Fashion Overload

Even from a distance you get that malady this time of year called fashion overload. This is the first season I have checked out the collections remotely and I must say it is just as exhausting. It may actually be more exhausting.

When you are there you know that you can't possibly see every show so you pick and choose. From the comfort of your home in front of a computer screen you start to figure that you really can do something you have never been able to do before - - - see them all. Well guess what? You can't.

So far we have had NYC, London and Milan. We are now in Paris and we are not done. There are more shows after Paris. While they are lesser known shows, they are important to the designers who get walks in those venues. It is sort of like baseball. There are players on the farm teams who are working as hard as they can to improve and get that call to come up to the major league. For some it will happen.

In terms of actually blogging about the collections and the comments of the "professional" fashion writers, I will wait until Paris is over and I have had some time to digest what I have viewed. For now I just want to talk about a very disturbing trend in the industry.

A few years ago there was a lot of concern over the health of the models and the things they were doing to themselves to remain thin. For the most part, the banning of anyone under the age of 16 and not openly encouraging models to starve themselves has helped. Spain went as far as to take a stand and request that the designers use slightly larger models. So, on that front things are better.

What is not better is the obsession with youth. So far I have seen a couple of collections that are totally inappropriate for anyone over the age of 40. That said, my question is why do designers ignore a large portion of the population? More than that, why are they ignoring the portion of the population with the money to actually invest in their collections (e.g. purchases pieces)?

I understand that the runway shows are entertainment and that the garments may not go into production as you see them on the runway. That does not change the fact that when you are sitting in the audience thinking of your clientele you are sometimes angry at the designers for constantly pushing youth, youth, youth.

I do not know many 45 or 50 year old women who want to wear a skirt that is half way up their thighs. Nor are there many who want to wear tops that need underpinnings for the underpinnings in order to have enough support for the girls. You would think that these designers were all in their 20's and 30's. But alas, they are not. Some of them are older than I am and have mothers who cannot wear their clothing.

This is not what Coco Chanel had in mind; it is not what Yves Saint Laurent was striving for. It is not what Christian Dior envisioned. Some of what I have seen is a real slap in the face to the mature woman. They are blatant statements that say, "I don't want you in my clothes. You are too old."

I have a news flash for designers. Every woman on the planet, irrespective of age or dress size wants to be beautiful. Constantly catering to a segment of the population that cannot afford to purchase your clothing and does not have the sophistication to wear it with style and elegance it requires is not wise. If you think I am wrong, ask the designers who seem to get the idea that women who have the resources to shop are those who are not saving for a college fund for their kids.

So my hat is off to design houses such as Graeme Black, Akris, Dries Van Noten, Oscar de la Renta, Bottega Veneta, Donna Karan, etc. They are the ones who have figured out that the name of the game is to dress women so they can feel elegant. It is time for some of the rest to follow suit. Even Heidi Klum made a comment on Project Runway about a dress one of the contestants made 'aging the model 10 years'. OMG! So instead of looking 20 she looked 30? Add another 10 years and it would be time to put her in an assisted living facility to live out her final days.

The last thing I ever want to do is be or look 25 again. I have come a long way in 30 years and I do not want to re-plow old ground. I have moved on and in the process moved to a place of contentment. It really is better on this side of 40. Trust me. You've learned that not only is the grass not greener on the other side, you've learned it isn't grass at all. It is the deception and the false assumption being pushed that being flashy, and often inappropriate, is an acceptable substitute for sophistication elegance and poise. It is not. It is gauche; tres, tres gauche.