J'ai besoin de plus d'argent.

These are hard economic times, as we all know, and I happen to live in a city where a high school senior has almost no way of getting a job unless they happen to know someone, (and I don't), so if I want to go to college, (and I do), I need to find some sort of creative way to make money. My business has been a dismal failure, so I'm moving on to other aspects of fashion for now heh.

Would anyone happen to need a creative director, wardrobe stylist, et cetera?

SXR

Fashion: Rants and Raves for October

Ah, fashion. Some people love it, some people hate it, but those who hate it generally just hate what the mainstream would call "fashion" but enjoy it in their own sense of the word and mock those who have different taste. No matter which way you look at it, I think it's easy to say that fashion plays a very important role in society. Of course, this is all thanks to advertising, the media, tradition, et cetera, but try as we might, we can't escape these things; we can avoid them all we want, but we will always inadvertantly revert back to them one way or another; that's just how we, as humans, are.

So, we've established that fashion is rather important, and we're all aware that it's constantly changing (sometimes for the better, sometimes... well, some things are best left on the runway or the rack), so I've decided to discuss this season's trends and spotlight a few things I'm interested in at the moment, fashion-wise.

Without listing the season's trends, I'll simply make a general statement about them: the look for this season is (to put it broadly) a variation on the goth look. Which goth look exactly? Perhaps all of them? If not, there's certainly a wide range of subcultures being represented. For example:

• Deathrock: black leather, boots, ripped stockings, sheer clothing (mostly tops), and ripped pants.
• Victorian: It's more of a Regency style (close enough, right?), but the "Female Dandy" look is in; jackets, trousers, dress shirts, high collars, et cetera. Think Oscar Wilde meets Ben Sherman meets Chanel.
• Other goth trends: military jackets, capelets and cloaks, batwing sleeves, dark makeup, oversized sweaters, et cetera.

Who's responsible for all of this? I don't claim to be a fashion expert, but it does intrigue me, especially the darker, more avant garde side of fashion, so I have been keeping up with this season's trends a bit more lately. Several brands and designers are putting these trends on the runways and on the shelves, including:

• MAC- MAC recently released a collection called "Style Black," which includes nail polishes, lipsticks, lip glosses, et cetera all in black or black with different colors (fuschia, blue, and silver). I have the black glimmerglass (or whatever they like to call it), and although it isn't totally opaque, it's nice; it gives a nice shine and a subtle grey tint.
• Gareth Pugh- Enough said. Everything he does every season is amazing, and it almost always revolves around leather, jackets, flowing coats, military style, et cetera.
• Balmain- Brought to the mainstream by Rhianna, Balmain often uses leather and lots of interesting angles (although not as epic as the ones Pugh uses). Balmain often uses military-style jackets, which can be used when going for the Female Dandy look, as well.

Forgive me if I seem slightly scattered heh. I've had too much on my mind to write a fully-coherent blog about something I could cover in-depth.

SXR