Fashion Fallout

Fabulous fall fashion is here! Full bottoms and slim on top, or big tops with skinny bottoms. This year is all about the new silhouettes. Belts are a must. They’ve traveled north from hip to waist after a sizzling vacation down south.

The waistline, mind you, is the most important body part this season. And legs, of course. You gotta have’m if you think you’ll rock the new dresses, whose hemlines have traveled quite a bit too. The sweater dress, cozy and comfy, could be worn over pants, leggings or bare gams.

The styles we lowly consumers finally get to touch and feel in stores this fall were showcased at designer fashion shows in Paris, Milan and New York many months ago. Crowded with glitterati wearing their newest, shiniest personalities; runways grazed by sleek physiques in the latest belted trench coats and round-toed boots. Limelight hogs swarming like moths around a streetlamp while stone-faced, ashen waifs snaked down the catwalks clad in heavy black and grey with hints of red.

Recently though, at the Madrid Fashion Week, models that were too skinny were banned from the runways! One small step for womanhood, one giant leap for the fashion industry.

What we cover our bodies with is obviously more than covering. Aside from shielding us from the elements and sparing us the embarrassment of public nudity, clothing plays the role of mask, uniform, hideout, statement, expression, projection, decoration. What are we hiding from? What are we saying? What statement do we make? And why do we care. So much?

Fashion sense is not just about clothing. A fashion forward individual has gotta show off the season’s featured body part, and if you don’t have one, buy one. Be it a smaller waist, fuller chest, straighter nose, poutier lips, archier eyebrows – or why not just buy a new face and body altogether. I mean, look at Pam Anderson or even Ashlee Simpson. Works for them, right?

The fallout of the fashion industry is that no one is good enough anymore. Striving for so-called perfection so many go under the knife in search of the elusive ideal look.

Like the look means anything. It ‘s nice gift wrap. But what’s the gift? What is beneath all those layers of packaging?

A kid on Christmas sees his presents and gests all excited. Does he admire the wrapping and display the presents neatly in his room, so that all his friends can admire the beautiful gift wrap someone gave him? Right. He tears off the wrapping , crumples it up and throws it away. He wants to see what’s inside.

How disappointing if he found a box full of greed, selfishness, cheating, lying, and self-indulgence! Someone called it whitewashed graves. All pretty on the outside and rotten on the inside.

But looking fabulous doesn’t necessarily exclude being fabulous on the inside. Just remember, shine your inside first, then let the inside shine through. If you want to wrap the whole package in some fine fall fashions and be fabulous inside and out – more power to you. I say, live fabulously!