Wednesday 23 February 2011

It's LFW darling

So London Fashion Week came to a close yesterday and the baton will now be handed to Milan for  its 'Pret-a-Porter' collection... that's 'Ready to wear' to you and I darlink which runs from February 23rd to March 1st, and finally Paris the Capital of haute couture will be wrapping up the season, i.e Spring collections between March 1 and 9th. Quel dommage! I'm hoping this little paragraph which did require some 'googling' demonstrates that unlike most 'haters' of fashion, I'm not completely ignorant of the beast, I just don't like it! Let me qualify that, I can't say I despise fashion per se, rather if I had to choose between Style and Fashion, I'd go for the former any day. Granted the two sometimes meet but judging from this season's trends, I'm beginning to think less and less so.
Something else I find irritating about fashion is its ability to make people do stupid things, wear obviously ridiculous clothes and excuse such behaviour by telling dismayed onlookers that it's in fashion, as if that were some kind of excuse to lose one's self-awareness.
The other day Vivienne Westwood had the gall to criticise Kate Middleton for having no style and while I agree that the soon-to-be Queen of Great Britain-in-waiting's dress sense leaves a lot to be desired for someone her age, I take heart that atleast she doesn't look hideous half the time, which unfortunately I can't say for Ms Westwood. She's the British designer famous for bringing punk to fashion, who is hugely innovative and revels in breaking the rules, yet she herself looks absolutely hideous 90% of the time. It's one thing designing clothes for 20something year old anorexic-looking models, quite another trying to pull it off when you're 70, and très wrinkled sweetie.
At times watching fashion shows feels a little like reading 'The Emporer's new clothes' all over again where everyone seems to be pretending to be in awe of some new designer collection and the more discerning and plain speakers among us are thinking 'but its the same as last year and the year before'. Whether it's the chat shows with their 'what's new this season' or the glossy magazines, fashion pundits in every media seem to make a habit of trying to pull the wool over our eyes. This Spring 2011 trends apparently include floral prints, stripes, playsuits and bell bottoms - 'Hang on' ...I hear you shout, '...but those were last year's trends too'...and probably the year before. Yet nobody seems to bring this to the so-called designers and fashion pundits' attention that not only are we regurgitating 60s and 70s trends that our parents followed, we are also repeating them year after year and pretending they're new and fresh each time.
And then we have the style genius that is Mr Gok Wan who tries to tell every woman in the UK that they can look beautiful naked...Not! This man has a lot to answer for because thanks to him young girls walking the streets of London, Manchester, Liverpool and every other major UK city think they can D.I.Y their way to a fashionable wardrobe and the results are ofcourse disastarous. Gok's Clothes Roadshow, a series on British television advocates women sewing on things like buttons and tassles, and wearing their cardigans backwards to create a designer look for less. Yes yes I know, it sounds ridiculous and it is, picture the tired old trousers that have had sequins glued on by some incompetent teenager because Gok says so. To some extent we can excuse the young because invariably they have great bodies and few brain cells but when older 'ought to know better' people take blind fashion advice, it just makes me want to weep.
I understand the lure of fashion, it requires little effort, you can just pick an item or two and wear it in exactly the same way as you saw Kate Moss wearing it at that red carpet event, except you don't have her body and you're not on the red carpet, you're walking down the high street and finally, I think most importantly the 'knock off ' which you've bought is made of cheap polyester and has been sewn together by little nimble fingers somewhere in India, her's is made of pure silk and looks expensive because it is expensive!

I'm not suggesting that noone is able to pull off fashion trends, simply that those who do, use their heads. They are able to mix and match items, cheap and cheerful with key quality pieces and the result is often that we assume if the shoes are from Ted Baker, the dress must be too, even though it only costs 14.99 from H&M. I think smart stylish people also realise that they can't pull off any look, no matter how hot and 'on trend' it is.

For the rest of us, my advice would be leave the clogs to Alexa Chung, the hoof-style boots to Solange Knowles and please please please remember that if you do not follow the Sikh religion and you're not a man, then there's absolutely no excuse for wearing a turban.

Thursday 10 February 2011

Oh do get off that soapbox!

The Times front page headline reads Saudis told Obama not to humiliate Mubarak followed by Hugh Tomlinson's report of the phone call made by King Abdullah to President Obama telling him that if they tried to force Mubarak out of Egypt in the face of popular protest, his government would retailiate by propping him, i.e. Mubarak up. And so it would seem our journalists are up in arms, outraged on the public's behalf as though this was the most scandalous thing since the last Wikileaks bombshell. Which leaves me wondering do people fully understand what happens in international politics?

Leaders threatening each other is hardly news and I for one didn't need to read any Wikileaks report to understand that politics is a dirty game where seemingly chummy Heads of States have utter contempt for one another. Is it not obvious that powerful countries achieved their status by less than pleasant means? Or that despotic regimes count so-called democratic leaders among their supporters? Perhaps I'm cynical and maybe people do go around thinking that our leaders are all fine upstanding citizens whose actions are purely altruistic. Somehow I doubt this very much. I think the public is a lot more discerning than the media would have us believe so their outrage at the USA being influenced by the oil-rich Saudis seems a little feigned to say the least.

Let's assume for a moment that we do all expect Western Leaders to uphold their democratic principles in all political matters, whether domestic or foreign. We know they can be very vocal in condemning the likes of Robert Mugabe for human rights abuses or supporting military coups of those they deem to be dictators(or as Bush would say 'against US'), and perhaps we find that laudable yet we can't ignore that when it comes to oppressive regimes like China and Israel it is always business as usual. What I find hugely duplicitous is that our so-called independent media perpetuate these double standards rather than acknowledge that politics is and has always been a dirty game. This may be part of our ability as Westerners to constantly maintain the moral high ground, albeit in our own minds. We're constantly told and we believe that we are free unlike the oppressed populations of the world. We elect our leaders and hold them accountable but do we really?

There are countless examples of actions that have been taken (see War in Iraq) and are still taken by our elected leaders which we have either no knowledge of, and which if/or when we do, we are rightly outraged by. Admittedly on fundamental issues such as our freedoms, to associate or to express ourselves in the media or in public, we are far more advanced than autocracies like North Korea or Iran, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that we know of, or could possibly approve of all the decisions that our governments make. Politics is a ruthless business, where power is the single most important factor and governments will carry out some of the most despicable acts in order to maintain or acquire such power.

In the game of politics leaders are ousted at a whim  because they do not suit a country's purpose as was the case with Haiti's Jean Bertrand Aristide, genocidal regimes are protected as the French did in Rwanda during Operation Turquoise and when governments refuse to play ball, crippling sanctions are imposed as was the case in Zimbabwe which end up affecting the ordinary man more than the despotic leader. Who on earth are we kidding when we try to hold Obama accountable for Mubarak's refusal to step down from power? The US's influence in Egypt is worth nothing as long as the 82 year old leader has the support of a mighty power like Saudi Arabia. As long as leaders have financial and often military backing from one country or another, whether openly or as is often the case 'behind close doors', they will continue to do exactly as they please even if that means defying their people and/or the international community. Politics will continue to be about a power struggle where sometimes the power shifts from one nation to another.

Oftentimes I wish people would simply call things like they are and stop pretending we live in some kind of Utopia where our leaders have our best interests at heart. What the phone call from King Abdullah and the subsequent 'delicate' diplomacy on the part of Washington proves is that the Saudis have the upper hand. Simply put, America will have to dance to their tune because clearly they have something that America wants.....or rather needs.
So my humble appeal to the next journalist who choses to pick up this story and run with it as though it were the 'scoop' of the week, do get off your soapbox for one minute and fully appreciate what being the leader of any nation means and if you already know this which I suspect you do, then try and find another story to demonstrate your moral indignation. I hear Britain's decided to triple its aid to Somalia. Now there's a story worth investigating.