Most of the fashion victims in this city too are women who take solace in fashion, but they also are true victims of fashion.
Published: Sat 12 Sep 2015, 12:00 AM
Last updated: Sat 12 Sep 2015, 2:00 AM
"When a woman alters her look too much from season to season, she becomes a fashion victim" - Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer and founder of Versace house.
Women's harshest critics, when it comes to how they dress, often tend to be their own female friends. Ladies Night is held every Tuesday at some of Dubai's most popular watering holes, and you can be sure to see women enjoy candid conversations washed down with mocktails. At my last girls' night out, I kept hearing the phrase "fashion victim" being repeated. And well, there were so many fashion victims around us. It seems when women dress to impress women, they somehow feel they need to wear new fashion they own at one time, and so Ladies Night is often more like Show-Off Night.
Fashion victim: The phrase says it all. It conjures up an image of blatant bad taste. Fashion victims often don't mind you looking at them, as they want to be noticed, so will happily parade for you, of course oblivious to the real reason for all the attention they are receiving. A good example would be Kim Kardashian's recent red-carpet appearance at the MTV Video Music awards. Kim happily showed off her baby bump with her Balmain. She was obviously hoping to make a style statement. Instead, she was compared to a sack of potatoes, a tent and The Flintsones' Barney Rubble Toga.
I decided it was time to do some research into the origins of the phrase. Not surprisingly, it was fashion's master of grand elegance Oscar de laRenta who coined the term "fashion victim" in the decade of overdone decadence, the eighties. But, for me, the first real famous fashion victim was Marie Antoinette. The ill-fated French Queen consort thought fashion was more important than her own country's finance. So much so she became known as "Madame Deficit". Perhaps as you further examine her rather unhappy life, she took solace in fashion, and this was her mistake. She was a victim to the escapism that fashion can provide, despite being a woman of her stature and position, who could have easily found better ways to occupy her time.
Most of the fashion victims in this city too are women who take solace in fashion, but they also are true victims of fashion. They put brands before style, and while it is an attempt to show class, they look crass. More often than not, it is a sign of new money. In fashion victims' defence, they can grow out of the victim look.
A victim, according to the dictionary, is "a person who is deceived or cheated, by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others or by some impersonal agency". By this definition, fashion could be as much at fault as the woman of bad taste. In a book called Fashion Victim: Our Love-Hate relationship with dressing, shopping and the cost of style, journalist-author Michelle Lee takes you inside fashion and shows you how fashion houses intentionally turn women into victims, as it is a sure-shot way of increasing their bottom lines. She calls this the era of "speed-chic". While the fashion industry may snigger at fashion victims, it is also the creator of the victims. These are women who will spend on every new trend, no matter what. So why shouldn't fashion take advantage of these women?
Though I still have a feeling of disdain for women who indulge in fashion excesses, and cannot understand women who wear their bank balances with vulgarity on their sleeve or women who believe that carrying that latest bag is paramount to their living, perhaps I will be a bit less dismissive towards them. The clothes are just a sign of deeper insecurity and instead of scorn, it is more of sympathy that should be extended to the fashion victims. As they say never judge a book by its cover.
(And for the record, there are a plenty of men who can be described as fashion victims, too!)
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