Maybe this is everyone’s experience as they get older, falling out of fashion and balking at the latest trends.
BUT. I really think there’s something uniquely terrible about this moment in (clothing) history.
I can appreciate elements of fashion from pretty much every era…from jazz age glam to swinging cocktail dresses and just about everything from the set of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, to the pencil skirts and cat-eye makeup of the 60s, to 80s punk and 90s heroin chic, to the dELiA’s catalogues of my coming-of-age and the midriffs of the 2000s.
But these days I dread shopping. Why are shirts cut like pillowcases and dresses cut like potato sacks? What’s the point of a sweater knit so loosely the wind blows right through, or a neck cut so wide the sleeves fall down your shoulders? Speaking of, why are the shoulders/armpits in a women’s “small” cardigan roomy enough for the Rock?
It all seems so frumpy, and not even functional. Aren’t clothes meant to accentuate the body, rather than hide it? How are you other non-Gen Z women adapting to current fashion?
P.S. I will admit that having higher rise jeans is nice. It took me a while to get on board, but now I can see how the low rise skinny jean gave us all chicken legs ;)
Yeah I was more the high effort goth type back in the day but am way too lazy for that now. I got to where you are now, looking at my uninspiring wardrobe full of things you could wear to work, the occasional unobjectionable dress for a night out, and plain jeans and vest tops and I just thought enough is enough.
Literally, as someone who knows nothing about fashion, sat down with my laptop and spent a night searching for the words for different styles so I could articulate my thoughts. Picked things I liked and didn’t. Let myself judge based on what felt “me” rather than what felt my age (am nearly 40). Apparently I gravitate to something called “dark bohemian”, which does check out but I’d never heard the actual term before!
I’ve since defined my style goal as “casual witch on a cruise ship” and am rolling with that as my guide for everything that gets made or bought.