17 Nov Very Extreme Makeover
What is the wildest fashion item that you have ever worn? Have you ever tried on a Zoot suit? How about ten inch stilettos and armadillo shoes? Have you ever pierced your nose and ears and shackled them together with a golden chain? You might not be this fashion crazy, but over the years there have been some really wacky things that humans have done in the name of fashion.
Rupaul became famous for his words ‘You can call me he, you can call me she, you can call me Regis and Kathie Lee; I don’t care, just as long as you call me! After all,’ he added, ‘you’re born naked and everything else you put on is drag.’
Of course Rupaul took his mantra to incredible heights and made a nice living out of it, but he was right in the sense that everything we do to change the way we look creates some sort of a mask. Even just cutting and dying our hair creates a façade, as would letting it grow long and naturally unruly. The mask we choose is the one which we believe sends out the ‘right’ message about who we are and what we represent. Sometimes however, we go to pitiful extremes to purposefully portray something that we clearly are not.
In the 1880s, women squashed their bodies into bustles and corsets, and in the 1950s they held their breaths just to get into girdles and cone-shaped brassieres. During Victorian times women learnt to put their shoes on before getting dressed, because once their petticoats and skirts were in place, there was no way in hell that they could bend over.
Over the centuries we’ve been duped into using clever engineering to shape our bosoms. We’ve gone from squished to flat, from lifted to ripped, and yet, up to this very day, we still don’t know where exactly the ideal breast should be. Though most of us would not wear such uncomfortable gadgets today, we still secretly desire the shape that they delivered, so, for reasons not dissimilar to those of Victorian women, today we opt for neck- breaking high heels, Spanx, breast implants and liposuction.
Fashion might have changed over the years, but everything that we do to our outer appearance is still for the same reasons – to filter out the people who approach us, to fit in with a particular creed, and ultimately to control what others perceive us to be like even if they never talk to us.
When I was still 18 years old, I invited a university acquaintance of mine to my parents’ house just to pick up some lecture notes. Although the house was situated on a very prominent main road and I had given him very clear instructions on how to get there, for the life of him, my friend could not find the house. He arrived half an hour late, and very hot under the collar. When I asked what had happened, he explained that he had driven by the house a few times but simply assumed that it could not be where I lived; ‘because you always wear shabby clothes and drive that piece of crap to university’ he explained. At the time I pretended to be somewhat offended, but secretly I took what he said as a compliment. I felt that I had achieved my goal of keeping materialistic and superficial people away and it was many years later that I learnt that my type are called ‘inverted snobs’.
Unlike Lady Gaga who just got away with wearing a disgusting 50-pound dress of decomposing meat, most of us have less extreme styles, but whether you can’t stand your face without make up, or won’t leave the house without your piercings, it all boils down to having to hide behind creamy eye shadows and artificial bronzers. What’s worse is that most fashion trends are disguised as new standards of ‘natural’ beauty and eventually all imply some sort of status.
For centuries women have gone through hell and back to fit into various fashion ideals even if at times it didn’t just mean a change of wardrobe. Probably the gravest example of this is the Lotus Foot – an atrociously painful fashion trend which started in China during the 11th Century and lasted over 100 years. Inspired by a Prince’s concubine who happened to have particularly small feet, wealthy families all over China started binding and breaking their five year old daughters’ feet in order to make sure that they don’t grow more than three inches in length. It did not matter that the child would end up disabled, in fact, this was the whole point of the exercise. The self-inflicted disability implied that these women could afford not to work, and that they would marry rich men who would provide them with servants and financial support. This sick tradition was only abolished a mere 60 years ago.
Extreme fashion lived on with trends like the Elizabethan hairless face of 11th Century Europe – for hundreds of years women shaved their faces, hairlines, and their entire eyebrows only to end up looking like expressionless aliens. It went on with Italy’s 14th Century Chopines – essentially 30 inch wedges originally used by peasants to walk through mud and dung. It continued with France’s 15th Century Headdresses, Spain’s flattened chests and hoops, and the 19th Century Straight Chemise, which finally did away with customization and gave rise to the ready-to-wear clothing industry.
Just a few years ago McQueen launched the low-waisted jeans. Kate Moss pioneered dangerously low-slung trousers on the catwalk, and soon enough anything more than a 5cm fly was considered outdated. Despite the inexplicable ugliness of exposed butt cracks, this trend has been around for years, but I’m hoping that soon enough, the low slung jeans will give way to the next fashion craze.
First published on FM Magazine November 2010.
