Return of the crop, once again

Ants always fall over on their right side when intoxicated. Fact. Madonna has no loo roll holder in her bathroom in London. She just stacks her toilet tissue on the floor. FACT. The crop top is back. FACT.

I’ll start this session by responding to each of your rebuttals in order.

Yes, they really do always fall on their right side. Google says so – it must be true! And, I agree. Someone as rich as Madge really should have a toilet roll holder. If I had her money I would hire a small dancing monkey to hold my bog roll. I would call this monkey Geoff. Geoff would do a little dance every time I went into the bathroom. Finally, the crop top is back. With vengeance. Actually, not with vengeance. I just like the way that sounds.

You are right to be scared by this last fact by the way. There aren’t many things scarier in this world than crop tops. Except maybe clowns. Clowns wearing crop tops.

The reason the crop top is able to induce such panic in us boils down to our perceptions of body image. A nasty side effect of this particular garment is that it emphasises our tummies. Very few people have a stomach that they are proud of. And even fewer of them have a belly that the rest of us would be happy to see habitually. It must be a very bad thing indeed that the crop top is having a resurgence. Right?

Wrong! And I shall tell you for why!

The crop top actually encourages us all to cover up our muffin tops!

How so? That is an excellent question, dear reader. I’m so glad you asked.

The average human being has no problem with wearing jeans that are slightly too tight. They don’t tend to worry about a t-shirt that is just a bit too small. This results in many millions of people involuntarily yet frequently exposing their tummy region as they go about their day-to-day business.

I am one of these ‘humans’. I wear jeans that create a small, soft (soft sounds better than flabby) overhang (overhang sounds marginally better than spare-tyre). My t-shirts are shit (shit sounds better than cheap) and ride up. This means that at random times during the day my belly just pops out. *POP* Much like a 5 year old child. Although I cringe and acknowledge that this must be very grim for my colleagues, it doesn’t prompt me to buy new clothes in order to prevent this happening. For one, I am delusional enough to think that I will lose those few pounds (by doing no form of exercise) that cause this to occur.

And this is where the crop top really comes into it’s own. While I can convince myself that no-one notices me constantly yanking my t-shirt down over my gut and that this behaviour is acceptable, I could never, ever, ever make my peace with having my ‘soft’ stomach on constant parade in the way it would be if I wore a crop top.

But I do intend to rock the crop top look. Oh yessum indeedio!

If the noughties taught us anything about fashion, it’s that layering is ‘key’. And to make the crop top work, layer it we must! Kingdom of Style has some quirky ideas on how to do this (see the image above) that are definitely worth test-driving. If however you are looking for something a little less controversial (and with less potential for a wardrobe malfunction) then you have a couple of options. A cropped, fitted top looks contemporary over a long t-shirt and a skirt that is slightly longer in length at the hem. Wear with ‘fierce‘ shoes. Team a loose, cropped piece of fine knitwear with a shirt, some high-waisted wide leg trousers and bold jewellery for a sophisticated Marni-esque look. And, if all else fails just throw one on with your skinny jeans and whatever clean top you have to hand. Just make sure it’s long enough to cover your belly.

Edith

Sarah Jessica Parker! Do as I say, not as I do!

Being a female A-Lister is hard. Much harder than if you were male. We the public (with the help of the media) speculate, judge and criticise celebrities like Nicole Kidman, Meg Ryan, and Victoria Beckham for going under the knife. Allegedly, they are contributing factors to the unattainable ideal of modern beauty.

And yet in spite of this, when a famous woman bucks against this trend and ages as mother nature intended it, she is subject to the most venomous abuse.

Hadley Freeman brought this to my attention in yesterday’s Guardian where she wrote:

‘In yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, a film critic decreed that Parker “looks like a skeletal transvestite”. Maxim in the US recently named her “the unsexiest woman in the world”, while Piers Morgan, that great arbiter of beauty, called her “ghastly … I’ve seen better looking winos underneath the arches at Charing Cross”.’

Sarah Jessica Parker aka Carrie Bradshaw is 43. And yes, she probably looks her age. But what is wrong with that? George Clooney is 47 and he also looks his age, but he is not villainized for it. In fact it’s CELEBRATED, people commonly acknowledge that ‘he just keep getting better’.

And I can’t help but wonder, why the double standard?

I don’t have the answer, but I would like you to chew on this thought. Cast your mind back to school. Then, not bowing to peer pressure was considered a good thing, it demonstrated strength of character. Saying ‘NO’ to smoking, drinking, drugs, sex was the right thing to do. Flash-forward to the present and its equivalent peer pressure: looking slim, youthful and pert. Sarah Jessica Parker has dared to be that individual at school who says ‘NO’. She has ignored this ridiculous ‘eternal youth’ demand that society has created for women. And what do we do? Do we congratulate her on her bravery? Admire her confidence and praise the example she has set? No. In true schoolyard style, we attack her for it like a pack of adolescent bullies. And quite frankly, it makes me sick.

Edith

Kate Moss for Topshop. Cock right off!

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say what I think many of you are thinking…

Kate Moss’s collections for Tophop are SHIT. Especially the latest one which launched yesterday. They aren’t even collections (and I am qualified to say that because I studied fashion design at uni, so ner!). Just random clothes hung together, a bit like a nice charity shop that just happens to have several of each item (perhaps because they chanced on some dead-stock you think to yourself?). There is no concept, no obvious colour palettes, little in the way of repeat details, and the fabrics, well, to be fair, they are what to be expected for that price point. It is just a mish-mash of clothes that you have a vague recollection of seeing the supermodel wearing at some point over the past few years.

What we (and Philip Green) need to remember is that, just because you have the ability to make anything look good, some style, and you can make Jo Public willing to sell their Gran just to own the latest shoite you were pictured in, this does not mean you should be heralded as a designer. I mean, my sis has this knack of making any old polyester market tat look fantastic, but I wouldn’t recommend for one second that Harold Tillman hand over the keys to Jaeger design studio and say ‘there you go luv, knock yourself out!’.

I do understand what Sir Philip Green was thinking (my Nan would say he was just seeing pound signs in front of his eyes and *tut*). But the fact that these ‘collections’ are based on what Moss herself has worn and not what she wants to wear in the future illustrates my point beautifully. She has no credible talent in this area. No vision. Arguably, she is able to recognise a good thing when she sees it, she does have an eye and could be an excellent stylist. But she is not a designer. Kate’s collections are reminiscent of what Topshop was doing years ago, you know, when it was dirt cheap, safe and a bit rubbish (but the high street was limited back then so we had no choice but to go there for our ‘Friday night on the tiles’ outfit). Well, people, this is no longer the case, So I beg you, I URGE you in fact. STOP THIS MADNESS! Don’t buy this pathetic excuse for a collection, and lets restore Ms Moss to her rightful position in society: The beautiful, crack-lovin (allegedly) laydee that we all know and *heart*.

Edith

Images from the fashion police

Mischa Barton’s handbag range. BLUERRRGGGGHHHHH!

And again. BLUERRRRGHHHHHH!

Do we need any further proof that Mischa Barton really does need a stylist and has no taste of which to speak of herself?

“With the distinctive flowerette logo [Misha's bags] are sure to be at the top of every fashionista’s wish list” the press release says.

Yes, yes. That’s right. They are at the top of my list of things to wipe my arse with. Still, with prices ranging from £20 – £170 I may have to stick with Andrex.

The Facehunter-ing Sartorialists (Pssst, that’s you)

Once upon a time not so far, far, away, celebrities influenced the way we looked. We poured over pictures of them in magazines and watched their interviews on TV, all the while pretending to be interested in their latest release (when what we were really doing was dissecting and analysing their outfits to the minute detail. Remember buying the Posh and Becks wedding issue of OK magazine for the ‘articles’? Or still buying heat for the TV guide?).

However, recently there has been a shift away from this behaviour. More people than ever are looking at the everyday person on the street, using ‘real’ people for wardrobe inspiration. Blogs like The Sartorialist and Facehunter make this voyeurism easy (and more importantly, prevent us from getting lamped for staring at individuals that just have something). Should we find this move away from celebrity fashion towards civilian style surprising though? The great Sartorialist himself (Scott Schuman) admitted, “The reason I started the blog was because I was not feeling inspired by the guys I was seeing in magazines. I was wanting to refine my own style so I went out with my camera and started taking pictures (initially of men) that I thought would help me and inspire me in my choices”. Obviously, Scott is not alone in his thoughts; his site is classed as one of the most influential design blogs in the world and now receives a staggering 70,000 hits a day.

The evidence definitely suggests that the A-Listers have lost some allure to Joseph/Josephine Public on the street. But why is this?

OK, time for some speculatory work… The rise of the celebrity stylist is a big factor (and according to my fella, the fact that any Tom, Dick, or talentless Harry can be a celeb these days, but enough of that for now). You see, Misha, Li Lo, J-Lo, Keira, Demi, Kylie, Jessica (which ever one of them comes to mind), I could go on and on and on; they all have them. No longer confined to photo-shoots for magazines, stylists are now grooming / dressing (delete as appropriate) our starlets young and old. This all seems hunky dory until you realise that all of Hollywood and her Husband is being dressed by the same few people (most probably Rachel Zoe), and that this means they are all carbon copies of one another. The very people whose looks we once tried to emulate to the very button, now bore us to tears (or at least to the direction of the internet). Now of course, I am not so stupid that I don’t appreciate that these celebrity/stylist combos don’t sell clothes. Because they do, by the shed-load. Keira Knightly on a red carpet is worth millions to the designer that dressed her. However, while they may sell the dress, these duos don’t influence how we wear them anymore. We now look much closer to home for that inspiration.

So, yeah, wrap up that Olsen style scarf, I’ll take it! But you know what? I shan’t put it with some skinny jeans and a boy style blazer! No! Teaming it with a stripy tee and some wide leg turn-ups is what’s getting me going these days…

Now to conclude, what have we learnt today? 1. It is OK to buy OK magazine for the ‘articles’. 2. It is OK to buy a dress that looks a bit similar to the one Rachel Bilson wore that you saw when reading the ‘article’ as long as you style it in a different way. 3. It is OK to stalk people on the streets if it is in the name of fashion.

Edith

Image: top right from thesartorialist.blogspot.com