Is garb turning into garbage?

The glitter has gone from glittering opening nights. In a world obsessed by fashion, people are wearing tat.

There are the gossip pages, endlessly preoccupied by photographs of stars and starlets in designer dresses of the moment arbitrarily accorded marks out-of-ten. In newspapers and magazines, these fashionista displays are given masses of space, as if they are really important. Photos are lined up, set out in extraordinarily clumsy page layouts, some pictures too absurdly small to see, but all of them dominated by marks out of ten for fashion sense.

The media seems to simply snatch them off the wire and then make their earth-shattering and often-mean-spirited editorial judgements. If you saw what some of those journalists were wearing, you'd wonder where the gall, the aesthetic audacity to play god with other people's taste or whim. Perhaps this trait is what is killing the spirit of fashion.

In real life, dressing up for special occasions has gone out the window. What do all these designers create fancy attires for if not for people to wear to fancy nights out? Go to a fancy night out and, what? People are just wearing any old thing. At the opening night of the Adelaide Festival of Arts' headline show, I saw men in shorts and a woman wearing sneakers. Sneakers? Opening night? So much for the glittering formality of the special occasion. So much for a reason to get the glad rags out.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think putting on one's best duds is the making of a special occasion. A room full of people looking their best is not only the sign of a civilised society but it is also a mark of respect for an event. Opening nights used to be the big events; they used to be black tie and formal frock.

It was the black ties which went first. Dinner suits are expensive and men often rented them. The formal tuxedo slipped to dark suit and bow tie. Then dark suit and tie. Then cream jacket, then any jacket, then no tie. Now shorts and open-necked shirt.

Meanwhile, it seems that there are just a few matrons who bother to doll up for opening nights. They look fabulous. But, how ironic is it that they stand out from the crowd. They are fastidiously coiffed, perfumed, and attired, down to their to-die-for shoes. Perhaps, if I was a numbers person, I'd estimate them as making up about five per cent of a foyer crowd. They not only are distinguished by their elegant outfits but also, sad to say, by their age. The sense of occasion seems to be turning into a generational thing. So there's a rub. Beautiful young women certainly wear pretty frocks and smart outfits around the town. But, often, when they go out at night, they wear so little that it is really hard to call it fashion. Skimpy doesn't begin to cover it. It is barely more than primal pheromone for, whether they know it or not, there is a reproductive undercurrent to their baring of the flesh. For the young, dressing up has turned into undress.

Even events like charity dinners and gala nights no longer carry that old glamour cachet. So many people want to short-cut formality that it makes the well-dressed feel self-conscious. The slobs are winning. Nothing is special for them.

This makes one wonder about the massive fashion industry with all those design schools spawning bright new talent. Fashion seems to have turned into an industry of photographs. We look at pictures of it on models and in those endless magazine spreads of never-heard-of-'em starlets posing on red carpets so they can be humiliated with a 2/10 rating for how they look. Perhaps women are so wary of being judged for their formal attire that they have shied right out of the market? Or perhaps people's priorities have changed.

Maybe life is all about speed and comfort these days. Just look at how airports have changed. We used to dress in our best to catch a plane. It was really special. Now, it's worse than a bus depot with all the zigzag queuing, the delays, the scrutinies, and the general intimidatory presence of security. On the planes, the attendants' smiles are rote and their ministrations brisk. They are tired and overworked before one even sets foot in their domain. The meanness of seating for the flying hordes does not encourage dressing up. It requires defensive dressing. Comfort first.

And thus do the denominators go down. Some people's idea of comfort is singlet and thongs. And, heaven help us, they are permitted to travel like that. Dress codes are done with. Wear what you like, from full burqa to next-to-nothing.

But not quite everywhere, thank heavens.

I note that Costo has put up a sign saying it won't admit people who are not wearing footwear. "You have no idea how many people come in here with bare feet," said the door attendant when I commented on the new sign. I was incredulous. I am incredulous. We're not talking poor people; Costco is not cheap. We are talking slobs.

The slobs are taking over. They'll be turning up barefooted to opening nights next.

Burqa bizzo

When I was in Muslim countries, I was expected to dress modestly in keeping with the traditions of the culture.

When in Rome...one tries to fit in. Or so it was before the Islamic disapora.

I might be wrong but I believe that Muslims are the first people to come to live in our country and openly disapprove of us. It's hard to forget the cleric who described Australian women in summer attire as "meat left out for the cat".

There are now a lot of Muslims in Australia. They are spread widely and evenly through the urban population, but they don't blend in. The women's dress makes them instantly recognizable. Their range of religious habit goes from a token headscarf to abaya, those long drab button-up overdresses, and huge hijab around their heads.
The full burqa or niqab face covering is rare here but it is seen.

However, it now is in the news and and we are all forced to think about how, exactly, we feel about this sort of dramatic separation from the rest of the community.  As a liberated country, we don't conform. We display our diversity with everything from muted conservative garb to a mass of tattoos and piercings. We are proud of our freedom to self-expression.

This should, of course, including the Muslims. Yet, by dressing differently, Muslims are dividing us.

And, thanks to political correctness, we feel inhibited and compromised about expressing reservations. This automatically makes us racist.

But I am getting to the age when one speaks one's mind. And I have to say that I am disturbed by the sight of Muslim women shrouded under burqas.  They rouse a confusion of emotions in me. I am intimidated by them. I feel they are spying on us, shunning us, and hiding in plain sight.  I also mistrust that they are actually female. I have no way of knowing.

The thing that most disturbs me is that the Islamic rationale that women are covered from head to foot because of the belief that they are too tempting to be seen. They need to be protected from their own sexuality. Just the sight of their hair is such a provocation that men may completely lose control.

What does this make of Islamic men? They have such crude sexual urges that they cannot  safely see women in public?

This religious dress code, therefore, not only oppresses and insults the women, it demeans men.

It makes no sense to me at all.


Photo: CharlesFred, Flickr