Maybe this is everyone’s experience as they get older, falling out of fashion and balking at the latest trends.

BUT. I really think there’s something uniquely terrible about this moment in (clothing) history.

I can appreciate elements of fashion from pretty much every era…from jazz age glam to swinging cocktail dresses and just about everything from the set of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, to the pencil skirts and cat-eye makeup of the 60s, to 80s punk and 90s heroin chic, to the dELiA’s catalogues of my coming-of-age and the midriffs of the 2000s.

But these days I dread shopping. Why are shirts cut like pillowcases and dresses cut like potato sacks? What’s the point of a sweater knit so loosely the wind blows right through, or a neck cut so wide the sleeves fall down your shoulders? Speaking of, why are the shoulders/armpits in a women’s “small” cardigan roomy enough for the Rock?

It all seems so frumpy, and not even functional. Aren’t clothes meant to accentuate the body, rather than hide it? How are you other non-Gen Z women adapting to current fashion?

P.S. I will admit that having higher rise jeans is nice. It took me a while to get on board, but now I can see how the low rise skinny jean gave us all chicken legs ;)

  • @grabyourmotherskeys
    1•1 year ago

    Perspective of a 50 year old man. You should wear what you like. I have long believed “fashion” is a money printing machine. I won’t say it preys on insecurity because that is condescending and ignores the fact that many people love following fashion, getting new clothes, etc. But I do think the pace of change is specifically designed to turn over cheaply produced inventory and ensure people don’t wear the clothes enough to wear them out.

    I have been wearing basically the same clothes for years. If I tear out a knee I buy new pants. That kind of thing.

    My wife needs to wear business attire and fairly dressy stuff (blazers, etc). She is always buying new things and donating clothing.

    One of us is spending an order of magnitude more on clothes.

    I don’t begrudge this, she makes more money than me and has to dress that way because of her job.

    The point I’m trying to make is to stay current and fashionable is pa kort of her purchasing but she also just wears stuff out very, very quickly. It’s the way the clothes are made.

    The marketing and poor quality (weak seams, thin fabric, inconsistent sizing, etc) is all designed up maximize profit.