Vaguely indecent

Men først, en liten beskrivelse av mitt forhold (min passion) til fashion. Beskrivelsen som stod under Rufus Wainwright-sitatet ("Men reading fashion magazines/Oh, what a world it seems we live in...") passet forbausende godt: "For many years, the pair existed in a state of mutual distrust. Like two jealous suitors eyeing each other across a smoky room, men and fashion did not get on. Of late, however, something has shifted. Slowly but surely, a friendship has been struck - at first mildly flirtatious, later vaguely indecent - and suddenly, it seems that men and fashion more than get on. Men and fashion are positively in love."

For også mitt forhold til fashion har vært preget av mistro. Det hadde vært nok å bare ta en titt på noen av bildene fra mitt første år på videregående til å skjønne hva jeg mener: det var ikke fashion som styrte da. Ja, allerede da tenkte jeg på klær som noe som uttrykte personligheten min, et slags kostyme, men kombinasjonen av det blomstrete skjørtet og fjellrevenjakken, eller den svarte lebestiften og alpeluen jeg i en periode gikk med hver dag ligger faretruende nært til det jeg i dag ville kalt fashionmistakes. Men, let's blame it on my youth, og la oss kalle det året en ungdommelig villfarelse, og heller se at fashion har vært, er, og mest sannsynelig vil være så mye mer enn bare klær for meg. Og ingen sier det vel bedre enn djevelen i Prada, selveste Miranda Priestley:

'This... stuff'? Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select... I don't know... that lumpy blue sweater, for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent... wasn't it who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff.'