As a society, there are specific fashion trends we all look back on and can pretty much agree were horrible mistakes. But some of these trends were only mistakes until recently, when they again became fashionable, mostly to people who weren’t alive when they happened the first time. Other trends are new, but equally unpleasant.
Identified below are some of the sure-to-be-wince-inducing mistakes currently happening, possibly even on your body. But don’t worry. If you find yourself wearing any of them, I offer a reasoned critique and a very doable solution to your dilemma.
SKINNY JEANS
Problem: Attractiveness is not defined by the number of people wearing something, or how it looks from the front. There’s a reason you can’t imagine someone saying, “I love the way your butt looks all saggy and how I now have an uncomfortable sense of what your body looks like without pants.” If you aren’t sure what I mean, take a photo of yourself from behind. See? You actually look like that.
Solution: If you can manage to get these jeans off of you, bury them and move away to a town where no one has ever seen you wearing such things.
ORGAN BAGS
Problem: Poor women. The things they have to do for fashion. (The attractive ones, I mean.) In this case they’re forced to carry around handbags that look like some kind of giant, shriveled organ. The only difference is that one can purchase a black-market organ for about half the price of one of these purses. And that organ will never go out of fashion.
Solution: Reject this bag the way your body would reject an organ. But with less death and more pride.
90% OF SNEAKERS
Problem: They may be at the other end of your body where you rarely have to look, but still. Other people have to see them and frankly, the emotional toll of feeling embarrassed for you is more than I want to commit to someone who would treat me so poorly.
Solution: If you don’t buy them, no one will make them. Please. Just think of the people around you, especially those lower to the ground.
PATTERNED HOODIES
Problem: There seems to be a segment of the population who wears these thinking they look tough in them. There’s nothing tough about wearing your pajamas in public, not even if you turn your hat sideways. And not even if you have the mustache of a tween.
Solution: Your little sister’s 12th birthday is coming up. Stuff your hoodie in a bag, throw in a copy of Twilight and she’ll have the best birthday ever!
X-TREME T-SHIRTS
Problem: I don’t debate the effectiveness of these shirts proclaiming the wearer’s awesomeness. These shirts proudly display your I’m-so-chill attitude (t-shirt) combined with your but-don’t-mess-with-me threat (textured fonts and grungy flourishes). The difficulty is that no one can maintain such a contradiction indefinitely. Not even you, no matter how awesome you are.
Solution: Tear your shirt off right now, before it explodes off of you.
GENIE
PANTS
Problem: I haven’t seen these in real life because I don’t live in New York City, so I’ll have to let Lucky attest to their existence (and tell me where I can buy them!). These magical pants from the Middle East won’t give you the power to grant a wish, unless that wish is to convince the world you don’t care what you wear, so long as you’re clothed.
Solution: Pull these over your head until the air runs out.
If you disagree with me now, please wait a few years before posting your comment.
