem to be good company for those who create it. The backstage doors opened up for me easily and I was finally in an environment where I gained respect for being myself and respected the musicians right back for being such amazingly creative beings and treating me well. I was adored for my quirky appearance and extensive knowledge, encouraged to push my style further and was finally completely at ease.
People think that the backstage, touring lifestyle is glamorous. It's not. There's a lot of travel but you don't get to seeing anything. The grotty backstage areas of venues are rarely as plush as the public areas. Hotels are for crash landing in and the only time you get to explore somewhere is in the early hours of the morning in an impossible quest for post-gig food. The music makes it worth it though.
Now I've done all that to excess. I still love it, but I'm craving for the nicer life. I want comfy sofas, beautiful art and staff who speak to you in a nice manner. I don't want to spend my entire life squashed in a crowd one minute and sat for hours waiting on the band to pack up, do their press interviews and sign autographs the next. I'd tired of only seeing backstage venues and cities that are asleep and dark in the night time. When I'm not at work, I want to spend my time with people who aren't working either and spend it in nice places.
I'm not giving up the groupie lifestyle entirely because I love music too much and am too drawn to the men that make it. ...but I want the nice life my parents taught me. Like I said though, I'm not fighting to jon the fashion and art scene. If I had it full time I'd only crave a bit of room trashing, some racous rock'n'roll and a bag of chips. And I'm not leaving my lovely home in Yorkshire for tha chaos of London. I just want to be able to dip into it now and then, graced with the company of people who love art, fashion and music as much as I do.
So, it's either that or everyone starts wearing PVC and bacofoil. ;)
Awwwwww, *blushblushblush*.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, onto pvc dresses with bacofoil. I DOOOOO want people to wear them, but I was simply pointing out that the world would be awfully boring if people only ever ran around in pvc/foil dresses and nothing else (in the same way as if they only ran around in leggings and topshop dresses....whoops, that's already happened, hasn't it??).
It's the "infinite variety" which makes me tick, and unenforced uniforms (whether they be beige sacks or PVC dresses or Sarah Whitworth fishtail-y corset things) just make me want to throw things, mainly make-up and fabric, at people.