Studly Fashion

Yesterday my sister and I took advantage of the holiday weekend and went shopping. Now, it's been a little while since I went clothes shopping. Since we bought a house back in June, my closet space has expanded but my budget has shrunk. Besides, in a way I was using clothes and shoes as a void filler, and now that I have a house of my own I'm not quite so inclined to spend loads of money on new ones.

I still do love fashion, though, and as seasons change and shoes and clothes wear out, the time does come to replace certain things. The problem that I had, though, was that it seems as though fashion designers are not taking an "editing eye" to their latest lines.

It became very clear that embellishments are hugely in style right now. I noticed this past year that studs were creeping into fashion, and then flowers, and then random ruffles. Now it seems the military look is in, but it's being combined with studs and ruffles and flowers and buttons and chains and sequins and..and..and..and..it was like someone went back in time and unleashed the 1980s on Ft. Knox, after giving it a hefty dose of sugar and a bedazzler. Everything had some form of embellishment on it. I like those things in moderation. When you have one top that has ALL of those things on it, it becomes a bit much. I can just imagine walking down the hall at work in one of those things. There'd be some hugely important meeting going on, and from within the board room they'd hear this:

"clink clink clink clink clink clink"

Really, just pair it with some corduroy pants and I could start my own symphony just by walking. Either that or convince people that the ghost of christmas past was wandering the building, rattling chains and bewailing the state of humanity.

It makes me think of being a kid and making barbie clothes out of fabric scraps and whatever shiny crap I could find to sew on there. Rhinestones? Fantastic. Buttons? Perfect. Beads? Yes, please. Chains? Why not?

I didn't wear that much hardware when I was into the goth scene, decking myself out in bondage cuffs and dog collars. I had buckles on everything you could put a buckle on, and I still wasn't as bad as one of the dresses I saw. I can't imagine what going through a metal detector would be like (well, I can imagine what it'd be like at the local court house. The deputy manning the metal detector would determine that I am female, young, and thus not possibly smuggling anything in under my skirt, and would wave me on in a bored manner).

Really, is it so much to want something simple, or only slightly decorated? When you've got more metal on your chest than a high ranking military general, there just might be a need to cut back a bit. Not everyone needs to look like Houdini before he makes his grand escape.

Oh well. I do think some cute things have come from this trend, when the embellishments are used in moderation and don't dominate the entire outfit. Hopefully the trend will pass before we all go around sounding like someone threw a handful of pennies into a washing machine.