It is of course the trendsetter, the aesthete, the provocative thinker and performer who not habituating his landscape with puffed pectorals or shiny Amex cards that really intrigues us. These souls have perfected the art of appearance to such a degree that they are often lauded, dissected and put in front of your TV day and night. What’s often not said before they make it to your TV is how crazy and out of touch these people are supposed to be. One should know by now if one is inclined to find new horizons one is also required to break from the herd and to eventually be loved by the same herd who momentarily ago were writing them off.
If one is intent on using appearances to get ahead in life one need pay attention to tact, grace, originality and nuance. Of course it was interesting and believable when people used to wear tattoos back in the 70’s and even in the late 90’s when they made a resurgence, but to see a sixteen year old with ankle tattoos and a vine tattoo around their upper arm is to make most of us weep that such a young person has forever condemned themselves to misplaced youth and corrupted commercialism.
In fashion one has to be clever to avoid copying the general trend to the point of obsequiousness and redundancy but someone like KARL LAGERFIELD can give the black dress a femme fetal vigor by the deign of the cut, the fabric chosen and the whimsy of the sashay. In the end though even he knows at some point his ideas will be bastardized by a collective unaware of the drive and valor that saw him give rise to his initial creation. This is what makes for trivial fashion, fashion victims and as much as you pretend spending a tidy amount on a certain number gets you into the high league states it hardly fools those of us who make it a full time occupation of either been mad or simply ahead of the curve.
We’ve also noticed a certain preponderance amongst people to assume adopted gestures supposedly fixtures of their desired social collective. For instance how many of you have noticed gay men to wear tight body shirts, lisp like a rattle snake and embrace a love for disco music. Can’t one still be gay listening to goth music, wearing Oxford shirts and speaking with mild mannered accents which don’t purport to announce you have arrived? Trust us you aren’t arriving, you really are just trying to get on the set and we know, but that’s okay because you’ve decided to follow the herd.
Then there’s the straight thumping ‘I want to get laid male,’ who is all too male, adrenalin laced, is always threatened by the presence of any man that whiffs of an effeminate nature and will avoid shaking your hand but will be too happy to thump the back of your back with a cold beer. These are supposed to be the real men? For a certain collective and tribe such mannerisms pass of as manliness and the necessary conditions for which these men will certainly get laid by their female brethren.
Ultimately one is obliged to express their own uniqueness and appropriations, not that of a collective society. Of course no one lives in their own castle and one is obliged to be aware how the world works and how things sometimes get done in society. Although we do wonder how much more would get done and be brought forth if one had the courage of their convictions and valor. Rest assured such individuals and ideas do exist and for those of us who neither have the temerity or will to leave the herd one can be confident one way or another they too will be able to buy these people’s creations until those creations themselves become just another collective status symbol amongst the herd to hopefully get themselves laid.
