As much as I hate being home, I love being able to work! I love being surrounded by clothes all day, making mental shopping lists of everything Im going to buy next, flicking through the lookbooks and putting through next seasons orders. I also love watching women shop. Especially in a small town like Lincoln.
In my time spent in retail, (hint; working with clothes whilst at uni means you can justify buying loads of clothes even when on a budget) I have decided that there are two kinds of fashionistas that really annoy me. Type A is the Im above fashion type. These are the girls that spend so much time ranting on about how they don’t follow trends, their individual style, usually the same girls walking into shops obnoxiously declaring things like “I would never pay that for a t-shirt ”, and love to write FB statues about how non-materialistic they are.
I can’t stand these shoppers and am often overcome with the urge to sound off that killer quote from Devil Wears Prada about the blue sweater. In fact I think I will just copy and paste it below because it pretty much summarizes my thoughts on this Type A Girl. Although I do have to add , and this is what annoys me the most, this girls is actually the most fashion conscious of them all. Don’t misinterpret messy buns or ‘I just got out of the surf’ looks. That I just got out of bed hair-do equaled hours in front of the mirror with salt-spray. And those ankle boots she has picked up from the shoe-shed, she has spent the last few months (hence the out of date shoes ha!) agonizing over how to wear them. She is always, and I mean ALWAYS the first girl to shoot me a dirty look when I walk in looking over dress (hello I just finished work) but ALSO the first girl peepin’ from the change room asking how to style her outfit or more specifically how I would style that outfit; what shoes do I wear with this? But what shoes would you wear with this? What bag would you wear?
‘This… stuff’? Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select… I don’t know… that lumpy blue sweater, for instance because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise. It’s not lapis. It’s actually cerulean. And you’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent… wasn’t it who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff.
Another shopper that drives me insane is the ‘fashion stripper’. I call her this because she is the customer that I spend all afternoon running around the shop striping mannequins for. She refers to herself as an easy shopper and believes style comes naturally to her however what she fails to realize is that style isn’t about walking into a store, dressing from the lookbook or off a manicuin, swipping your AE and walking out feeling all fashion! What she doesn’t know, and will most likely never work out, is that buying exclusively from the same stores or straight from a mannequin I dressed does not give her creditability. And she is unaware that most clever fashion usually comes from those who don’t have the opportunity to do such things (hence why most designer collections are initially inspired by the streets.. even the homeless). Now don’t get me wrong, Im not saying that people who pay more for there clothes don’t have style, because frankly some of the best wardrobes I know come with big price tags, but its more the mentality of the shopper I am referring to. If you only shop in certain stores, and would never think of buying from somewhere that didn’t have labels, or didn’t do op-shopping until vintage was on trend, then you are who I am referring to.
Anyway what I am getting at is I believe that having true style comes from buying what you love, whether it’s from saint vinnies, mums wardrobe or wildchild.
If you love it, buy it!
If your only trying it on because a perky shop assistant said it was all the rage.. Ask yourself, what part of this outfit is me?
If your answer is something like ‘well technically I saw it on the maniquin on blah blah’s facebook page, but..” then maybe its time to consider that your not so much born-to-be-styler as you are easily-influenced!
Anyway (x2) moral of the rant is.. Some of the most beautifully dressed people I know are this way because they enjoy fashion. I think this is the secret. It doesn’t matter how big or small your budget is. They mix Zimmermann one day with a vintage find the next. And you know the people that I am referring to. You can tell they thoroughly enjoy waking up each day and deciding what to wear. They don’t save dresses for a special occasions; and when they are shopping its like they aren’t even buying clothes, but rather collecting them. These are my favorite kinds of shoppers (way to finish on a positive) and I love being part of there clothing experience :)
In my time spent in retail, (hint; working with clothes whilst at uni means you can justify buying loads of clothes even when on a budget) I have decided that there are two kinds of fashionistas that really annoy me. Type A is the Im above fashion type. These are the girls that spend so much time ranting on about how they don’t follow trends, their individual style, usually the same girls walking into shops obnoxiously declaring things like “I would never pay that for a t-shirt ”, and love to write FB statues about how non-materialistic they are.
I can’t stand these shoppers and am often overcome with the urge to sound off that killer quote from Devil Wears Prada about the blue sweater. In fact I think I will just copy and paste it below because it pretty much summarizes my thoughts on this Type A Girl. Although I do have to add , and this is what annoys me the most, this girls is actually the most fashion conscious of them all. Don’t misinterpret messy buns or ‘I just got out of the surf’ looks. That I just got out of bed hair-do equaled hours in front of the mirror with salt-spray. And those ankle boots she has picked up from the shoe-shed, she has spent the last few months (hence the out of date shoes ha!) agonizing over how to wear them. She is always, and I mean ALWAYS the first girl to shoot me a dirty look when I walk in looking over dress (hello I just finished work) but ALSO the first girl peepin’ from the change room asking how to style her outfit or more specifically how I would style that outfit; what shoes do I wear with this? But what shoes would you wear with this? What bag would you wear?
‘This… stuff’? Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select… I don’t know… that lumpy blue sweater, for instance because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise. It’s not lapis. It’s actually cerulean. And you’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent… wasn’t it who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff.
Another shopper that drives me insane is the ‘fashion stripper’. I call her this because she is the customer that I spend all afternoon running around the shop striping mannequins for. She refers to herself as an easy shopper and believes style comes naturally to her however what she fails to realize is that style isn’t about walking into a store, dressing from the lookbook or off a manicuin, swipping your AE and walking out feeling all fashion! What she doesn’t know, and will most likely never work out, is that buying exclusively from the same stores or straight from a mannequin I dressed does not give her creditability. And she is unaware that most clever fashion usually comes from those who don’t have the opportunity to do such things (hence why most designer collections are initially inspired by the streets.. even the homeless). Now don’t get me wrong, Im not saying that people who pay more for there clothes don’t have style, because frankly some of the best wardrobes I know come with big price tags, but its more the mentality of the shopper I am referring to. If you only shop in certain stores, and would never think of buying from somewhere that didn’t have labels, or didn’t do op-shopping until vintage was on trend, then you are who I am referring to.
Anyway what I am getting at is I believe that having true style comes from buying what you love, whether it’s from saint vinnies, mums wardrobe or wildchild.
If you love it, buy it!
If your only trying it on because a perky shop assistant said it was all the rage.. Ask yourself, what part of this outfit is me?
If your answer is something like ‘well technically I saw it on the maniquin on blah blah’s facebook page, but..” then maybe its time to consider that your not so much born-to-be-styler as you are easily-influenced!
Anyway (x2) moral of the rant is.. Some of the most beautifully dressed people I know are this way because they enjoy fashion. I think this is the secret. It doesn’t matter how big or small your budget is. They mix Zimmermann one day with a vintage find the next. And you know the people that I am referring to. You can tell they thoroughly enjoy waking up each day and deciding what to wear. They don’t save dresses for a special occasions; and when they are shopping its like they aren’t even buying clothes, but rather collecting them. These are my favorite kinds of shoppers (way to finish on a positive) and I love being part of there clothing experience :)
