Tuesday, January 09, 2007

In Pursuit of Hippyness

Take a nice, long look at this picture:

Surely you're thinking, "Ah, those sassy British What Not To Wear lasses have done it again! I'm so glad I don't wear faded, high-rise, tapered, too short, completely ill-fitting jeans with a tucked in t-shirt and bent up moccasins so those crazy gals don't swoop in with Oprah's cameras and tap me on the shoulder just as I'm buying some really embarrassing combination of things at the market, like maybe gefilte fish and extra-large condoms, and grab me by the shoulders and yell, "You've got a huge arse! Huuuge!" in my face and laugh and hug me like we're friends and then take a "before" picture of me like this one so I can be part of the "Worst Jeans Ever" special to air during sweeps week, because god that would suck."

But your run-on sentence of a thought would be quite wrong, my friend.

This is not a "before" picture; this is a real promotional photo from nordstrom.com, for a real pair of jeans they are selling for $130. Yep, you are looking at Three Digit Denim. No matter that you could achieve the same extremely unflattering effects for $20 or less at Sears (their Mom Jeans section is terrifying in both its immensity and future repercussions for beauty in the world).

In addition to the ugly jeans/high price cognitive dissonance situation, I'm just so confused by this picture. It's on the Nordstrom site, but it looks like such a half-assed attempt--they didn't even try to create a cute outfit around the heinous jeans ("Should we add some high heels?" "No, gimpy slippers and a Hanes tee should be fine."), the break of the pant leg is really odd, the whole crotch looks crooked, and the model is leaning to one side like she's considering making a break for it while asking the photographer, "So my head's not gonna be in the shot, right? This won't go in my permanent file, right? It'll just be unidentifiable legs and torso in the picture, right??"

I suppose if your fashion goal is to look hippy and frumpy and short (perhaps these ideals are going to come back in? I mean, svelte and trendy and tall have reigned supreme for quite some time now), then these are a great find. I can't give you the buying information in good conscience, however. You'll have to find a more enabling blog for that.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh. My. God.
And also: why, for the love of God, WHY?

a said...

i sometimes wonder what brings people to design such horrific, disgraceful and outrageously ill fitting clothes.

also, when are you going to next do a 'five men's fashion first impressions'? i really enjoyed reading your one on the balenciaga boot.

Carissa Duhamel said...

Excuse me while I vomit.

Anonymous said...

it just proves how important the rest of an outfit is - esp to advertising.

Anonymous said...

Sadly, the mom jean could be a future trend. I've seen it on countless college-aged women in China and Hong Kong. The funny thing is, most of them are a size 0 at most and they look extremely hippy. I don't think anyone could pull off this look!

The Barb said...

uaI'm pretty sure my mom owns those jeans and bought them from SEARS. I've tried oh so many times to steer away from the tapered leg to no avail and now this!!!

Anonymous said...

LLOOLLLL. i love the high waisted look, just not with soggy slip ins and a hanes.. the classier ones.. slacks with wide legs.

Alice said...

y'know, I knew a long time ago that waistlines had nowhere to go but up, and that stonewash had to come back in at SOME point...

but seriously!

Moi said...

Hilarious! When you said "Nordstrom", I just couldn't believe it!

Reese said...

I'm thinking this must be an early April Fool's joke.

There's really no other explaination.

Sales Rack Raider said...

My word...I'd rename the brand as "Three Strikes Denim."

Anonymous said...

This is my first time here and I was really enjoying the site until I got to this entry and I'm really sorry my first comment has to be so negative (considering how good this site is) but I'm really shocked by the analysis in the post and the responses. I'm a pattern design engineer and not only do these not fit badly, they fit a lot better than most -and I do mean most- jeans I see these days. I guess people are so used to camel toes or wongs in the front crotch that they think the fit is defective if it doesn't have those.

The waistband is well cut, just because you don't see her hoochie hair hanging out the too-low waistband, doesn't mean this is poorly fitting. Most women can't wear such low waistbands (or SHOULDN'T); they look disgusting with flab hanging out over it so who's the fashion victim? Maybe they're "stylish" with a low waistband but they look gross without something to buttress their gut. This may be "fashionable" but this is not attractive! When I see young girls wearing these, I don't think, "wow, she's hip", I'm wondering if she has a mirror at home.

While you may not like the styling, that's ***another issue entirely***. Styling does NOT equal fit. With regard to the styling, these won't go out of style in a month; they're classics (apparel industry people don't follow trends to buy the latest and "greatest" but we're certainly glad that you do! We are never this judgmental). Similarly, this style doesn't target your demography. Why criticize the market for which it was intended? What, we're supposed to go naked because you don't like our taste? Newsflash, we don't like your taste either but you don't see us cutting you down. Why would we? You're described as a revenue stream because you guys buy anything, it's amazing what you'll buy; the worst fitting stuff. Making patterns for your market is a no brainer; they just print out CAD templates, no tweaking needed. What's really ironic is that this generation is so self-focused, "special", "unique" (like leaves on a tree are unique) yet, you guys are buying clothing that's designed with the equivalent of a microsoft word template! Point and click design, that's what it's called. Any you can't buy it fast enough.

And what break in the pant leg? Maybe the photo you wrote about has been substituted with another but I just don't see it. Are you referring to the cupping above the shoe? That's not a pant leg break and besides, what is the sin in that? Were they supposed to cut a curve upward? Now how lame is that?

Call me fashion victim (and who cares) but these look perfect. I'm sick of that overpriced crap they try to pawn off as jeans these days. I wonder if they carry this in size 0/2? Most size zeros/twos are cut for preteens, the waist is cut nearly the same size as the hip (and I have small hips!) and I end up with a kangaroo pouch in front, gaping and open to the wind (to allow for that aforementioned gut I wish were not fashionable to display to innocent bystanders). People have become so acclimated to the fit of large commercial producers cutting for "hipsters" that they don't even know what good fit is anymore.

Thanks for the tip btw, this "grey hair" is going to go look to see if these are still in stock. And to reiterate, this is my first time here and I was really enjoying the site until I got to this entry and I'm really sorry my first comment has to be so negative. The site is otherwise good and I was all set to link to it (I am extremely particular about linking to fashion blogs).

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