I don’t really follow fashion, and I live in a small town with limited options for shopping. But even just considering one basic item of clothing from one retailer – the St. John’s Bay (store brand) women’s t-shirts from JC Penney – it’s possible to see changes over time.
About 5 years ago women’s t-shirts tended to be fairly short, which I found annoying. They’ve gradually been getting longer again over the past few years, and have reached the point where they’re now a little longer than I’d like. And no, I’m not shrinking – I have some old t-shirts and can see that they’re several inches shorter than the new ones. The available colors also change each season. I own green, yellow, and tan shirts this same brand and style, but these colors aren’t currently offered. The v-neck version of this shirt used to come in both solid colors and stripes, but I haven’t seen the stripes available for a couple of years.
I doubt JC Penney changes the length and color of their t-shirts at random, but rather that they make these changes in an attempt to keep up with changing fashion trends. Even if I don’t personally care very much about these trends, or even if I actually prefer a color or style that is no longer trendy, if I want to buy new clothes in a store then my choices are limited to what the fashion industry has produced. I haven’t seen The Devil Wears Prada, but I assume that’s the point of the quote.
But the point that people keep missing with that quote is that no one gives a shit. Most people do not follow the fashion world and just stick to staples. Whether a staple-style sweater is Cerulean or Lapis or Turquoise or BLUE is besides the point. The vast majority of people don’t care about the specific shade of blue when it comes to their staple garments. And this is something that I think the fashion industry and some fashionistas have real trouble understanding.
I just get generic men’s t-shirts and polo shirts for everyday wear. They tend to pretty much stay the same year to year.
Actually I do somewhat care the shade of color in the clothing I wear - I will default to black, white, grey if I can’t find the colors I particularly like. I do not follow the whole ‘season colors’ crap, I wear what I like - I am supposed to be a spring, but I detest wafty pastel feckless colors - I like bold bright jewel tones, or odd stuff like ‘pumpkin’, ‘moss green’, teal.
Do you have a cite for that, or are you attributing your personal opinion to the vast majority of people? Because it’s my perception that the vast majority of people do care what color their clothing is.
The t-shirts I described are also pretty much the same year to year, but they’re not exactly the same. I’d be very surprised if even store brand men’s polo shirts came in exactly the same colors year after year with no variation. And what I gather is the point of that movie quote is that the colors changing isn’t something that just happens, it’s a choice made by designers in the fashion industry.
And I believe that people do care about the shade. Not every tiny possible variation, but turquoise and lapis are pretty different and it doesn’t take a fashionista to have a preference for one over the other.
I understood his point, I just don’t believe it to be true.
That shirt I linked above? I’d be willing to buy it in the shade of light blue currently available, but not the darker blue. I think both colors are fine in and of themselves, but that particular shade of dark blue would look bad on me. More of a navy blue would be fine, but not what they have now. And you’ll have to take my word on this, but I am not a particularly well-dressed or fashionable woman. Those store brand t-shirts are what I wear nearly every day. I have never purchased a fashion magazine. I don’t even own an iron. But I am still capable of distinguishing between different shades of blue and having an opinion as to which one is prettier or more flattering with my complexion, and I don’t think I’m in some weird tiny minority on this.
Let me rephrase, I don’t believe the fashion people in charge of Target-type brands put a lot of stock in what the hot color or fashion trend is this season. Because they’re dealing in staples, chasing trends will just get them in trouble. The shades may change slightly, but I think it would be rare to find a shade completely unavailable at all stores.
Then why do the colors and styles of store brand clothes change every season?
Have you ever tried? Because the one time in recent years when I had reason to want a t-shirt in a specific shade, I struck out not only at the local JC Penney and Wal-Mart but at the Target, Kohl’s, and Old Navy in the next town over. I checked the websites too, but this shade was apparently so far out of fashion that it wasn’t available from any of these stores. A year or so later, guess what I saw at JC Penney? Exactly the color I’d wanted before.
Do they? The Men’s section of Target is pretty much the same from year to year. About the only thing that changes is that some years the stripes are vertical and some years they’re horizontal.
And the above post focuses on one of the items that’s changed the least. Other items, like women’s jeans, have changed a lot more dramatically over the past 5 years or so.
Haute couture meets the real world in a subset of people who are pathetically obsessed with being popular. Being popular takes effort and part of that effort is expended on knowing exactly what’s trending in the fashion world.
It always makes me chuckle when people trot out this reference as a defense of the fashion industry. The insinuation that the millions of dollars they frittered away on research and design helped prevent Anne Hathaway from wearing the wrong color sweater (heavens to Betsy!) is kind of sickening.
Probably for two reasons: First, fashion departments, even at low end department stores, are usually run by people who went to fashion school and they find that stuff important. Second, some people do care. Changing the colors every year or so will help keep those people happy and coming back to their store. The people who don’t care will come back regardless (more or less, depending on other factors such as price, quality, convenience).
I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the movie so my perception may be way off but my understanding of Streep’s monologue is that it was done in reaction to the perceived reverse-snobbery of Hathaway’s character. Hathaway gave off the impression that she wanted to be a “serious” writer working for a more “substantial” publication like The New York Times or Harper’s rather than something in the frivolous, shallow, and silly world of fashion.
Both my grandma and my seamstress design the clothes; sometimes, with zero input from the person who’s going to wear them. Grandma hasn’t sewn a whole item for years, but she’ll happily design for others to sew.
Far from fashionable am I, but I am certain that the palette of colors available, even at Target, changes from year to year. It’s not that you can’t find something red every year, it’s that the particular shades of red you can find will be limited, and will be different from year to year.
When you watch a TV show set in some decade of the twentieth century, part of what gives it the feel of the year it’s set in is the color palette of the clothes. Think about the garish 80’s for example. That’s not just high fashion, it was down on the ground as well. A few years ago everything was what I’d call pastel. (Don’t know if that’s really the word for it…) I don’t know about right now, haven’t shopped for clothes in two years.
I do think the effect is more pronounced in clothes for young children* and in more “fashionable” clothes, but by experience I know the effect is there at the everyday normal person level as well.
*My twins’ clothes all come in a completely different palette than my older kids’ clothes.
Limited? that must explain why I could not find a basic black skirt one year. I looked. (apparently there is no such thing being made any more). Everything was brown. Brown with orange/yellow/lime/turquoise. Nothing black. I LOOKED. Some years navy blue disappears, and at one time there was absolutely nothing gray. I’m no high fashion type, but I like to be coordinated, and that’s why I hit up the second hand stores.
Far as I’m concerned, Target is the WORST for ‘staples’. They have the ugliest cheapest trendiest crap, purple and green swirls, their sleepwear section is a nightmare.
I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the movie so my perception may be way off but my understanding of Streep’s monologue is that it was done in reaction to the perceived reverse-snobbery of Hathaway’s character. Hathaway gave off the impression that she wanted to be a “serious” writer working for a more “substantial” publication like The New York Times or Harper’s rather than something in the frivolous, shallow, and silly world of fashion.
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Yes, but Hathaway’s reverse-snobbery is still accurate. Streep notes that Hathaway, who genuinely didn’t give a crap when she fished it out of some clearance bin, didn’t know the sweater is cerulean in particular rather than just blue in general. That’s true, but so what? Hathaway would’ve just as blindly grabbed a black turtleneck out of there, or a cream-colored v-neck, or a silver cashmere cardigan; whatever filtered its way down to and through department stores before reaching the clearance bins, she would’ve reached in without caring and eventually met someone bent on stridently telling her, uh, hey, that’s not just off-white; it’s not champagne or eggshell; it’s cream.
I think the real point of the monologue is that the Hathaway character’s reverse snobbery was - like most cases - choosing to remain willfully ignorant, accepting a sort of blindness. To a great extent, what we think of as sophistication is an ability to read subtext. Not just about clothes, jewelry and color choices, but everything. This sort of “I’m too deep for that” attitude betrays a shallowness that often makes the speaker look foolish, like the person that flips thru a comic book and huffs “Kid’s stuff.”
This is what I’ve been trying to say. For all her talk about how important the fashion industry is, it’s only important if you’re in the industry. The low-level shopping that most of us do is unaffected by everything that is going on with Oscar de la Renta or Yves Saint Laurent.
And to cut Lamia off a the pass, I think this “it doesn’t matter” attitude applies to the Men’s department much more than it does to the Women’s. Men’s clothes just don’t change that much from year to year.
Looking up in several sources the different words I know in Spanish for “different levels of ability to sew professionally” brings among others “dressmaker” and “modiste” - would “modiste” be a good term for “someone who designs clothes” whereas a “dressmaker” is more of someone who makes, well, dresses but not necessarily from their own designs? Modiste sounds terribly… poofy to me, does it sound poofy to EFL speakers? Would “patternmaker” be “someone who can make patterns, either from their own designs or those of others”? (That one doesn’t crop up from its Spanish equivalent, but I think it makes sense)
Sorry, it’s just one of those things that they never teach you in class at that level of detail…
