Canned Fashion

Fashion might be an ever-changing affair for some. Trends come and leave like the clothes we change on our back everyday but just like those clothes, we repeat them with a different twist just for a slightly different look the next time. When we know (or think) people are not watching, we decide that on Friday, we can wear the exact same top and jeans we wore on Monday.. You know, because you think people are not watching...

That’s how the current fashion trends are too. While fashion gurus are saying boho is so 2004, the not-so-new line of foho clothings (who came up with such names?) seem to dominate the runways and sideways. And foho is actually sneakily simply boho with a little more glamour, you’ll just wear that boho mini frock with the embroidery details at the hems with a 3 inch heeled, knee length suede/leather boots instead of flat pumps or flippers and add some large gaga gold/silver accessories instead of beads. Wallah! boho to foho in uno momento.. They say it’s the clash of the decades, 70s meets 80s… I say it’s a case of ideas running dry and quick ways of finishing old stocks.

But of course, there’s an upside to it when you can quickly recycle anything you have the wardrobe without having to fear being called outdated or backwards in your fashion sense. I reckon you can pretty much get away with anything if you’re a fohemian. (my penaakulan mantik sorts out that boho comes from bohemian.. so foho must be a fohemian, right?). You’ll be just fine when you can actually explain how the clashes of the decades theory work…

Another thing is how the word “vintage” has been passed of as something that happens almost immediately. Vintage this, vintage that… Even a bag that has just been made yesterday is said to have a vintage value and that kind of defeats the whole purpose, doesn’t it? Vintage stuff are supposed to be collectable rares, not something you simply buy in a flea market and decide, “hey, that’s surely a vintage.” Well, not in my dictionary of cracked wisdom, at least. And please, please don’t let me get started on those unkindly revisiting puffy puffed sleeves. I mean, ever since Louis Vuitton had them for the Spring 2007 collection, everybody is going crazy over it when it’s actually translated into hideous for most of us.

Well, us being us would mean nothing if we just blindly follow these fashion critics and advocates, especially when most of them will say long maxi dresses are going to be IN next season when Eva Mendes, Jennifer Lopez and Jessica Alba all happen to wear them on the same week but hey, hey, turn around another fortnight from when that article was written and you’ll have the same writers swearing by their mothers that next season is going to be the leg worshipping lovers land of super micro-minis. And consider yourself very lucky if we are not rendered with other opinions and options the coming weeks because most of the time, they'll be repaying all those freebies dropping by their glossy office doors while you split your head into half trying to figure out which is which.

So my humble opinion is that you need to check out those fashion tips but really, you need to dress like how you feel and how you want to be comfortable. Don’t just succumb to what other people suggest blindly because suggestions can be a mile long and for all you know, nothing suits you. You know you can just make up a name like all those designers do and pepper them into your statements… I mean, hello! They’re humans too. Hurrrmmm… I think I’ll just call mine no-hoe! Self-explanatory, eyh?