Turns out he married Half-Pint Ingalls.
No kidding – thank you for that link.
An interesting tidbit about high fashion and fashion shows: the concept of the “catwalk” was invented by Lady Lucile Duff Gordon, a Titanic survivor.
I for one, ADORE fashion shows and high fashion. How is fashion not “art” and painting and sculpting is? It’s simply a different medium – cloth instead of paint or clay.
I see they started to force her out of her company in 1918. I guess her way of thinking just wasn’t cost-effective.
Well, that, and she was funneling profits to the Kaiser.
That’s the point. It’s exactly as shallow and unimportant as sports, which I think we can all agree are almost entirely shallow and unimportant. The unabashed reverence and self-importance of the Priestly quote is what is laughable.
They are materialistic and shallow, literally by definition. Embrace your frivolities; your blood pressure will be better off for it. For example, I’m a hardcore sports fan. I embrace the pointlessness of sports. Why do fashion fans get so invested in their pursuits being objectively meaningful?
This post was eloquent and compelling, but it does nothing to refute the idea that fashion (and architecture) actually is shallow and unimportant. Just like sports, which many people feel bring richness and add value to their lives.
The point is, though, that whenever more traditionally “feminine” hobbies and interests are brought up on this board (fashion, makeup, shopping, whatever)- the troops rally in, screaming about how shallow and vapid it all is.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sports thread where there was a multitude of folks talking about how useless the World Series/ NBA Play off/ Masters/ whatever is. Or a video game thread where there’s a swarm of folks chastising the very idea of video games or computers. But hey, those are “manly” things, so they are inherently of more value to our society.
And sometimes, something just being entertaining makes it of value. Not everything has to bring world peace to be of value.
Exactly. Anything to do with computers, video games, sci fi or fantasy, sports*, cars, home improvement, etc. have threads go off without any goddamned threadshitting. They’re “manly” topics.
“Girly” topics like… oh, I dunno… fashion always have some ass pimple (if not more) rolling their eyes and talking about how shallow and self absorbed it is. I mean, it has to be, right, because most MANLY MEN aren’t interested in it. :rolleyes:
- to a lesser extent since we have some major anti-sports nerds here.
AKShuly, I love the SDMB for the mix of left AND right brained smart people here. I’ve found the opinion of MANY people of a more artistic bent to be valid and fascinating. So don’t go brushing with too broad a brush, there.
(And I hate organized sports, to boot. )
I have to say that just because you regard it as unimportant, the vast sums of money, people employed, number of magazines and amount of coverage fashion gets means a lot of people in the world think it is important - just not you.
And as for shallow, do you admire the skill of the sportsmen who’s games you watch?
Have you ever seen a piece of couture up close? The quality of the craftmanship is something else. All of the embroidery done by hand, the pattern making - some pieces take hundreds of hours of work to make. That’s besides the imagination of the designer. What’s shallow about saying, holy crap that’s beautiful, and impressive, and I’ve love to own it?
I can’t speak for Diosa, but I didn’t assume she was talking in particular about men. On the contrary, it’s usually women who can’t wait to tell other women how shallow and vapid those of us who are interested in ‘girly’ things are. One of the more insidious and disheartening forms of misogyny I run into regularly is women eager to prove how unlike ‘other women’ they are.
Which is an excellent point. It’s like you have to deny “girly” interests to be seen as real, smart, whatever.
C’mon, it’s just clothes!
KIDDING! KIDDING!
I’m not a fashion maven, for two reasons. One, I can’t afford and they don’t make high-end clothing in my size, unless it’s custom. And two, couture for men is boring. Really boring. Like, well-tailored suits boring. But I do recognize and sometimes include fashion in my entertainment choices, through shows like Project Runway.
You’re right on the money 
If mainstream designers and department stores don’t watch fashion shows then they won’t know what clothes people will buy.
That alone makes fashion shows important. Whether it matters if the latest trend is cerulean or lizardskin is besides the point. What matters is that fashion shows tell the industry what the trend will be, so that they know to buy or design lizardskin next season instead of anything else.
I don’t understand that. The majority of people don’t watch them, either, so why would what they choose to buy be influenced by it? The reason there is any influence is because the stores buy it, so that’s what the cool people (who have enough money to buy clothes as soon as they come out) wear, meaning all the uncool people want it, too. Fashion shows only serve the purpose of getting all the stores doing the same thing, and, even then, it’s not like they know immediately what the wearable version is.
The clothes people wear on TV or movies has more influence on people’s clothing choices–because they actually see them. Fashion show influence is all behind the scenes.
And that clothing comes from. . .
Nah. I’ve seen how he dresses. 
I used to dislike ‘fashion;’ having a good friend who worked in the fashion industry, and wasn’t in the least bit shallow or unintelligent either, was what made me to start to rethink the whole thing. I remembered going to the Victoria and Albert Museum and being fascinated by the women wearing bustles, then slightly smaller bustles, then suddenly completely flat dresses. You could look at a photo and tell when it was from just by the clothes they were wearing (even with second-hand clothes - they’d be more worn). You could tell what the person was trying to tell the wider world about themselves.
Even if you’re picking up any old jumper fro m the bargain bin, you’re still using that to tell the world something about yourself.
It’s shallow, yeah, but so is all art. So is this post - completely unnecessary. So are TV programmes; we could live without them. Etc, etc. And, God, it’s not like there are no fashions in art. Ever heard of the Impressionists, the Cubists, or the Surrealists? Yet would a SD thread about them be decried as shallow?
At least fashion has the excuse that we all have to wear clothes at some point, so we might as well make it pretty.
To the OP: as well as the good points others have made, the function of a fashion show is partly to indulge the designers. They’re artists, not taylors - would they continue making beautiful stuff if they didn’t get their moment of glory?
And you noticed a fashion show with outlandish costumes, as you have many other times - I have too; would you notice a fashion show of ordinary clothes, the sort that people would actually wear? I’ve actually seen a couple of those, and they’re dull. There’s nothing to catch the eye or talk about. Fashion shows are a spectacle, a grandiose folly, that’s fun to look at. Like other art. They then set the trend for real clothes - floral, maxi dresses are in, gladiator sandals and/or big wedge heels are in. On the catwalk that means someone dressed as a fifteen-foot-wide greenhouse on stilts.
The problems with fashion arise when people feel compelled to buy buy buy, or feel unworthy for not wearing the right stuff. But hell, you get similar problems with food, and we’re not going to decry the existence of food.
Yeppers.
And how do the department stores know what the cool people will wear? It’s not like fashion designers choose clothing at random, the best ones have a good sense of what people will wear in the future, and display that sense on the runway.
Think of it like a power point presentation by a marketing agency on what they think the future trends of web design will be. Then sometimes you can create a trend by telling everyone what you think a trend will be. The fashion shows have this dual role of predicting trends and also setting them, because people can always fall in love with the predictions.
And the cool people that set the trends for all the uncool people get their ideas from fashion magazines that are also influenced by fashion shows.
You get that I’m arguing sports are shallow and unimportant, right? They are. Just like fashion.
Yes, I admire the skill of the sportsmen during the prerformance of their mindbogglingly shallow and unimportant jobs.
I’m laughing my ass off about the question “What’s so shallow about beauty, and wanting to own something because it’s beautiful?” That’s the very definition of what shallow is.
You ladies seem to think shallow is a crime against humanity or something, because your attempted refutations are just silly. I’m a guy. As a guy, I embrace shallow interests as perfectlyu valid. You should try it sometime; it might help relieve the crushing burden of the perceived misogyny you think is swirling all around you.
Fashion is shallow and unimportant, just like sports. Deal with it. (Before someone brings up the money thing again, sports is also a multi-billion dollar industry that employs millions of people. Does that make it not “shallow and unimportant?” Of course not. It is still absolutely shallow and unimportant.)
Also if you’ve just finished watching the ridiculous pageantry and ogle-fest that was the World Cup. Useless and expensive, but oh what fun.
(Says someone who watched all the games in Viktor & Rolf and Comme des Garçons.)