How many times do I have to apologize for only writing about fashion? Here we go again down that very familiar road, though so far it's only been me on this route. When you're a costume designer, this is what you think about. To call myself a costume designer, for the record, is beginning to sound stranger and stranger everyday.
This post may be twofold, and in some odd way they are related, much like the running and role play entry I wrote some weeks ago. The first issue at hand is the status of my Halloween costume. Yes, Halloween is juvenile. Yes, it should be left to childhood. Furthermore it should be left to Catholics, as the Day of the Dead and All Hallow's Eve are Catholic holidays and I don't do Catholicism. However I do enjoy dressing up, and since my current place of employment allows and even encourages participation, I feel as though I should include myself in the festivities. The problem is that this year I have really no idea what I want to do. I've been a pirate every year since the dawn of my own free will. I can't help loving piracy. I'm a cold hearted criminal at heart, all I want is to leave you penniless and marooned in the middle of nowhere. Should you find yourself hoodwinked, that's you're own dang fault for setting yourself up!
Anyway, today after work I went with my good ole buddy ole pal to meander through the mall. She was heading for a train, I was looking for ideas for my Halloween costume. I've got this idea of going 1920s, but not flapper. I'm thinking of something more Thoroughly Modern, if you catch my drift. Just a bit of something to catch the attention of a certain Mr. Graydon, eh? (That John Gavin was attractive!) I only need a few things to be 1920s secretary appropriate, and all items could potentially be discovered in some mall boutique. Alas, 'twas not to be. No appropriate cardigans, no perfect blouses. I'm starting to get discouraged. It always seems to be that the essentials are nowhere to be found. My next stop is the DI. I don't know if I'm going to pull this off. I may just don my most excellent fedora (acquired from my father, whose head is too large) or perhaps my acceptable bowler and... call it a holiday. In the very least I did purchase some excellent butterscotch boots with beige and white striped spatting.
The second part of this blog is made up of mostly thoughts on the train immediately following my expedition. What on earth has happened to females? As my comrades may tell you, this seems to be The Question for me, and the answer is not 42. I feel that I am quite a conundrum. I don't think people quite get it, and I certainly don't understand it myself, but I just don't belong here. I certainly shouldn't be associated with females in general. I don't understand why they dress the way they do, or why they've ever dressed the way they do. I think this is key to what makes me a lousy costume designer; I'd much rather dabble in the menswear and design suits than dresses. I don't care for what modern women wear now. The best it's ever been was in the first half of the 20th century. Ready made, feminine, yet tailored and professional enough to compete with suits. Given, this was because it was the suit that they were trying to emulate. There was still a distinction between male and female, but after Jackie O, things fell apart. Maybe it's because the seventies were so atrocious, followed by an even more disgusting period of shoulder pads and pant suits. There was a rebound this past decade, with Mrs. Kennedy as the apparent inspiration. Things were good four to six years ago. Until about 2008 and the rise of the hipster.
These Neo-hippies have brought us right back to what killed off clean cut conservative wear in the 60s. They make things up, draping fabric and notions here and there with no logical reasoning behind any of it. Why do you have a zipper sewn diagonally across your abdomen? Why does said zipper not even function? Is this art? Are you expressing yourself? REALLY?! How is anyone supposed to take you seriously? When are you going to grow up and get a life?
These are questions I mentally ask hipsters. Then I realize that these inquiries apply to me. When AM I going to grow up and get a real job? Never. It's not that I don't want to grow up. On the contrary I feel as though I was born to be old. I was born to be a crusty old scholar. I've already mentally retired in fact. I will never have a real job because all I want to do is study things, and that isn't a paying job. This is why my life isn't fair and nobody seems to get it. As much as I am disgusted by Catholics, I wish I was one. About seven hundred years ago. Living in a monastery amongst the privileged few who were educated. I want to be Hildegard von Bingen. I would even settle for being a guy today and get to wear clothes that make sense and do whatever I please because I wouldn't be restricted by this stupid nagging in the back of my head to be a mother. I could be a happy bachelor with no children and no female roommates to bother me.
The real conundrum? I enjoy being female. I'm a bleeding walking oxymoron, I am.
This blog didn't exactly turn out the way I figured it would, and I would have more to say and some editing to do, but I don't edit. I write it all at once and send it to sea because I know I'm better than the majority, and I can get away with it. Cheers.
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