"Fashion flogs an ever-receding fantasy that feasts on the lie that if everyone thinks they are ugly, they will spend more to send the ugliness away."
The quote, from
this article, sums up everything I never understood about the world of high fashion. I could never comprehend it - why in hellfire do women spend thousands of dollars they often can't afford on a dress or purse or shoes that look no different (at least to me) than the stuff you can find at Payless or Nordstrom's Rack? Yes, I know some of you are cringing right now (*cough*Ravinsky*cough*) but I genuinely can't tell the difference much of the time.
Now I understand it. These items are charms against ugliness. Our belief in their power to change us makes them magic. And because we believe they will transform us, they do.
On the one hand I'm glad I finally understand; on the other hand it makes me sad in a whole new way, and it adds fuel to my loathing of the "beauty" industry. They spend thousands of dollars telling us we're ugly so that we will give them thousands of dollars to make us beautiful. Their very existence relies on hoping that we never wake up and realize just how beautiful we really are.
I will not spend money to send my ugliness away. Partly because I do not have money to spend, partly because I believe ugliness is a necessary thing sometimes... but mostly because I have more power to banish ugliness in one pinkie finger than any thousand-dollar dress has ever had.
I write beautiful things. I draw beautiful things. I make beautiful things - clothing and jewelry and love. Who is going to tell me that my life is incomplete because I don't own a designer dress?
NO ONE.
Labels: fuck you very much, self image, women
