Khadija Hassan December 22, 2003

Tags: society , Money , Fashion

href="/tag/gender">gender sort of got in the way. Don’t scoff. You really can’t blame me. After all, if you think about it, it does seem to be a rich man’s world - more often than not anyway. But if you dwell on it a little longer, you see that ABBA in their musical vision had it just a little wrong. It is all right to sing out rebellious tunes in the spirit of a revolution and help rebels develop backtalk but sometimes statements like that just sound empty. Money helps – a lot. But the world does not belong to the rich man. It belongs to the discerning eye. Male or female, it doesn’t matter. And this is as true in fashion as it is anywhere else.

Money, money, money may buy fashion but it cannot buy style. Cliché or no cliché, I don’t care. Fashion is no substitute for style and this is as true now as it ever was before. Anyone can walk into a store and purchase clothing and accessories that on the right person become a “look”. But if the eye is not with you, you cannot “buy” the look. As far as Lahore goes, I’ve seen women at various occasions wearing all the right things looking very wrong because they just don’t know how to put their look together. With the exception of a few immaculately dressed ladies who wow me every single time with the effortlessness of their appearance, I’ve seen too many diamond-something’s shouting to be heard over clumsily worn designer outfits at every sort of event. Which makes me think that sometimes having too much money just compromises style.

That’s the problem with money. It stifles creativity – instead of discovering one’s own style and sense, instead of honing one’s own eye by being forced to invent, to innovate one can just go and acquire another’s. Whether it fits or not, whether you understand it or not, whether it says anything about who you are or are not, just go and swipe that credit card, count off those crisp bank notes, take home that fancy labeled bag and there – it is yours.

But it never really can be. The first fashion victim is always the woman with money and no sense. We see them all around us here in Lahore. These are the women who, first of all have a nauseating obsession with diamonds. Morning, noon or night; bracelet, brooch or bib; they will not be caught dead without an assortment of carats. They take the notion of diamonds-are-a-girls-best-friend a tad too literally because if I hear correctly then soon their diamonds are the only friends they’ll be left with. Second, these women, regardless of their height and shape insist on wearing the hackneyed label with cuts that are either out of vogue everywhere but in their social-familial clique or if they are in vogue are simply wrong for their bodies. Third, the bag-and-shoe race prompts them to blindly spend on big brands without paying attention to how well these go with their ensembles or even more basically with their personalities. Bags and shoes are important because they say a lot about who you are. The wrong shoe sends mixed signals about one’s personality as does the bag that is either too young or too old an accent to one’s look. Shoes are especially important because they are the one thing that absolutely have to be bought with regards to comfort and so the choice of the short or high-heel, sandal or mule, slip-on or strappy says a lot. A friend of mine says that his father judges’ potential business partners by the shoes they wear – the logic is old school but it speaks for how important a part they are of the impression one makes on anyone, anywhere. (I sense a do-impressions-really-matter sort of question emerge. For the time being, yes they do, but that is another subject altogether).

Back to my misguided women: if they could just step away from whatever one-ups-man-ship game they’re playing and for once dress to make a statement about themselves rather than about their father’s/husband’s wallets (I know of few, if any, diamond O.D. victims who indulge themselves through their own earnings) they’d look more like the million dollars that they’re desperately trying to show the world.

There is nothing wrong with wearing any of the things that they wear, but the dose needs to be reduced. I guess I’ve been affected by the brain-washing-girl’s-best-friend logic too because I do think that diamonds are beautiful. But they are beautiful because of their shimmer. And when shimmer becomes the blinding kind of shine the gem falls from sophistication. The same goes for the clothes. If the label is sought for the workmanship then it is acceptable as long as you understand which fabric, cut and color work best for you. If you don’t know this then at least trust the designer to make that decision for you. Don’t imitate another just to let her know that you too can afford that dress. And shoes – avoid S&M buckles. Just because Tom Ford decides that he’d like to give his Gucci girl a touch of the naughty don’t assume that you are his Gucci girl. And please, don’t wear platforms. Not now. Not ever. Not even when platforms are the rage.

In the world of fashion nothing is more important than attitude. And attitude is fuelled by the discerning eye. If you can see that something will look good then the assurance that gives you will make you strut down any kind of walk. That fact in itself trumps the idea that money matters in matters of style. The perfect look emerges when one focuses not just on what goes on the body but also on what goes inside it. Healthy hair and skin add a special glamour that no lakh-rupay-ka-jora can. And the bounce of a fit body whether stick-thin or curved-just-right cannot be purchased with a liposuction or tummy tuck.

But there is something askew with my money-don’t-matter logic because fashion victims are found here even at a less wealthy level. So, there has to be a problem bigger than one-ups-man-ship at hand. Drive down a road in Lahore, any road, and you will find men from all walks of life baring western labels on their chests (one doesn’t see many women on roads but I’m not leaving them out of the loop. Take a college or school, in that case and what I’m about to say applies to the women from all walks of life as well – mostly, anyway). Fake or real, Nike or Versace, the logo tee is symptomatic of the fear that eats our public when it comes to how they dress. Perhaps, it is symptomatic of their fear of anything exposing a self-loathing that I think nationally brings us down (we all make sweeping statements at some point or another. Humor me with mine). These designer labels may be the outcome of a global capitalist economy that professes individualism as its’ fundamental premise but they represent everything otherwise. We circumvent choice when we “choose” to wear these labels because when we wear them we forsake responsibility for how we are dressed. If there is something wrong with how we look then the blame does not fall on us. It falls on the label. But we also circumvent discretion for how can the label be wrong anyway? It has the sanction of an acclaimed designer. Who acclaims him/her does not matter for as long as the sentiment of acclaim is out there fed by glossy images it will always be acknowledged. It is worse when we opt for the more pragmatic Bangkok fakes because when we do that we say that we want the affirmation of some Italian guy whose personal style we have never seen, even if that style is really just a misplaced logo on a different product of someone’s lets-make-a-quick-buck scheme. Where does that leave us? Nowhere.

We opt for the comfort of the safe make-an-impression-designer-label and in doing so we blind our aesthetic eye. If we continue to do this long enough, we will lose it forever. But it seems that no one really cares. The security that the brand provides, no matter how high its’ cost trumps creativity and the variety that could have ensued from it any day. That is the problem with fashion nowadays. It is the problem with everything. And it is what is killing us as a nation-at-large in the name of globalization. I guess money really can be funny then. And if we don’t do something about it, then soon, very soon, this will be just a rich man’s world.