Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Notes on fashion

Via Phoebe, an article on college fashion staples. This is wrong, however; the point of collegiate fashion is to immerse oneself in the fantasy that one is actually a WASP aristocrat. WASP aristocrat fashion has never actually been interesting: looking blandly sporty like everyone else from the country club has always been kind of the point. Also, Refinery29's proffered alternatives to the Longchamp bag are hideous, and in particular, what the h--- is up with that fringe?

Never again in your life will you be in a setting so enamored of WASP tradition so as to enshrine legacy preferences. (Somehow, the thought of a large law firm announcing a policy for favoritism of their attorneys' children just seems comical. Under the table and in borderline cases, maybe, but officially?) Never again in your life will you be surrounded by buildings with ridiculous names like the Ada Merriweather Pennypacker '15 Memorial Conservatory. Indeed, if I hadn't found a blond conservative WASP to fall wildly in love with by the end of senior year, I might well have had to invent one. In time, one will live in the real world. Even if one's day job frequently entails working with Republicans, bowties and seersucker on 25-year-olds will look far more ridiculous than they do in the shade of the Ada Merriweather Pennypacker '15 Memorial Conservatory.

2 comments:

  1. I thought the point of (elite) college was to pretend to be gay for four years while taking courses on Foucaultian theories of dildo-arrangement? I guess it depends on the student, the school, and how much one wishes to believe conservative critics of education re: what happens on campus.

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  2. Re: how much one wishes to believe conservative critics of higher education, in my case, not very much, as I might have written elsewhere. Although I do concede that there's plenty of variation from school to school, and that there are probably more people dabbling in Foucaultian dildo arrangement at schools with a more pronounced urban and/or bohemian culture.

    This may go back to your idea that some of the appeal of fashion is about trying on personas? And on a college campus steeped in uber-WASP aristocratic tradition, trying on that persona is particularly fun and inviting?

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