Fashion, freaks and frivolity

"Crazy ideas are better than too normal ideas."  Karl Lagerfeld

I suppose it was inevitable, having watched so much SATC recently, that I would feel drawn to flicking through fashion magazines and adapting what I've been wearing to be at least a little bit more adventurous.  Having a full day off to myself has done wonders.  A day off, on my own, in my little flat.  I almost never thought I'd get to enjoy this kind of delight.  As such, I had time to both catch up on sleep and read, oh my god, read newspapers, magazines and online articles (see THIS  fashion page linked to the Chicago Tribune site.  Picture number 9 is of a girl with a mismatched set of colours and layers, someone after my own heart) - what a revelation!  I feel so much better for it.  I even had time to form a little idea of how to at least try to improve my circumstances, and even play the keyboard, so I feel like I'm getting back to my old self.

Last night I spoke to the architect about how I'd been discussing an article in the Czech version of Elle, on the last page, written by a well-known Czech actress, Ana Geislerová, and I said how funny it is that she gets to write a monthly column.  The architect personally thinks she's nine tenths a prostitute, which, given her recounting numerous lovers in her latest article is perhaps only an exaggeration, rather than an outright character defamation, but he rested his case that of course a well-known actress would get a column in a fashion magazine, because she will help tell women what to wear.  And this, he attested, is what fashion magazines are all about: getting women to feel inadequate and buy more stuff.

I can't say I disagree all that much, except I know that in my case, buying a fashion magazine, if it's any good, gets me to try to adapt what things I already have to wear them in more interesting ways or try a free make-up trick (rare, as actually, I  usually avoid the 'beauty' pages because the word itself puts me off) or keep me up to date on the latest film/music/literature releases.  I simply can't afford to go out and buy anything as a result of what I see in the magazine.  (Quite frankly, the purchase of the magazine in itself usually uses up the last of my disposable income and causes me to re-think another trip to Tesco to get more food, opting to scale down on bread and anything nice and try to live off apples and cereal for a bit longer instead.)

So in light of this, I wondered how guilty I should feel about my terrible fashion magazine addiction.  I don't buy magazines every month, but some months (such as September) I might buy two, so it's the equivalent of one a month I suppose.  I also bought more in August, because I wanted something to read while travelling and I wanted to enjoy a week 'on holiday' so I did holiday things.  Plus, I wanted to buy a couple of Czech magazines to get me to look up and learn some more vocab.  But is the architect right, and I'm merely being caught in a pre-organised industry trap, which seeks to do me out of all my remaining money and make me feel insecure enough to buy more stuff when I can?  Well, largely, no.  Because I simply don't have money for clothes anyway, and I can use some articles from the magazines I've bought as meet-ee fodder, so it's not entirely wasted money.  And when I do have enough time to really look through some interesting pages of fashion, I actually feel inspired to do other things too.

Like, for instance, today, I had already leafed through pages of shoes, and found some delightful piano-print ones in Paris Vogue, but that didn't influence what I wore.  I nonetheless felt inspired to dress more eccentrically and put on some purply pink things because I was in the mood for colour and something non-classic today.  A couple of weeks ago I got a surprise package from the Russian Countess with two pairs of earrings in it, so I've been wearing one pair on and off most of the time, but decided to try the super-big purply ones today. 

It worked.  I felt so much better.  And that in turn, lead me to play the keyboard and sing a few made up little bits of nonsense that also made me feel more alive.

A month or so ago, I watched this video from Harper's Bazaar (see it HERE) and felt comforted and reassured, because all the famous designers in it seemed like such freaks (with one or two exceptions) and I laughed at the strange little fantasy world they get to live in and how they are allowed to live like a crazy person and it's ok.  So my being an eccentrically dressed nobody in Prague is hardly the crime of the century, right?  It's good to know that there are indeed even weirder people than me out there.