I know that I am by no means a fashion blogger, and that my knowledge of fashion in general is reasonably scant. However, I do know one thing: there’s a difference between high fashion and high street fashion. It is alleged that this difference is that high street fashion is wearable and comfortable, whereas high fashion is art that features live human beings somewhere within its construction.
Given that this difference is present, one would imagine that high street fashions would actually be comfortable. Why would people regularly wear something that isn’t comfortable? If comfort were no issue, wouldn’t we all be trying to obtain the finest high fashion outfits available (well, cheap knock-offs from New Look, anyway, for which the headpieces are Ikea lampshades rather than an exclusive one-off lighting design made by Picasso on a rainy Sunday afternoon)?
Maybe I am excessively fussy, but I find an awful lot of high street fashions too uncomfortable to get involved with. Most of the time this is in one or both of two main areas: footwear, and temperature.
1. High Heels.
As I was typing that just now, I managed to make the typo ‘high hells’ which is pretty much my point. Yes, I know they make legs look more shapely. I sometimes put them on and decide that they are a good idea for this very reason, but as soon as I go anywhere wearing them I realise they are not. I have a friend who used to regularly make this mistake when going out to nightclubs. On the way home she was always carried for part of the way and walked the rest in bare feet. I mean, I know some people wear them every day, but – how do they stay up? Are their knees not destroyed? I have even seen people doing ceilidh dancing in stilettos and keeping them on for the entire evening without falling over. How?
Possibly my problem is that I am freakishly tall, therefore a) have no need to wear heels for extra height (except: they do make legs more shapely) and b) I cannot balance in them because my head is too far away from my feet.
2. Shoes That Will Not Stay on Feet
Within the genre of high heels, there is the potential for strapless high heels, to make walking even more difficult. I own a pair of these, which I bought in a sale eleven years ago and have worn twice. Both times for about an hour at parties, before deciding bare feet were more comfortable. I am selling them on eBay now, because the problems within their innocent-looking, beautiful burgundy leather forms are not worth the space that they take up on my shoerack. As well as the balancing-on-a-pointy-thing issue, there is also the shoe-may-fly-off-foot-at-any-moment problem. It is almost as if wearing shoes has become a test of endurance and skill, such an army training obstacle course. To be accepted as a proper woman, one must apparently demonstrate the ability to wear completely impractical articles of footwear as if they were normal, everyday items and absolutely no hindrance whatsoever. I once asked a friend how she would advise me to keep these shoes on my feet. She told me to get a piece of double-sided tape and put it on the heel of the shoe, thus gluing my foot to it so it wouldn’t come off. Which is a completely ridiculous thing to do, but I did it.
The main problem I had with this particular pair of shoes was that the only time it was appropriate to wear them was at parties. At parties, one is often supposed to socialise with people one does not know very well or at all. This requires vast amounts of mental energy and concentration. If I am having to concentrate on my feet and not falling over, I am not going to do very well at socialising, because I will not have a large enough partition of my brain dedicated to it. In fact, I think at one of those parties I may have said several of the stupidest things I’ve ever said at parties, but that might have had something to do with my consumption of some punch containing unknown ingredients, rather than my shoes. Fortunately I think everyone else had also partaken of said punch (my enduring memory is of the hostess shoving her mother’s accordion into my arms at 4am and demanding extremely forcefully that I play it. Even though I don’t play the accordion) so hopefully they have forgotten.
Anyway, it’s not just shoes with heels that will not stay on feet. Since I don’t want to wear heels to parties or other dressed-up type occasions, I wish to own a pair of flat, comfortable, pretty shoes. Are these abundant? No they are not. There are lots of flat, pretty shoes, but they are not comfortable and do not stay on my feet. I have to do a horrible uncomfortable foot scrunching thing to keep them on. (Maybe because my feet are freakishly narrow and shallow and really long and therefore nothing fits them anyway.) There are flat, comfortable shoes in existence, such as my favourite olive green suede moccasins, but they aren’t exactly pretty and can’t be worn with skirts.
The worst and most uncomfortable of all shoes, ever, in my opinion, is the thong-sandal. Flapping about all over the place, huge effort to keep in contact with your foot, and you have a piece of plastic digging in between your toes. Yet people claim these are comfortable? I do not understand.
Fortunately it is winter now, so I can wear boots with everything. That is my short term solution, but I am still stumped on the medium-temperatured months.
3. Things which are the wrong temperature, always:
a. Semi-off-shoulder asymmetrical tops
If it’s cool enough to have one shoulder covered, it must be too cold to have the other one bare. One side is always going to feel wrong.
b. Ballet pumps with leggings
If it is warm enough to have bare ankles, it must surely be too hot to wear a tight-fitting shoe on the rest of the foot?
c. Ugg boots and tiny skirts and bare legs in the middle of summer. Or winter. Or any other time of year.
I don’t think this actually requires an explanation.
d. Pyjamas with long trousers and strappy tops
On the average sleeping person, the legs are to be found under the duvet. They will probably be more likely to stay warm than the shoulders, which are close to the edge of the duvet and may become chilly. Or is it now fashionable to sleep with one’s head under the duvet, and feet sticking out on the pillow?
e. Going out for the evening wearing skimpy clothing with no jacket in February, or, in fact, at any other time of year.
This was an immense struggle for me when I was a student. I refused to do it, and thus ended up being The Only Person With A Coat in nightclubs, which meant I had to either queue for the cloakroom (on my own, or with someone who was keeping my company slightly resentfully) and pay a quid (which was a lot of money in those days) to have the coat looked after – or tie it round my waist and be uncomfortable and stupid-looking for the entire evening. A friend once told me that his answer to this problem was to buy a cheap, warm and not-too-awful-looking-but-disposable coat from a charity shop, and wear that when out for the evening, and just hide it in a corner of the club somewhere. If it got stolen or had anything spilt on it, it didn’t matter. I decided the best solution for me was to stop going to nightclubs because I didn’t actually like doing it anyway. Ho hum.
There ends my list of uncomfortable garments, at least for now. I will probably discover new ones as new fashions develop.
I don’t know whether I’m excessively sensitive to physical discomfort, or whether I’m just not putting enough effort in. Do most people practise wearing these things, so that they get used to them? Or can they somehow adapt to new environments very quickly, so that when they purchase an asymmetrical off-shoulder top they are able to rapidly grow a thicker layer of subcutaneous fat on one of their shoulders? Maybe modern teenagers have evolved into beings with internal ankle warming systems.
Thankfully the new fashionable thing appears to be enormous knitwear, which I am very pleased about. It’s approaching the time of year in which the only thing I care about is maximum warmth. I don’t consciously try to be ‘fashionable’ but am aware that fashion generally dictates what is abundantly available. If what’s available is large and woolly in an appropriate season then I’m extremely glad the high-street-fashion-dictating people have finally made a sensible and practical decision.
Right. Now I am going to bed. In an asymmetrical-off-the-shoulder pyjama top, strapless high heels and a skirt made of safety pins.
