Where does haute couture meet the "real world?"

Cafe Society
41

About a year ago I wanted to buy a black blazer. An old friend of mine had died suddenly, and as I knew her family was pretty conservative I didn’t want to show up at the funeral looking too casual. I did already own a black blazer, but it didn’t fit me very well anymore. So I went into the local JC Penney – again, one of the only clothing retailers in my small town – and was astonished to find there was NOT ONE black women’s blazer in the entire store. I’m not saying there wasn’t one in my size, I mean there were no black blazers at all. I could have purchased brown, blue, green, or even hot pink, but not black.

I considered Goodwill, but decided that the bereaved family was unlikely to notice or care about the fit of my blazer and just wore my old one.

The low-level shopping that most people do is affected by changing fashion trends because we can only buy what is for sale. My desire to purchase a black blazer did not cause such a garment to appear on the rack. In the grand scheme of things the lack of a new black blazer isn’t really important, but standing in that store, realizing the one thing about the whole sad situation that I’d thought was totally under my control really wasn’t, I certainly felt affected by the fashion industry.

I’ve never encountered the word “modiste” in ordinary conversation, only in historic novels. I’d just call someone who designs clothes a designer, or a clothing/fashion/dress designer. Your take on “dressmaker” sounds accurate to me: someone who makes but may or may not design dresses. I think “seamstress” would normally be taken to mean someone who just sews and does not design.

42

Not quite. While it was certainly true of Hathaway’s character, I don’t think she’d done anything to demean her colleagues’ chosen field.

And I hate to burst anyone’s bubble but the fashion world is frivolous and shallow. It’s an industry that takes a necessity and turns it into a means to judge people based on their external appearance. There’s nothing wrong with that. What people choose to spend their money on is their prerogative. But that’s kind of the definition of frivolous and shallow, and their insistence on being taken seriously kind of highlights how silly they are.

But she wasn’t willfully ignorant. The comment that earns her a dressing down is that she’s “still learning about this stuff.” She’s putting in the effort, but isn’t yet at the point of realizing that her coworker describing two extremely similar belts as so different is not a dry joke.

43

Again, the Men’s department is different from the Women’s. I have never had trouble buying staples in the color or style I want. I’m sorry that Women’s fashion is so stupid.

44

The point of the Devil Wears Prada quote is that Anne’s character thinks she makes choices independent of any of the “stuff” as she contemptuously calls it. But Meryl points out that while she thinks she bought that sweater because she simply liked the colour, it was a colour only available to her through the machinations of the fashion industry - her very decisions are limited to a small range of choices decided by others. And that perhaps a few years of exposure to the specific colour (this collection here, then that one, then that store) will have subtly conditioned her to like that shade, and be open to buying it.

And I think that’s mostly true - it’s why most of us wear skinny-style jeans rather than 70s flares, how neon has come full circle, why there is so much lace. Sometimes a single person can start a trend (Kate Middleton’s wedding dress has encouraged sleeved gowns now), and sometimes it’s an industry.

45

I’m not surprised that someone with this attitude:

is able to go into a store and easily find something he considers acceptable. If all you want is a blue sweater then you will likely be able to find some sort of sweater in some shade of blue. But your personal preferences are not reflective of “the vast majority of people” nor do they provide you with any special insight into the way the business operates. This:

is simply not true. It’s not even true of the men’s department – I can see that just walking through the store. It only seems that way to you because you’re not paying attention. You’re certainly not obligated to pay attention; in fact you’re probably better off not noticing or caring about these things. But if you don’t notice or care then don’t come into a thread about fashion and start spouting off like you’re the big expert on what “the vast majority of people” think about clothes or how “the fashion people in charge of Target-type brands” make their decisions.

Oh, and just for the record, half of the people in the world are women. Any claim about “most people” or “the vast majority of people” is a claim that includes an awful lot of women. It’s nice that you’ve realized that the men’s department is different from the women’s department, but maybe you could try to keep in mind that it’s not some tiny insignificant minority of people who shop in the women’s department.

Exactly. I know people who knit their own sweaters, including people who design their own patterns and even dye the yarn themselves. While they may be indirectly influenced by the fashion industry, they do at least have the ability to make independent decisions about what the sweater will look like and create something original. But, while I haven’t seen the movie, it sounds to me like the Meryl Streep character is pointing out that if the Anne Hathaway character is buying new clothes at all then she’s affected by the fashion industry…whether she realizes it or not.

I think it’s understandable that the average person wouldn’t spend much time thinking about where their clothes came from, but I can also see how someone who works in the industry might be annoyed by an “Oh, I don’t care about fashion, I just buy the clothes that I like” attitude. Those clothes that people like don’t materialize in stores through magic. A lot of people worked to design them, create them, and make them available.

46

I want to note that men’s clothes at your basic retailers (Target etc) DO change with the trends, they just change in subtle ways that most of their core demographic (men who want to look decent but aren’t into fashion) won’t notice. And the change might be more in the 3-5 year range instead of every year like women’s clothes. But they do change, partly to appeal to the men who care a bit more, partly to appeal to more fashion-conscious people buying the clothes for others, and partly because the Target designers are still designers and might want to change it up sometimes.

Examples? Mens t-shirts and polos are much more fitted than they were a couple years ago. They still offer the older style jeans, but skinny and slim fit in trendier, darker washes have appeared over that time. Legs have gotten narrower, even on boot cut (a 2007 boot cut was much wider than a 2013). Carpenter hooks and adornments on pants have been reduced. There are significantly fewer stripes. Colors are more muted, or at least less saturated. A “red” shirt before may have been a full-on cherry red. Now it’s more likely to be muted down to a red with a more burgundy cast (for example).

Going up to mid-level mall stores like Banana Republic, 5 years ago pleat front dress pants were available. Now they are obsolete. Slim fit shirts are now available, and even the regular shirts are slimmer than they were 5 years ago.

Basically, the look at your average stores for men is now more streamlined than it used to be. I don’t follow the runways, but I assume this is trickle down from what was happening years ago. I also have no idea what’s next.

But there is a difference even in the basics. Many people don’t care at all. Others care in the sense that if you see someone wearing clothes from 10 years ago, the outfit looks different but you can’t place exactly what detail makes it look dated.

Look up pictures of Prince William in 2003. Not because he’s an average Joe Target shopper (ha!), but because as royalty he has a very classic style that you wouldn’t think would change with the trends. Yet his older casual outfits look dated. I’m not well-versed in uniforms and British formalwear to tell a difference there.

47

I was thinking earlier about how one could check to see if the colors currently available at Target, etc., really had trickled down from the big name designers. I know from observation that the available colors for even store brand t-shirts change over time, but I couldn’t be sure the store brand designers weren’t just throwing darts at a big color wheel or something. I actually have a relative who was a fashion designer for years (she’s now retired), but we’re not really close so I didn’t want to just call her up and ask. Then I remembered some advice I’d once seen for people who do crafts (like me) and want to keep on top of the latest color trends (not like me): check out the Pantone color report.

I don’t think I’d ever actually done this before, but it was easy to find through Google. Here’s the Pantone Fashion Color Report for Fall 2013. According to their press release, this report is from February 2013 and was based on the colors used by big name designers in their upcoming fall collections. There are 10 colors that are supposed to be the hot colors this fall.

Next I looked up the store brand women’s long-sleeved t-shirts at Target. I chose long-sleeved because those are for fall and wouldn’t be leftover from spring/summer. These t-shirts are currently available in 10 colors, but two of those are black and white. Of the eight remaining colors, I’d say six are pretty similar to the Pantone list:

Samba = Anthem Red
Mykonos Blue = Athens Blue
Koi = Mandarin (orange)
Acai = Phantom Grape (purple)
Carafe = Rich Brown
Deep Lichen Green = Wreath Green

So if a woman went to Target hoping to buy a store brand women’s t-shirt in one of the trendy fall colors, more than half of the shirts available would fit the bill. The other four colors are basic black and white, plus a dark red and navy blue that don’t resemble anything on the Pantone list.

Of course, it could just be a coincidence that colors like bright red, bright blue, dark purple, and dark brown show up both at Target and on the Pantone list, or it could be that these are standard fall colors that are supposedly “hot” every year. So I looked up the Pantone report from last fall (PDF) to see if someone who loved last year’s trendy colors would be just as happy with the currently available colors for this same t-shirt as someone who loved this year’s trendy colors. Comparing the two color lists, none of the Pantone fall 2012 colors are exactly the same as the fall 2013 colors, but many of them look pretty similar to me. However, the 2012 colors that are totally different from the 2013 list are also totally different from the colors that Target t-shirt comes in now, and some of the colors that are similar aren’t available. So a woman who wanted to buy that same shirt today but in one of the 2012 fall colors would only be able to find three that are similar:

Olympian Blue = Athens Blue
Tangerine Tango = Mandarin (orange)
French Roast = Rich Brown

And to my eye the orange and brown available at Target now look closer to the 2013 shades than the 2012 shades.

I only looked at the one t-shirt so I wouldn’t call that proof that the store brand designers are following the color trends set by the big name designers, but it’s suggestive. As for the OP’s question, this comparison does give us an idea of how long it might take for color trends to trickle down. The Pantone color report came out in early February. That Target t-shirt is in stores now, about eight months later, and was probably already on the shelves a month or so ago.

48

I’m sorry for your loss.

49

Just don’t look up pictures of Prince Harry in 2005.

50

Thank you.

It turned out to be a very touching and original ceremony, and a lot of funny stories were shared about my friend. The fit of my blazer did not seem to be an issue for anyone present.