How To Ride A Trend, Or, Rough-Hewn Pumps For Worlds Of Work And Warcraft

Fashion hangs its metaphorical hat on two hooks. The Object of Desire and The Trend. Objects of Desire are whatever your hearts, well, desire. Even large pink hats in the shape of a bedroll. If enough people agree, we have a Trend. Trends are the Holy Grail of fashion. Although ornery creatures of laws of large numbers and statistics and pattern matching, they can nevertheless be wrested to the ground. If we deconstruct.

We understand that some trends are real, created by alchemy between inspired designers and a brave person getting dressed one night. One morning. These are the trends we care about. Many more are pretend. These are manufactured by mid-level marketing people saying words to each other in conference rooms until someone convinces someone else to be quiet. "Fine. You say white shirts, we'll do white shirts. Fine."

Even if you have figured out your Goldilocks wardrobe, as Une Femme calls it, as in, just right, you may still want to participate in trends. You may still want to feel that brush with immortality conferred by the gods of, "Am I Fabulous Or What." It's doable. Risky, but doable.

These Balmain jackets have been recent objects of desire amongst fashion cognoscenti.
No, I am not kidding. Not that I expect that anyone I know in real life will buy one. However, I do expect that those who might like a jacket this year will more often than not be confronted by big shoulders. Brace yourselves.

Other trends currently being touted include The White Shirt. The Boot. The One-Shouldered Something Or Other. These are ersatz. (Moderately big word of the day.) We all have white shirts. We probably all have boots. We may or may not have anything one-shouldered but, here's the thing. One-shouldered isn't a big enough design criteria to make a Trend. Asymmetrical is, one-shouldered is not.

A trend is big. A trend is visible. Notable trends of the past several years include the dipping of pants below America's waistline, the wearing of many patterns all at once, and the invention of a concept called "Vintage." We used to call it thrift stores and it still smells the same. Vintage is a generational shift I am simply unable to overcome but I laud it in others. Notable objects of desire have included expensive blue jeans in a dark wash, purses with fringe, and very very very high heels on red soles. Trends tend to affect actual clothing structures. Overall clothing surfaces. Or involve the invention of clothing that requires a new word.

Let me now go out on a limb and point to a real trend I believe I have noticed recently. It requires a new word. Or several words. Renaissance Faire meets Sex In The City. What Pump To Wear On Your Worlds Of Warcraft Quest?



Chie Mihara. John Fluevog. Prada Leather Fishing Waders. Shoes for fancy occasions that still smell of the tanner. Even the blacksmith. Etsy Bikers. Space Age Handmade. Brutal Fancy. I have never seen shoes like this before. And my secret craving meter tells me they matter, whether you like them or not. I don't think they have to be worn with the space age jackets, either.

You heard it here first. I'm completely serious. If I could just think of the right trend nomenclature we'd be good to go. Any takers?

Images:
Woman In Pink Hat, Scott Barbour via About.com
Balmain via Coutorture, Balmain via net-a-porter
Chie Mihara via shopstyle and Shirise, Fluevog, Prada via The Daily Mail