Time once again for the Get Serious! Fashion Outlook! Yes, it’s that feature that appears every time we read some fashion news in the morning newspaper that makes us spit out our Cap’n Crunch in astonishment.
This bit of astonishing news comes from the Sunday New York Times, which recently reported on the high-fashion shows in Milan, Italy. Italy, as you know, is the home of some of the highest of high-fashion houses, prestigious names like Prada, Fendi, Ferretti, Ferragamo, Versace, Gucci, Pucci and Guido Sarducci.
In Milan, these high-rollers of the high-fashion industry (industry motto: “Making clothes that you, insignificant average person, will never afford”) were showing off their creations for the annual Fall/Winter Fashion Week. Yes, fall/winter. (Little-known fact: Contrary to popular belief, Italy is actually in the Southern Hemisphere.)
And one of the noteworthy “looks” for women’s fashion at the shows, according to the Times, was — get ready — shoulder pads.
Shoulder pads! Part of a back-to-the-1980s fashion trend, we’re told. You remember shoulder pads, right? Back then, lots of women were walking around sporting these gigantic shoulders, looking like they had suited up to play offensive guard for the Chicago Bears. This was considered a “power” look. Presumably, women’s empowerment in the 1980s included occasionally needing to throw a block on an oncoming linebacker.
(Since I brought the subject up: Why, after all these years, is there still not a single woman interior lineman in the whole National Football League? Someone needs to look into this. And further: Why is it, on these football telecasts, that the reporter who has to walk around on the sidelines all game long is always the woman, while the men broadcasters get to sit comfortably in the booth? Talk about your sexism.)
The only thing bigger than those 1980s women’s shoulder pads was the lapels on 1970s men’s jackets. These new shoulder pads reportedly are not as massive, but still very “structured.” Something that will bear the responsibilities the modern woman takes upon her shoulders, it seems.
Well, maybe. I mean, Wonder Woman gets along just fine without any shoulder pads, doesn’t she?
Perhaps some of you who are dismayed at this may want to dismiss it as “fake news,” which is what a certain person likes to label stuff in the New York Times he doesn’t like. But I don’t think so, and frankly I hope not.
Silly high fashion, bless it, has always been a dependable topic for wise-guy writers like me in search of cheap humor. When the rest of the world is grim, you can always count on a laugh from high-fashion couturiers who send models down the runways dressed like aliens from “Star Wars,” only not as understated.
Historically, what happens is that photographers eagerly snapped pictures of those models who looked like they just stepped off a flying saucer from the planet Bizarro. These photos were sent to newspapers, where old-time newspaper copy editors, whose fashion sense consisted of having the coffee stains on their ties match the ones on their pants, would look at them and say “Holy cow, would ya look at that goofy outfit,” and put the photos in the newspaper for a laugh. And the fashion designer would get his name in all the newspapers! Worked every time.
I am glad this tradition lives on, and that it enabled me to get an easy column out of it. And without even discussing the Gucci models who strode down the Milan runway holding replicas of their own heads in their arms. (Honest, look it up.)
And if you’re wondering about the men’s fashions at these shows: Rest assured that they do what cutting-edge fashion creations have always done for men throughout the decades, namely make you look like Gigolo the Clown.
A friendly word of warning, fashionable men: Future generations will look back on the past year and, ignoring all our progress in science, technology, curing diseases and fighting hunger and violence and racism, will simply gasp in dismay and exclaim, “male rompers??!!”
As for you blissfully unfashionable men like me: When the occasion demands that you do dress up and look sharp, I suggest an infallible guide. Ask yourself, “What would Fred Astaire or Cary Grant wear?”
That’s it for Fashion Outlook!, except I need to apologize for that joke about old-time copy editors I made a couple of paragraphs back. It was cheap and mean, and also quite inaccurate. Actually, those old guys stopped wearing ties ages ago.
Gabriele can be reached by email at [email protected].
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