Fashion QR9

FASHION / HEALTH - When it comes to fashion, its become a cliche to wear a gas mask on the runway. Especially when it comes to fetish or BDSM garb. Its been OVERDONE. Stop doing it already! (I swear people are so unimaginative at times.) But... with the recent spread of the Swine Flu (H1N1 virus) from Mexico, a lot of people are taking the wise precaution and are wearing surgical masks to protect themselves from the deadly plague. Before I get into this I think its really important that people wear protection, even if you're not sick. You could catch H1N1 from somebody else, just by shaking their hand, opening a door, handling money, someone coughing nearby (or in an elevator) or any number of ways since its an airborne bacteria. The best way to prevent it is to be very careful about what touches your hands, what touches your face or goes in your mouth, and be mindful of washing your hands regularly. So buying food at the cafeteria or restaurant near your workplace... big no-no. B

FASHION - What is the point of high fashion? Last year supermodel Carla Bruni (now the First Lady of France) wanted to bring herself down when standing beside the Queen Elizabeth II... She also chose a sombre grey dress-coat so to not upstage the Queen and for her shoes she wore a pair of plain black flats, while the Queen wore black heels. Had she worn something exquisitely beautiful it would have been wildly out-of-place... plus with Carla Bruni it doesn't really matter. She'd look good wearing a burlap sack. Most of us however are so ashamed of our bodies we wouldn't get caught dead wearing a burlap sack smock (or anything like it). We know we don't have the figure and we try to wear things that make us look better than we really do. That's the purpose of high fashion. Its like make-up in a way. Or high heels. Or corsets. Its to make us look better. We aren't naturally stunning to look at, so we need high fashion as a prop. If we all looked like supermodels

FASHION / ENTERTAINMENT - Young teens (aka Tweens) are all abuzz about the new Hannah Montana Movie, starring Miley Cyrus... but their adoration has also sparked an unusual fashion trend... Modesty. In an era when teenagers and young girls seem to be showing a lot more skin, this trend is a welcome change for parents concerned about their kids' promiscuity. So instead we have the wholesome girl-next-door. As opposed to the skanky Britney Spears look or the slutty Paris Hilton look. Or punkish Avril Lavigne or heroin-chic Amy Winehouse. Adapted from the hit TV series from Disney, Hannah Montana is covered-up, ladylike and wholesome. But what do the fans say? "I saw the movie and really liked the clothes – I really liked the looser jeans and I want to get a flannel shirt. I liked that it was sort of peasant-y and plain," says Ruby, age 14. Ruby admits "I'm too old to have this admiration for her," and admits she had to pick her way past throngs of 8, 9 and 1

FASHION - Call it my biggest fashion industry pet peeve... but what is with all the clothes that, admittedly, none of us would ever wear in public. Or in private for that matter. In the olden days of fashion design there was this thing called the avant garde, which was meant to represent anything that was so outrageous it was... controversial. The term is also used in art history , to describe artists like Jackson Pollock or Andy Warhol who did something nobody else had ever done before. Except when you look at the clothes shown here, you realize, yes, that's probably been done before. Its not very... experimental. Its like they're trying to be avant garde, but really they don't have a clue what they are doing. (I've tried to show a variety of different faux avant garde styles here, so you get a broad idea of the kind of bullshit nonsense these designers are pushing.) I admit some of the clothes does look pretty kewl, and I could see wearing some of them to a gothic

FASHION - Cage shoes may be popular right now, but how comfortable are they? Cage shoes may be the rage this season, starting at the spring/summer 2009 Yves Saint Laurent collection shown in Paris last October followed by designer Stefano Pilati sending his models down the runway with their feet encased in a shoe featuring thin strips of leather that form a grid-like pattern and perched on a metal cage-inspired heel. And ever since these cage shoes have been imprisoning the feet of models and supermodels all over the blogosphere, setting people a-twitter. I can't help but admit they look kewl, and indeed I wouldn't mind having a pair or two... but I've also tried them on several times at Holt Renfrew... and was very disappointed. They pinch your feet, your toes and your ankles. They are HORRIBLY uncomfortable. I have yet to find a pair that fit properly and are comfortable. I am soooooo glad I didn't buy them either, because I found out later they leave horrible waffl

FASHION - When it comes to hats and headwear, there is nothing more stylish than a fedora. And nothing more geeky or tells the world you're a complete idiot. I will say that women look fabulous in a fedora. Its very stylish and they don't look geeky whatsoever, but when a man wears it he ends up looking like: 1. A geek. 2. A pimp. 3. A complete cock (a British term to describe a braggart, idiot, jerk). The last thing, the absolutely last thing a man will look like, is stylish and kewl. The men in the photos above... all look like cocks. They're trying really hard to be stylish. Too hard, and it ends up looking fake. When you're stylish, you're not trying hard, you're natural about it. You're not pretending to be something you're not. You just are. Men wearing fedoras in an attempt to look stylish... well, they just end up looking like cocks. As much as fedoras may be back in fashion for women, for men it could be years or decades before fedoras are cons

NOTE: For photos I managed to find several images of 'average' and 'plus-size' women's fashions, but its rarity. I experimented with Google image searches and I'd say skinny fashion outweighs average-sized fashion by a factor of 150. FASHION - The average American woman is size 14. But when was the last time you saw a size 14 woman on a catwalk? Or a size 14 mannequin in the store window? They don't exist. But male mannequins and male models that size (or bigger) do exist. Why is that? In these troubled economic times, it seems idiotic for an industry to ignore half of its potential customers. But that is exactly what the women's-fashion industry is doing by catering to size 4 women, according to the L.A. Times. The average American man in contrast weighs 189.8 pounds and can easily find his size in department stores or expensive boutiques selling Armani. They know men won't diet to fit into a suit, but women will diet to fit into a dress. Many wom