So, this is my favourite of all the new releases I have seen so far for the 'North side's' Spring summer collections.
Prada I love you. I want it all.
I want to wear the clothes, the accessories and I want my hair and make up to look like this.
It inspired me to dress up a bit more for the week...
But really, why don’t we dress up anymore?
Imagine we were all (boys included) dressed in a similar way to the girls in this picture. None of the clothes look like they take too much effort to wear (which is usually my excuse for not dressing up...just can't be *cuss*ed..) And they look amazing. Sure the hair would take forever...but pretty much up until the 90's, we all actually spent time on our hair and make up. And really people 'back then' took care with their appearance. It was almost a form of respect to those around you. Now we seem to dress for convenience. That's just one step away from wearing uniforms with no make up, really. Same amount of effort is applied.
Hopefully I don’t sound too superficial, I don’t think we have to wear designer clothing. For me dressing yourself up and 'taking care of your appearance' I think of as a way of expressing yourself now. It is an art form I guess, Haute Couture certainly is! And I feel like that maybe we are all starting losing our way of expressing ourselves. No one sings to each other on the street anymore, we don't dance in the moonlight out the front of a restaurant, we don't hold each others hands or link arms while walking down the street and chivalry is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
And I hear you saying ‘those things never happened’ but it did!! I can tell you, because I met a man like that. He was in his eighties and at my cousins wedding he wrote and read a poem to my cousin and his new bride. It was beautiful, and then he managed to make nearly every woman at the wedding fall in love with him, by asking them for a dance. And when I danced with him, he sung to me!! I told my Mum, and she said that’s because he is an actual old fashioned gentleman. That shouldn’t have needed to be explained to me. Boys, in my book, you’re all generally doing ok, but feel free to take a leaf from this mans book anyway. And girls, reciprocate!! We’re as much to blame, because we scoff…!
I feel like in the, dare I say it 'naughties', we've lost our identity, possibly through the degradation of these 'practices.' Think about it. For the entire history of our being, we have been able to identify what era people are from by looking at them, their clothing, their make up, their hair, their accessories. Is our lack of effort due to things moving so quickly these days? Or the population is so much bigger and so much more in contact with each other than ever before, so we get over a style much faster than before? That so much of what we do these days, is directed towards making life easier, with less effort? Maybe we're giving up actually trying to live our lives, giving up making the effort? Hell, we’re even too lazy to even check our spelling anymore (I spell effort wrong, thank you spell check…)
I remember hearing a doctor on the radio saying how he and his wife don't pay for anyone to do their house cleaning, or washing or ironing or gardening. Because that is actually what life consists of, and to deny that is to deny living your life fully, experiencing it as best you can. Luckily my mum taught me to clean at a young age, and very well in fact! I was also a house keeper for a while, so as much as I like his theory, I’m not about to pretend I wont ever pay someone to clean my house/do my ironing/gardening/wipe my...you get it. I've experienced that part of my life enough now. I do enjoy gardening though...
Back to the point of the film clip…
I used to laugh at my house mate. She wasn't a morning person, she's wasn't grouchy or anything, but you could just see the sleep was all over her, she still wanted her bed. But every morning, she'd wake up, eyes only half open, put the stove top coffee on, have a shower, pour the coffee, make her healthy breakfast, and eat is all in our tiny bathroom with no shelves and bad lighting, while getting ready for work. So one hand had her breakfast, on the window ledge was the coffee, her other hand had the hair dryer and her toes would have her make up brushes (obviously exaggerating… a little.) But she really makes that effort. She is a nurse, not a job she needs to look amazing for, but it makes her feel good, and the compliments she gets from her patients, some of them unnecessary/border on harassment, but all are warranted. Her feeling good about herself makes others feel good being around her.
I'm not saying we all need to dress up as a 1950's housewife, and service our men, or always dress in suits and bring home the $$ to our ladies (but feel free to throw me some anyway). Firstly it's stealing another generation's look, which is all we seem able to do at the moment and completely defeats my point; but more importantly to me, that's a little more 'dictator-esque.' Apparently the women were told 'you should wear this to please your husband,’ and what I'm saying is we need to get our own look and make that effort to achieve it. There are so many people now, that whatever trend is happening, (which is usually Victorian, punk, 80's, 70's, 60's, 50's, 20's, bohemian,) it passes quickly.
So why not try and just express ourselves through how we look. That's what all the other generations did, and if we did that, firstly it'd take longer to get sick of it, but secondly, we’d end up with a completely new, fresh and defining look. How do I know? Look at our lives now compared to all the other generations. We have so much technology, so many more resources to get more inspiration, from ancient tribes to outer space. How would we end up with the exact same look when our world is completely different place to what it was 10 years ago.
The 80’s is a perfect example. Look at the transition from the 70’s to the eighties. Not just in fashion. In make up, hair, music. We went from folk to disco to glam rock, to pop. And if you look at the societies of both times, the 70’s was getting out of a war, rebuilding and all about peace, and the eighties were all about excess whilst there was an economic boom (which subsequently crashed hard and lead to the minimalist fashions make up and music of the 90’s) Maybe if we had our own style, then we'd then have our kids or grand kids saying 'Nanna, can I borrow your jacket you wore when you were 27?' and that would be my dream come true, because our generation had good enough taste that future generations want to dress like us.
Just making that little effort, every day, makes you feel good, makes people around you feel good, and in a lot of cases (as wrong as it may be) respect you that little bit more. And who knows, hopefully in the long run, the effort might even define our generation. Rather than being 'the generation that didn’t give a *cuss*', it might be the 'really really *cuss*ing good looking generation'…I’m just saying...?
We need to be different, that's one thing that makes us more attractive, stand out, find our mate in life (if that is your desire). It is a human instinct to lead, so why aren’t we, generation now, doing it?
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