On Fashion

I don’t know exactly what it is about fashion, but there’s something magical for a woman to have ‘the’ bag, or ‘the’ coat. Fashion, despite all the wrongs committed in its name, has a genuine beauty and wonder attached to it. Although most of us aren’t able to afford the latest in designer ‘must haves’, knock offs are available freely to give the illusion of the ‘real thing’, but for those of us searching for the unmistakable high of having something truly beautiful, that ‘real thing’ is our holy grail. This desire, and that is what it genuinely is, is what makes the high end designer filled magazines sell. Until we do find that Hermes scarf or Chanel jacket we make do with their gorgeous photos of “lust have” designer pieces and ads with iconic labels that fill their pages.

My designer desire has made me happiest in op shops and markets. My wardrobe is filled with clothes that other women envy, all designer labels, and all beautifully second hand. I still can’t really afford to indulge my passion as much as I would like to but at every opportunity I forage and fossick and almost every time I find a treasure. I once found the most perfect Max Mara pants for four dollars in my local trash and treasure market. They fit like they were designed particularly for me and are made in the finest dove grey wool. Timeless! And the piece I will never sell is the black vintage Chloe tunic in purest cotton which I found in the oddest place. I couldn’t believe that a messy shed filled with acres of saggy track pants and huntsman spiders held this indescribable treasure. For three dollars! So, I indulge my passion frustratingly slowly but at minimal cost to the family budget.

I have just finished watching a show where a woman’s desire for designer clothes and shoes, particularly shoes, helped her choose a career that was probably not one her mother would have wished she had chosen. She spent two years in prison for solicitation and what was the first thing she did when released? Ripped open all her storage boxes and went straight for the Bally and Cartier. Oh, and go shopping - for Chanel fragrance, Chanel cosmetics and Charles Jourdan sandals. If it wasn’t for the prostitution and jail thing, she could have been any woman!

We women truly LOVE fashion. We’re particularly obsessed by shoes. Look in my eyes and tell me it’s not true! Oh, if only shoes grew on trees and they sold the seeds at Bunnings! Designer shoes are jewels for your feet. And we want them so bad. We can all afford the fragrance and the occasional lipstick but shoes are another story. For a mother several hundred dollars is just a silly amount to spend on her feet. But we do want them so bad.

This is why the woman I spoke of before became a high class prostitute. She wanted purple suede Bally pumps. And she wanted them bad! And she mustn’t have had the patience to trawl through the salvage stores in her Parisian home town. I, on the other hand, would almost be tempted to kill for the opportunity to trawl through Parisian salvage stores! If you were there at the same time as me you would see a crazy haired woman with darting eyes pulling clothing from boxes with a look of insane determination on her grimy face. Nothing is too buried for me. I can sniff out labels and know the best fabrics by running my hands along a rack. I love the chase almost as much as I love the treasure.
This obsession for the mythical designer find ensures that credit cards are always maxed out and husbands are always sweating on the end of the month. It means that we are always chasing that promotion or that big account with a steely determination a dictator would covet. It means that an otherwise sane and intelligent woman can be found head down in a musty box squeaking about what’s inside it. It means that a young woman will move to France and find herself selling her own and other people’s bodies for that designer fix. Our methods of getting those designer classics may be varied, but the madness behind the chase is always the same. Absolute desire.

So that eternal question of what it is that women really want has less to do with what a man can offer than popularly thought. They’re simply a distraction. They can smell interesting. They have shoulders which, for some reason, we go funny over. They have hands that ours look tiny resting inside. We want them to understand us and we love them completely; but they’re not perfect tangerine suede ballet flats. They’re nothing like a soft buttery camel tote bag with toggle ties. They don’t match your fabulous new LBD like Jimmy Choos do. Because what women REALLY want is this. We really want yummy designer pieces to keep, to wear and impress all other women with, and then to pass down to worthy younger women. And it’s better if we get them ourselves – not with his Gold Card. A treasure found is a pleasure for life. No matter how we do it.