in defense of selfies

(secretly just making this post so i could slip in that selfie)


recently i've noticed a lot of articles floating around social media both for and against selfies, and as a long-time selfie anti-fan i decided to add my voice to the fray. as far as i can determine, selfie detractors generally claim that the surge in self-taken photographs appearing on social media is a sign of the overwhelming vanity and frivolity of today's youth, or that it's a symptom of the commodification of female beauty and indicative of most young women's complicity in their own objectification. i've also heard some people say, stupidly, that taking selfies is a sign that you don't have anyone else to take photos for you.

on the other side, there are the selfie crusaders claiming that criticism of selfie culture is a subjugation of healthy body image and self esteem, an attempt to police and control the ways in which female bodies are publicly presented. many of the people who argue in favour of selfies say that for the first time in forever, girls and women (and presumably everyone else taking selfies) are taking power away from mainstream media images of the ideal body, and showing themselves in what they perceive to be their best light, whether it's with makeup and photoshop or straight out of the shower. essentially, that the normalization of self-taken photos puts control of body image back in the hands of the people most affected by mainstream media images of the ideal body, presenting 'realistic' bodies in public and affirming the validity of many different looks. it's a self esteem exercise, according to some recent proponents of selfies in social media, that allows women to present themselves as they want to be seen and when they want to be seen.

my argument isn't much concerned with either of these viewpoints, though, as i see the validity of both. as with fashion and makeup and any other self image exercise, selfies can both promote complicity with the current system of patriarchal objectification and rebellion against it. instead, i want to support 'selfie' culture for the simple reason that it promotes self expression and honest photographic communication. like breaking the fourth wall in a drama production, taking a selfie removes the mediating third-party gaze of the photographer so that the subject faces the observer directly. when you take a selfie you look directly through the camera at your intended audience (whether that is yourself or your facebook friends or the entire internet). we can talk forever about how vincent van gogh laboured for hours over his autoportraits and what that means about his vanity, but we are missing the important point that he was both the artist and the subject of the art. maybe not all selfies are art but they are all taken by someone who wants to immortalize themselves in a moment - maybe to see themselves as others might see them, maybe to record an event or mood, maybe just because they think their lipstick looks really good. and maybe they just want a photo of a moment they are experiencing all alone - which can be a very empowering thing.

in a society where people are required on a daily basis to spend hours on their appearance just to make themselves socially acceptable, the idea that it's just too vain to immortalize one's appearance is downright silly and insulting. is it vain and silly to take a photo of a loved one, or a beautiful landscape? it says something about critics of selfies that they consider an image of a face, self-taken, to be a sign of vanity. someone who is not shallow themselves recognizes that a face is not just an object for consumption but, quite literally, the most effective communicative tool a person has, the figurative window to the soul. maybe we should be grateful that now, we can open that window to whoever, whenever, without forcing them to look at us through another person's eyes (and lens).

baggy leather layers

shorts and sweatshirt, zara; boots, blouse and socks via winners.

an old outfit i forgot to post in november because i was busy applying for grad school, seeing doctors, christmas shopping and generally being frantic. i wore this to coffee with a friend and i love its tough but clean tomboyish vibe. i have always been drawn to baggy, boxy silhouettes but i think this interesting mix of textures is what makes the outfit.

white winter layers

skirt, joe fresh; blouse, mexx outlet; sweater, club monaco; teacup, winners.

since it's too cold now to take outfit photos outside i have resorted to standing on a stool to avoid getting my bed in the pictures... tiny apartment woes, hehe.

wintertime is generally a time for dark colours but sometimes you just don't feel like blending in with your dreary surroundings - that's why i really like the idea of wearing white in winter too, especially on depressingly overcast days. to keep it from being too saccharine (it's not christmas yet and i am not ready to start dressing festive) i paired this layered white outfit in beautifully textured rumpled silk, linen and mohair with my spiked choker, black tights and red orange lip stain (which i will review later on my tumblr). with a below-the-knee coat i don't need to worry that sitting down will stain my skirt so i'm looking forward to wearing more bright clothing this winter.

on why i hate miuccia prada and why hypocrisy is hailed as "creative genius"

my hatred for miuccia prada (or, maybe more accurately, the fashion community's reverence for her) has been simmering for a long time. that anger got a little hotter when another one of my least favourite fashion icons, scott schuman, linked to an interview with her in the new york times so disgustingly worshipful that it made me cringe, and i wanted to write about it at the time, but got sidetracked. i was recently reminded of it again following the critical response to her recent s/s14 womenswear collection, as well as the shitstorm that surrounded rick owens' collection, shown just days later.

it's hard to know where to begin on this topic, and not only because prada's opinions and artistic voice are so inconsistent that it is hard to keep track of all the things she has done and said wrong. a meltdown about having to create costumes for plus sized opera singers comes to mind. but hey, at least it's not galliano level, right?

well, no. in many ways everything about miuccia prada is predictable, trite, and boring. but that's what makes it so upsetting that everyone from novelists to fashion-obsessed teenagers treats her as the goddess of fashion. what is her contribution, really? according to the nyt interview, "Miuccia Prada is a fashion designer by profession, but she’s also an art curator, film producer, fledgling architect, conflicted feminist, avid consumer and unreconstructed socialist." I find this introduction interesting in light of everything she says in the interview that follows, which seems to strike down most of these claims.

i am having difficulty identifying what exactly is socialist about her. apparently she was a member of the communist party decades ago, and she rambles on at length about how fashion is the most democratic art and the poor can emancipate themselves with clothing, but mentions that she's "not really interested in clothes or style." she is, apparently, interested in the analysis and deconstruction of all the various images of femininity, but insists she's a businessperson and not an artist. the relevance of her clothing, she insists, can be measured by just how willing people are to take money out of their pockets and pay for it. oh, and not by how much it's emulated by your average working class woman on the street? i'm sorry, i guess i misunderstood something.

i would argue that the people paying for her clothing are generally those least poised to understand all the different concepts and images of women, since anyone who can buy her clothing is limited to a very narrow range of class and wealth and, therefore, social experience. furthermore, i doubt that the people who buy her fashion do so because they want to be counterculture or revolutionary. they are the people who benefit least from revolutions. prada's clothing is weird, and therefore identifiable. no one in the know can mistake someone wearing prada, nor can they be under any illusion about how much it cost, or what that personal branding means. poor people, unlike miuccia prada, may find emancipation in clothing, but rather than doing so by emptying their pockets they generally do so with style. miuccia is, of course, too good for style, and too good for democratic fashion. she cares about the zeitgeist not at all, and her clothes are deliberately impossible to knock off convincingly, or remove from the image of her brand.

and as a feminist she certainly seems conflicted - stating first that  she thinks "this question of aging will define the society of the future" but, when questioned about why she doesn't hire older models, she follows up this statement by saying "mine is not an artistic world, it is a commercial world. I cannot change the rules." on the topic of her daring aesthetic, she goes on to say: "I tried to listen to others and it was all wrong. I have to do what I think is right." well, interesting. enough courage to put spoons on her clothing and call it social commentary, but not enough to hire anyone over 25 to walk the runway.

perhaps her most admired piece of social commentary was her last collection at mfw, where she put fur coats down the runway for spring, most of them covered with graphic art of women's faces and featuring bedazzled external bra appliques, presumably both meant to make an important feminist statement of some kind. at least everyone reporting on the collection seemed to think it was, indeed, a deeply feminist collection inspired by riot grrl culture, despite the fact that almost all of the models were rail thin, white, and in their teens, and despite the fact that most riot grrls probably wouldn't torture themselves by wearing legwarmers and fur coats in summer.

 prada ss14 (image source: www.fashion156.com)

here's what tim blanks had to say about the collection: "The last time feminism enjoyed any popular currency might have been with the Riot Grrrls in the early nineties." he also stated in his review for style.com that miuccia made "feminist statement that, in the light of the contemporary denigration of the very notion, came across as radical." i don't know where he got the idea that feminism enjoys no popular currency, but what is so deeply disturbing to me about this review is that millions of people likely read it and maybe even took it on faith that miuccia is a revolutionary who brought feminism back to the masses with high end fashion that will line her pockets and do nothing for the oft-exploited children who model the clothes.

 rick owens ss14 (image source: totokaelo.com)

in contrast, when rick owens sent his clothes down the runway on mostly black, "plus sized" step dancers who performed directly on the runway, all people could talk about was that they made ugly faces while dancing, that there weren't enough white models, and that they were fat. it didn't matter that the clothes looked amazing on these talented athlete-artists, that they were practical and held together beautifully in motion, because the very idea of putting clothes on larger women of colour took all attention away from the design. the casting of rick owens' show was seen as a gimmick and feminism was barely mentioned. in what was one of the truest democratizations of fashion i've seen in a long while, the fashion was ignored. the fashion was there, and it was masterful, but it didn't make an impact and neither did the crushing irony of the popular and critical responses to the show. rick owens certainly has less clout in the industry than miuccia does, but apparently he has the courage not to use 15 year old blonde waifs in every single show. it's too bad that whenever a designer actually shows some interest in the kind of women who might actually wear their clothes, rather than analyzing theoretical women, it is only the women's bodies, and not the fashion, that get mentioned.

that's what fucking sucks about the fashion community. for the most part, it's just one big dishonest circlejerk that lines rich people's pockets while hailing them as the leaders of popular discourse on femininity. and as long as this is the case, there will be no real political discourse on femininity or on anything else in fashion, just commerce masquerading as art.

shibori and floral

shorts and kimono, zara; top, gap; backpack, danier; shoes, aldo.

silver and leather

shorts and choker, zara; jacket, danier; boots and bag via winners; sweater, bedo; tee, joe fresh

sorbets

shorts, madison marcus via winners; crop top via winners; jacket, thrifted; shoes, gap; necklace, joe fresh.

as the last heat of summer slinks away and fall approaches, i'm taking every opportunity to bask in the sunlight and take advantage of the occasional good weather by wearing happy, summery clothes. here i'm wearing some shorts i got a while ago that haven't been featured in any of my outfit posts so far - they were a bit of an investment piece for me but they look so cool both low waisted and high-waisted and are so easy to wash and wear that i sucked up the unusually high price.  i love having a few blindingly bright pieces in my wardrobe for days when i get really bored of black and white. i paired it here with other warm sorbet colours for a really happy, summery look i won't be able to pull off for much longer. (as an aside, i may be able to come back to it next summer, as alberta ferretti put out a collection using a lot of these exact colours mixed together in the most perfect way. hopefully zara will pick up on it or something).