The Red Headed Step Child of Textiles

Dare I speak her name? (Lest she emerge from her dark hiding place in the corner of a dimly lit Sears??)

Oh Velour, you red headed step child. There is almost no other fabric that I recoil from faster. I'd feel bad for you but your insistence on pal-ing around with rhinestones and other riffraff really makes it quite impossible for me to feel pity.

Velour, rebelling against the rest of the respectable Textile family.
Velour, bff of the J-Lo design team.
Velour, brazenly hot pink, lime green, or skin tight white.
Velour, commonly seen with ambiguous white sneakers.
Velour, when will you learn??

GUEST POST BY (the one and only) MORGAN ROPER

The Ed Hardy Aesthetic: Douchebaggery in Garment Form

There was once a time when one only had to worry about the female’s affinity for a catastrophically rhinestoned tee-shirt and jean combination. This female was usually in the 7^th grade, harboring some sort of unhealthy obsession with both Britney Spears and the Bedazzler she was given for her 12^th birthday. However, thanks to the million year old, exorbitantly sketchy Christian Audigier, men around the world are able to express their inner sparkle by wearing shirts, jeans, shoes, and hats covered in glittering dragons, tigers and skulls. After we had survived the Von Dutch Explosion of the early 2000s, I thought that the men of the American Public had learned to avoid the attire favored by those who drive tractors, are suffocatingly tooly and/or live on the Jersey Shore. How wrong could a young girl be…

As I walk down the street, I am sporadically blinded by some sort of oily, guido character sporting a too-tight, gleaming atrocity of rhinestones and cartoon animals. He strides down the boulevard, his blow-out catching the light of the mid-day sun, muscles bulging, looking like an overcooked turkey and he’s pleased with himself. Proud. The posterchild of Ed Hardy Elegance. I understand that most of the people who frequent the Ed Hardy store also live by the spiritual mantra “Gym. Tan. Laundry,” but there are some ­normal people who also find themselves attracted to the aesthetic. And that is a problem. I have seen far too many males wandering the streets wearing muscle-tees, the male equivalent to your grandmother’s sleeveless, high-necked blouse. I know that it’s summer and that its 1000 degrees, but straight men are only allowed to wear sleeveless shirts underneath their real shirts. They are called undershirts for a reason. Christian Audigier made the male tank top widly and disgustingly acceptable and he had the audacity to throw a multicolored, glittery rose on it?! How dare he? Though I blame you, Mr. Audigier, for making me to encounter already unattractive males clad in acid wash jeans adorned with sparkly ninjas, I also thank you. You made that “Is he a douchebag?” guessing game that much easier.

Clear Plastic Bra Straps: A fleshy catastrophe

You step onto the subway on an unassuming Tuesday morning. You actually find a seat for once that is NOT next to a snotty nosed child insistent on smearing his grubby little hands all over your beige blazer.

You think, mistakingly, "SCORE. This is going to be an unoffensive trip to work. At last the integrity of my garments' fabrics will last throughout the day!"

Turning slowly to the right to scope the subway scene, you spot a dreadful sight. A most disturbing and uncouth sight. A sight so horrific you suddenly wish there was only a nasty little toddler pawing your left arm. You would gladly sacrifice another overpriced dry cleaning bill to spare your psyche from this trauma.

What could so radically change your perception of this Tuesday morning?

Why, the sight of the most resistant strain of poorly developed undergarments this side of the 18th century: clear plastic bra straps.

Sticking brazenly out of that teal tube top, cutting deeply into the flesh of the wearer's back, clear plastic bra straps are oh so visible. Yes, I said it. I can see those "clear" bra straps. Actually, they are quite effectively catching the light from the subway bulbs and redirecting it into the eyes of the surrounding innocent observers. You, my clear bra strap wearing friend, risk responsibility for any of the following conditions sustained by bystanders of your flesh-cutting crime:

Melancholy

Sadness

Dispair

Etc.

Oh, how awful that skin underneath that plastic must feel. Look! The pressure has turned it white with fear...

Shuddering, you reach your stop. You walk slowly off in the direction of work and switch the music on your ipod to a nondescript teen angst band.

Dear Square-Toed Shoe...

Dear Flamboyant Square-Toed Shoe,
(Attn: The Males Who Wear Them)
123 Brokedown Blvd...

You may be a descendant of the pimp shoe, but you sure ain't pimpin. Oh no no no.

I often wonder, deeply, about the course of events that could lead to the donning of such a foot-ly nightmare. As in, perhaps the wearer was held at gunpoint? My mind begins to spin the tale that could make such shoe choice excusable: ...the gunman must have been particularly cruel and forced his victim the endure the ultimate humiliation: a day of square-toed shoe wearing?

But if only that were the case.

Dear Square-Toed Shoe,
Bad call. Very bad call.
Try again?


--EDIT---

2 hours later and I'm still ruminating on the dreadful nature of this silhouette.

Oversized square toe indicative of oversized ego and a tragically bad eye for footwear. What a deadly combination.

Tales of Woe: Whiskered Denim edition.

<--- oh HELL naw.





It is beyond my realm of comprehension as to why over-the-top faux washes on denim perpetually resurface every few years. One of the biggest offenders in this faux foolishness is whiskering around the crotchal region. I understand that the worn-in look for denim is an American standard. This probably relates to our cowboy heritage and other "classic" things involving dusty open areas and smelly animals that simply want to be left alone. But just because horseriding and similar extracurriculars that involve crouching, sitting, etc., tend to stress the upper thigh region of pants does not mean that everyone should strive for the urban (or suburban) saddle-worn look. Sorry to say, but the "rugged" facade is easy to see through when a man in whiskered denim is daintily sidestepping into a subway car on his way to the club. [PS. No degree of bottle service will make up for that whiskered mess on yo' trousers. I got eyes like a hawk!]

Besides all of this is also the purely aesthetic argument that, well, Whiskering, you ug-lyyy.

Why stress lines radiating outward from one's crotch could ever be considered a desired finish on a pair of jeans is beyond me. Why my younger self did not question my own whiskered denim? Also difficult to say. I must own up to the folly of my darker years, however, and pledge never again to let a piece of whiskered garb within a one foot radius of this anti- faux finish zone.

"The Ambiguous White Sneaker"

Nothing--and I truly mean nothing--is quite like the disappointment when seeing an otherwise attractive male wearing horrific footwear. Call me a terrible person, but I simply cannot tolerate running shoes (i.e. Asics Gel Kayano or similar silhouette) worn with jeans. Yes, that Gel Kayano may be one of the top selling, top performing trail and distance running shoes for the past 5 to 10 years, but its performance off the road? Incredibly awkward and emasculating actually. That huge shoe is, minute by minute, draining out all of your swag from every pore. I automatically deduct 3 attractiveness points on the 1-10 scale if I spot this beastly sneaker/jean combination on a potential candidate. More points are deducted if the sneaker is beaten to a meshy pulp. The meshy pulp- thus, therefore, furthermore, etc. etc. is a symbolic representation ... OF??? Your manhood. Ouch.

Why the harshness, you ask?
A trouser leg simply cannot fall on a sneakered foot without looking:
a) too short
b) too long and bunchy, giving a faux "2003 thug" look. Faux because you have a freaking running sneaker on and you're not running, hiking, or exerting yourself in anyway other than drinking a Heinekin.
or
c) cheaply constructed (something I like to call the "Wrangler" visage...)

All of these are in violation of pleasurable aesthetics and proportion. In other words one simply cannot spit adequate game when looking like he has outgrown his jeans, is wearing another taller man's jeans, or (worst of all!) is wearing his father's lawn-mowing jeans from the early 1990s.

Now let me take this one step further. If the sneaker in question is that of the ambiguous white variety (think KSWISS, white New Balance...) then all visual hell breaks loose on the poor misguided wearer.

By selecting a large, lumbering white athletic shoe, the rest of any paired outfit becomes completely and utterly irrelevant. At this point you should probably just put on some medium wash, relaxed fit denim and add 30 years to your age.

On the terrors of "relaxed fit" denim...

I cannot even articulate the level of despair I feel upon viewing a new case of "phantom diaper syndrome." Many a young thang has desecrated his svelte figure by poor choice in the denim department.

This ailment, though present in some extremely careless women, is particularly lethal and widespread in the male population, ages 17-30.

So what exactly are the causes of said syndrome?
"RELAXED FIT" denim!!! And if the denim is medium wash??? Immediate (social) denigration.

I caution: Do not be fooled by the euphemistic nature of hangtags reading "relaxed fit" on men's jeans. A relaxed cut to denim essentially condemns the wearer to a visibly lower and flatter backside. My calculations find 2 inches to be the magic "sag factor" associated with an offending vs non-offending pair of jeans. Sag factor is calculated through a highly complex mathematical equation involving ratio of perceived BOC (bottom of cheek) to perceived backward extension in 3-D space.

I have found that when the sag factor for a particular denim-clad male broaches the 2 inch barrier, surrounding females experience a physical force (akin to the resistance demonstrated when placing like poles of two magnets together) which propels them away from the offending phantom diaper. Essentially, if the downward sag of one's denim is greater than the perceived outward extension of one's backside, to the 2nd degree, the forces of nature intervene to protect innocent passerby. Contact with phantom diaper is both unsettling and unsafe, especially for those of frailer constitution.

So why do I write about denim, specifically? The innate weight of denim as a fabric itself tends to aggravate the gravitational pull associated with a more generous trouser cut. While relaxed fit khakis can look tolerable--if not tired and dated--relaxed fit denim is far more weighty and far more dangerous.

Tread with caution, my precious blog readers.