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December 9, 2008

Window shopping

You may have pennies in your pocket and not a prospect in the world, and only the corner of a leaky bedroom to go home to; but in your new clothes, you can stand on a street corner, indulging in a private daydream of yourself as Marlene Dietrich. - George Orwell, 1937

There is something to be said for retail therapy. It does not work in the long term, but pretty things have an immediate calming effect.

The one time I actually bought something on a retail therapy shopping trip, it was my one (!) pair of painful shoes, and it was after a disastrous macro economics exam. They made my feet bleed, but they're still shiny and low-cut and go with everything (silver and gold goes with everything!)

The safest and most enjoyable window shopping is after the shops close. I recommend Avenue Montaigne at night. But browser-window shopping is more convenient, and still safe if you keep your credit card in another room. And so... some fashion links.

  • Exactitudes is fascinating. Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek have taken on-the-street style photography a step further by collecting photos of people who dress alike. They've given each photo collection, or tribe, a name. And Norwegian D2 asks in this article's title: "What tribe do you belong to?" In 1999, I looked kind of like these girls. My braces had just come off, but I had the pony-tail and the dark, fitted, denim jacket. In 2008, I was a girl living in the seventh - literally a member of the filles du septieme tribe. I guess I did look like these girls - on a bad day. That came out kind of harsh. What I mean is, if two Dutch photographers had stopped me on the street while I was wearing jeans, an open cardigan, a plain top and minimal accessories and make-up, it would be the result of an early-morning class rather than a conscious style choice.

 

  • What? More of this stuff? Scarf debating continues. Now it's "keffiyahs" or what everyone I know calls palestinaskjerf. And if they really are back (I gave up on following scarf trends a while ago) then maybe that does deserve some debating. My youngest sister - 14 years old - has two of these, and I don't think she knows what they stand for. At any rate, when I told her, she said: "Well, it's fashion." I realize that symbols change over time, but I think this one is still quite obvious, and that kids who wear them should think about what their clothes are saying. Right?

 

  • Lean times and hemlines - Yet another attempt at combining fashion and finance into an article everyone will want to read. I liked this one though. Guardian fashion editor Jess Cartner-Morley looks at fashion and finance history and shows how the connections between them are not always simple. As they say at Some like it fashion, future fashion commentators will describe what we happen to be wearing these days as recession style, whether that makes sense or not. So we might as well decide what that recession style will be. By the way, the Guardian is pretty good at writing fashion articles that are actually interesting, like this one about high heels.

 

  • 17-year-old Laura in Costa Rica has a list of 37 things to love, made with Polyvore. Pointless? Yes. Time-consuming? Yes. Fun? Yes. Which reminds me...

 

  • Clipping to Polyvore is an excellent way to indulge in retail therapy without spending money.

In addition to recommending D2 and The Guardian Fashion here are the style blogs I subscribe to right now:

Posted by Julie at December 9, 2008 12:44 AM

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Comments

Gah! Exactitudes are distracting me from reading for my exam! Evil artists!

Posted by: Eva at December 9, 2008 10:33 AM