Wardrobe Malfunction

By Rachel Walls

Contemporary fashion is ridiculous. I don’t know what mastermind is behind this inane enterprise. Maybe it’s a twenty-some-year-old college guy who, while ticking around on his computer, has accidentally hacked his way into Fashion Megacorp’s control center and is high-fiving his frat buddies while scheming up the next absurd garment to hit the shelves. (“Check it out Norman: crazy rubber clogs! Sunglasses as big as your face! And America’s just a double click away from a crop-top comeback! Yeah, pound it! That’s how we do it on the east side! Hey, where you guys going?”) Or maybe it’s run by a seventy-year-old paraplegic who is turning knobs and pressing buttons on his sinister-looking, high-tech wheelchair while wheezing commands Vader-style to his entourage of department store representatives.

(“Luke! I am your quasi-Mexican-inspired-bead-embroidered tote bag!”) Or maybe America just has really bad taste.

Just to be clear, I don’t hate everything in vogue. I don’t sulk around in a Hot Topic novelty sweatshirt with my arms folded and a messenger bag slung over my shoulder with “Normal People Worry Me” embroidered onto the front flap. I don’t try to be counter-culture: I think Bohemian skirts are pretty cute, Capri jeans look okay if you’re tall, and I have even come to accept the fact that thongs actually serve a purpose, however racy and questionable that purpose may be. Nevertheless, I do have a problem with the popularity of generally worthless and unattractive clothing, especially when it is all that fills the racks at Nordstrom and I am left with no option but to re-wear last season’s wardrobe, which is actually punishable by law in fifteen states.

First, let’s address the bras with the clear plastic straps. Yeah, these are classy. Who do these girls think they’re fooling? “Clear” is not synonymous to “invisible,” and these bras are looking less like innovative products and more like they’re made of leftover pieces of Scotch gift-wrapping tape. I imagine that when people see these they smack their foreheads and say, “Oh, it’s a bra! How clever! And here I thought it was remnants of Saran wrap!” The real irony here, though, is that the reason this product was developed in the first place is because visible bra straps were deemed “tacky.” Way to dodge that one, girls.

While we’re on the subject of nasty-looking useless clothing, have you seen a pair of renovated gaucho pants? This is one tragic article of clothing. Gaucho pants are the stretch leggings of the twenty-first century: one, they are flattering on absolutely nobody, two, their loose waistlines have the unfortunate effect of attracting well-intentioned but ill-advised pregnant women, and three, well, there really is no three except to reiterate that they are SO SO UGLY. These would-be men’s trousers hang loose and are cut off below the knee and resemble a skirt when the wearer is standing still but when she moves the two separate pant legs flap in the breeze and are as out of place and as oddly disturbing as seeing an ice cream truck on the highway.

Next, how about those worn and weathered jeans that come with holes in the knees? This item of clothing single-handedly disproves carbon dating, as a pair of these jeans would probably test out to belong to the Cretaceous Period. I don’t mean to sound like a grandma or anything, because even I like my jeans to be broken in, but when these pants come with actual disclaimers stating that “this garment has been aged and will wear out faster than a typical pair of jeans,” it is time to become alarmed. I cannot think of any other product besides clothing where a manufacturer could attach such a disclaimer and get away with it. Imagine buying a hamburger and written in fine print along the side of the box was the notice, “this hamburger has been half eaten and will not last as long as a typical hamburger,” or on an iPod, “this device has been kicked along the sidewalk for a block and dropped in the garbage disposal and sat on by Michael Moore and will not last as long as – okay it is actually just broken.” The biggest question I have when I see these jeans is how people who buy them decide when it is time for a new pair.

As long as we’re talking about aged, stained clothing, how about the revolutionary style deemed “hobo”? I’ll bet your local soup kitchen patron finds this a little degrading. These guys can’t get a break. “No, I can’t spare a dollar, but I can doll up your entire outfit and sell it at Nordstrom for south of $300, and, like, where did you get that bag?” This offensive trend is followed militantly by the Olsen twins, which should be reason enough to stay far, far away. I once saw a set of photos on the internet that hilariously compared Mary-Kate’s ensemble to ET when he is dressed in drag by a six-year-old Drew Barrymore. If you want to look like ET, cut two holes in a white bed sheet and hop in the metal basket on Henry Thomas’s bike. At least then you’d get to sail past the moon. And eat Reese’s Pieces.

And, if I could go all Jerry Seinfeld on you for a minute, what’s the deal with ponchos? This garment was inspired by a black garbage bag. It’s kind of disheartening that after all these years of clothing evolution we are back to wearing burlap sacks. And offering them in cashmere isn’t fooling anybody. We all know that this piece of clothing serves absolutely no purpose but to look really, really ugly. Unfortunately, ugly is in vogue. Worst of all, just when we thought the poncho was finally going to fizzle and die like the malfunctioning firecracker it is, Martha Stewart’s cell mate had to go and knit her one and get everybody all excited again. By the way America, let’s have a little respect for ourselves and turn to someone who is not in prison for fashion inspiration, okay?

There are plenty of other stupid and ugly clothing articles for sale. There are the ever-popular four-inch high heels that offer nothing but a pathetic strip of fabric near the toe to keep them on the feet, so that the women who wear them are reduced to shuffling everywhere they go, which has proven to actually be a health hazard in carpeted areas, as the static that builds is number nine in the top ten causes of accidental electrocution. (Following closely at number ten is dropping the laptop while taking a bath – look, can you just wait until you’re out of the tub to play FreeCell?) I also found for sale on the internet a “sheer stripe stretch corduroy tuxedo vest” for women, which I really feel epitomizes the garbage being sold today, and which, when you translate its name into German and rearrange the letters, prophesies the birth of the antichrist.

For the present, those whose sense of style is still unadulterated must band together while this diarrhea of trends passes through like a bad burrito, keeping in mind that fashion is fickle, and eventually these crazes will fade away like a bad welt and be replaced by something less nauseating. But it’d better be soon, because these plastic straps are really starting to chafe.

• Rachel Walls, 18, lives in Anchorage.