![]() I was in a waiting room, waiting, when I picked up a copy of Vogue magazine to peruse. I have not looked at Vogue in decades but I thought with my renewed interest in fashion it might give me a new perspective. I discovered that I am not a fan of high fashion. I know fashion models are not intended to look like normal people. I was a teenager in the age of Twiggy, whose boyish body and spiky eyelashes did not belong to your everyday average woman. However, the models in this magazine looked like they were from some other planet. They were so obviously unhappy. I thought that fashion was supposed to make you happy. Instead I found page after page of sad, angry, depressed looking people. These people have a lot going for them. They are extremely attractive. Many of them are famous and they all have money to burn. They have absolutely no reason to look this miserable. There was a photo of one of the famous reality star sisters with her husband and baby posing inside of an airplane in formal dress, as if they were headed for a fabulous party in some far off land. Instead of looking excited, they looked very angry. Even the baby had a confused expression. Where was the happy family ready for a fun and exciting adventure that most of us would die to experience? A famous musician, along with his wife and young son, looked incredible in elaborately designed haut couture, but were unable to crack a simple smile. The kid looked like he was about to burst into tears and/or die from boredom. I know that expression. I saw it on the students in my classroom when I was teaching. It wasn't always easy to change that mood in my students but with a lot of effort I managed to eek out a few smiles. I would not have wanted to try to do that with these folks if they had been my students. Page after page of images of miserable people stared out at me from the magazine, including an actress with the makeup and coloring of a corpse, but with a less peaceful expression. Then finally I saw a slight smile on a closeup of Madonna, the woman who made "Voguing" popular. A few pages later several women, captured modeling on the red carpet, were actually bursting with happiness, or at least feigned happiness. I smile began to cross my face. I started to find humor in the photos. I loved the high fashion street urchin in a black dress that looked like the house dresses my Mom used to wear. Her accessories included army style ankle boots and a classy leather bag. Except for the bag, she had the look of one of the young homeless people I see around town begging for money. The unkempt hair and hungry eyes probably would be great for persuading someone to slip her some change. There was a hilarious "camping" spread where a young couple cavorted in nature. They appeared to have stuffed an enormous number of outfits into their small backpacks. They probably had no space left for food. The young man, nattily attired in leather, tended an old coffee pot dangling over a very artistically arranged campfire in front of their pseudo teepee. The young woman appeared to leap as gracefully as a dear as she crossed a bubbling creek in a diaphanous little dress, carrying a canteen shaped handbag that didn't look like it would be very good for carrying water. I chuckled at her long Sonny and Cher style fur vest and hippy head band. One of the best laughs was an ad for a very expensive handbag that showed a woman using one of the bags to feed a horse. I am not kidding. They evidently were trying to convince perspective buyers that their purses looked like feed bags, which they actually did! Street urchins, feed bags, hippy era fur vests, cadaver makeup - who knew high fashion could be so funny? I think they need to have a few issues of Vogue at every photo shoot. It might help make the models smile.
1 Comment
Linda Mason Pace
7/31/2015 10:33:08 am
Right on!!!
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Leslie Masona woman in search of her post-retirement future Guess what! By subscribing, you get notices about the latest Little Old Lady with Cats posts sent to your mailbox!
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