I’m still a youngster — right on the borderline between Baby Boomer and Generation Xer. I’m considered to be cool, I still say “hip,” but I’m old-fashioned. I dress less-than-conventional, and in fact I am labeled by my friends as retro. I like short skirts, open necklines, and form-fitting, flared jeans, but I don’t like the skanky or sleazy look. And I dislike anything frumpy or old ladyish.
But I reckon I am considered to be fashion intolerant when it comes to the mass acceptance of nauseating apparel conventions concocted by slick individuals who devise ludicrous ways for satisfying peoples’ desire to look absurd. Thus my overall lack of admiration for the fashion intelligence of the masses has lead to this misanthropic musing on four current fashion fetishes that are a source of irritation for me whenever I am in public.
The first item up for assault is crocs. These are hideous, plastic shoes that come in colors which rival children’s toys. They are appalling yet everyone wears them. A friend of mine called them “the lazy person’s shoes.” Indeed, you don’t have to think about what to wear and you don’t have to bend down to buckle or tie anything. Just slip on a pair of the neon-colored, plastic junk things and they go with everything. What’s worse is that men wear these things and it makes them look like girly-boy weenies. While I am out and about — restaurants, stores, wherever — I see whole families wearing them. In west coast coffee shops they are the standard shoe code. A few weeks ago I was in a west coast, upper-middle class java retreat when a family of four walked in and each one of them was wearing different color crocs. Dad was sporting neon green. True individualism! Why ban smoking when you can have just as much authoritarian pleasure banning those unsightly things? Believe it or not, crocs even come in camouflage for men, and that ain’t a pretty sight.
