White Belt

It recently occurred to me that the day might come when I'll have to retire my white belt. After nine years, the canvas is beginning to fray a little and those various grey lines which correlate with the varying girth of my hips have faded. The white has gone a kind of polluted grey now, I can only assume from wearing it with skinny black jeans for so long. It's funny because the truth is I never even really wanted a white belt when Madam marched me off to NEXT in Hull to get one. The design was not exactly what I wanted, the buckle being two silver metal rings instead of a solid alligator-like claw contraption. After buying it, we stood in a busy arcade in the middle of Hull city centre, looking at my lower belly, attempting to work out how to thread up my belt. I'm sure it must've been a curious scene for anyone who was there to witness it.

I'm sure to anyone else, that greyed, frayed thing around my hips is hardly becoming but I suppose it's a relic of something that I once thought was quite sexy. Much like handling a black canvas rucksack, it wasn't a style that other girls appropriated and I appreciated that act of solidarity. It was a masculine token, in keeping with the stylish men I once associated with. Gav remarked upon the belt too, how it attracted him as he spied me dancing from across the room. I never had the tenacity to say: "You like it because it's you, it's your style." But saying that, I occasionally have daydreams of going back in time and mocking his breathtaking vanity, while at the same time congratulating myself for successfully appealing to the one thing he would find attractive: himself.

I look for new white belts from time to time, but nothing replicates the one I have. Not in style or in feeling. I suppose I will replace it when the time is right and this belt will become emblematic of another era in my life, as silly as that may sound. I was thinking the other day that in spite of all that has passed in the last nine years, I will always attribute its existence to Madam. The fact that we haven't seen each other in that time makes that loop around my hips so much more consequential. It's as if he's always here, clinging to me. I can hardly shake it and I don't really want to, either. Because although he doesn't remember venturing out to buy these things that I've kept for far too long now, I don't care to forget much. I don't care to forget his legacy and how, in spite of his absence, he's helped me to shape the person I am now.

The Hip Tilt

I wasn't allowed to start a fashion folio, not until I had finished my Year 12 exams. My desire to pursue something fashionable, something artistic failed to impress my parents, but at this stage of the game, I could hardly care less. As my school friends got wasted, I bought a spiral-bound book with a translucent purple cover and I started to sketch girls, inspired by the pasted scraps of glossy paper ripped from fashion magazines. I started my first fashion folio, I started to imagine who I could be.

The girls I sketched were gruff, yet willowy, with side fringes and fashionably asymmetric garments. I drew awkward, couture dresses and near pointless white-singlet-indigo-jean combinations. All the while, I would pay careful attention to the female form. I ensured that each girl posed differently, with a head tilt or a fist clenched. There was always a cohesiveness about it, the eyes were always flat black lines, hooded to disguise any realistic demeanour. Their bodies were always stretched out and slimmed down to avoid any hint of a hip.


When I was meant to be studying for Criminal Law, I sketched furiously. I presented my initial efforts to my supportive best friend. After examining the drawings closely, she cried out: "It's great! You've got the hip tilt and everything!" I had never heard the expression before, but as she went on to explain the physiological significance of the tilt, it was the first time I ever considered that the hips might play some sort of a role in the balance and proportion of the female form.

It would take some time before I would accept the hips. I felt a great deal of reluctance to accept that curve: the exaggerated breasts, the small waist and big hips. I can only imagine this had much to do with those glossy images I poured over. In 2002, no such images were represented in the fashion magazines I collected. Yet I still admit, I wanted to be one of them, I wanted to be straight up and down, like a stick. I thought this was the absolute embodiment of sexiness.

Again and I'm not quite sure how, something changed, something in the public consciousness. I felt there was a greater acknowledgement of different shapes, of pears and apples and an almost universal adulation for the hourglass figure. Lovers raved on and on, insisting of how they unequivocally loved curvy girls, how they perceived hips as handle bars. Not only that, I spied Tyra's team of wannabe Top Models, discussing how they could effectively shape their body, to contort it in a manner that would exaggerate the curve I once so vehemently detested.

I never ended up drawing a girl with big hips. I gave up in 2005, three quarters of the way through my fourth fashion folio. I had presented my sketches, along with my stencil graffiti artwork to a panel of teachers, during an interview for a creative arts certificate. After I was rejected from the course, I could never bring myself to sketch again. It seemed pointless to imagine how I'd ever fare in trousers made of belts or a hoodie made of chainmail, inspired by the Smiths' Bigmouth Strikes Again.

I only recently started sketching again, I started teaching myself vintage fashion illustration from Walter T Foster's instructional book, Fashion Illustration 1920-1950. I love it, even though the girls are even more slender, stretched out and slimmed down. There are no hips, no breasts and only the tiniest waft of a waist. I do it, not to vanquish my own curve, but to embrace that simplicity of line and how it so easily suggests an arcane ideal of the female form.

Cupcakes & Jealousy

I'll admit it now, without qualm or reservation, I am a jealous person. I am jealous of the skinny, the musically talented, the blonde, the productive, the confident and the focused. I envy the girls who stole the hearts of all my men and I envy the "it girls" of the world, who manage to garner attention for doing practically nothing. Although jealousy is hardly a valiant emotion, I think it is a noble thing to own up to it, for it is jealousy which is responsible for much of the bullying and intimidation that goes on around us. If we can take responsibility for our jealousy, we can untangle our desires, our motivations and possibly prevent the exclusion of a person who doesn't deserve to be an object of resentment.

I write this, as I recently had a remarkable surge of jealousy. My mother pointed out her picture in some Sunday lifestyle magazine. She was featured as some kind of an "it girl". She posed for a photograph and elaborated upon her kitschy, eclectic style. She mentioned clothes I would never have the bravery to wear, they would either too feminine or outrageous or else incompatible with my hip to waist ratio. When I knew her in primary school, she was a big girl, perhaps the biggest of our group. Since then, she has slimmed down dramatically. She is glowing and ethereal. She is a "blogger".

I visited her blog to survey her purported empire. It was doused in bright, rainbow colours, mixed with vintage hues. There were thousands of pictures of herself, posing. In one picture, she would be thinking of something serious. In another, she would be thinking of something fierce. She poses without doubt or reservation. Sprinkled among her self portraits were cupcakes. Photographs of perfectly designed cupcakes, so perfect that I wouldn't be surprised if they were made out of plaster of Paris. She spoke of making cushions, clouds in New York and her innumerable media appearances. Media appearances? Why? What for? What are you actually saying?


I was confused by the whole business. How could she possibly convey such a positive outlook when her upbringing was so similar to mine? How could she see so much beauty in the world, when she lives a few streets away from me? The jealous, insane part of me cried, it could have been me!, but I know it couldn't possibly have been. My world isn't rainbows, cupcakes, fairies and denim shorts. I do not have the candour of a nine year old child. Quite simply, I do not have the vanity to do what she does. I cannot post thousands of photos of myself online in the belief that my readers see any value in it. I say that in a somewhat bombastic acknowledgement that this is precisely what many of my favourite fashion bloggers do. But as much as I am attracted to their makeshift glamour and self-developed exhibitionism, it just isn't me.

All this makes me wonder if I am truly jealous of her. I think I am. I envy her cohesive visual aesthetic. She appreciates the quaint, the innocent and the beautiful. I am jealous of her remarkable output, even though she doesn't really say anything of great depth, it's great that she can produce so much in such a little space of time. I am perhaps most jealous of her purported fame. I say "purported" because I don't know if it's real. Is she a real celebrity or simply one in her own head? She has hardly any comments on her blog entries, does anybody care what she has to contribute? If she stopped, would anybody accost her to ask why? I wonder if she thinks these things, as I do. I know if she did, she would keep her thoughts well hidden from public view, as she is meant to.

I am certain that I'll likely be jealous of everyone til the day I die. I am becoming progressively more comfortable with this fact. I have to be comfortable with it, because I am forever examining at the qualities and attributes of others. I do not do so for the purposes of resentment. I believe I do it to refine my own values, to establish the personal qualities that I admire and long for within myself. I see a lot of value and inspiration in my old friend, but there are still so many questions left to be asked. As she progresses further and further up the "it girl" trajectory, I have to wonder: is she really the person I knew?

"Even if you changed everything, he would still recognise your chin..."

I recently went on a cybercrawl in search of matters to write about. I seemed to recall an article on a blog that discussed notions of femininity at length, particularly in respect of the appeal of the tiny waistline. I could scarcely recall the name of the blog, nor any coherent search terms associated with the post. But I did recall that the lady blogger featured a brilliant picture of Ceci n'est um pas pas, dbroon's brilliant reworking of Ceci n'est pas une pipe. By some interweb miracle, I found it. Gatochy's Blog. I don't think I have even found the original article yet, I am too mesmerized by the vast collection of pretty vintage illustrations, not to mention the varied and many posts that touch upon matters of taste, style and beauty, posed in a way that I had never really considered before.


Illustration by Almanaque Bertrand, circa 1934. Children on leashes, loveit.
Perhaps the most fascinating discovery of my cybercrawl was Mariana's reflections upon female gender-bending. Slightly subversive you would think, perhaps. But she managed to identify another reason why a woman would feel the need to adopt traditionally "masculine" characteristics. I thought it had nothing to do with me, but then I read the article.

I think people tend to see this kind of gender-bending playfulness as a PC wink to trans culture. [...] But I believe in some instances it may be not so much a men-hating based rejection of femininity, as an expression of feminine desire from a woman who is disappointed in herself.

[...]

The logic may be something along these lines: "I'll never get boys to notice me as a girl, because I can't compete with other women's feminine charms. The more feminine I try to be, the more I'll just be drawing attention to how lacking in the feminine department I truly am, like a monkey wearing makeup. Instead of trying in vain to emulate the kind of women I find attractive, I'll don the accoutrements of the kind of boys I find attractive. Wearing their skin feels more comfortable than wearing my own, and it puts my mind off the kind of women who only remind me of how unattractive I am in comparison.

I can't have my dream lover, but wearing his 'skin' is like incorporating him into my persona, grabbing possession of him. I'll be as close to him as it's likely I'll ever be. And who knows, maybe such a man may one day see me and interpret my 'look' as a message that I am from his 'tribe', that we are two of a feather, and he'll approach me, and say 'You are just like me, we belong with one another'."


Freddie Mercury by Mick Rock
Perhaps I'm terribly impressionable, but the first time I read that, I couldn't help but acknowledge that Mariana had described me with an eerie degree of accuracy. I don't consider myself a gender-bender, by any means. But long ago, I adopted all the stylistic hallmarks of a lover, who, for all intents and purposes, ruined me. Every misdeed and mistreatment has become ever so slightly blurred with the passing of time, but his uniform has influenced my personal style immeasurably. Everyone who knows me would recognise the boyish aesthetic: navy blue Bonds tshirt, black drainpipe jeans with a white belt, black leather boots and maybe even aviators, if I'm sitting in the sunshine. I wiped out any trace of femininity in my own personal iconography, simply because it's not what I perceive to be attractive. I never had the confidence to wear misshapen mustard-coloured vintage dresses made out of curtain material. It was his uniform that was attractive to me, because it was sexy and understated... and it somehow denoted the existence of a musical kindred spirit. The existence of someone who cares too much about that so-called "indie" musical subculture we've all sold our souls to.

In recent times, I have taken to wearing dresses and A-line skirts. They're usually hidden under trench coats, as I am too embarrassed to show my chest, hips, waist and/or arms. I am happier and more comfortable hiding in the cloak of the past, in the uniform of someone else. I have no doubts that such a stylistic appropriation is unhealthy, I would be the first to tell you that. I would also be the first to acknowledge my poor attitude and details of my self-loathing tendencies. No doubt it'd be packaged nicely, either in a leather bound journal or a PDF document. But, hell. I'm working on it. I'm working on seeing beyond the drainpipes and aviators and being happier and less hateful. I'm working upon developing something of my own, that doesn't embody the hateful figures of my past, but a hopeful representation of the person I want to become.

One Two Five Four

You might not believe me, but I was once on time to one of my classes at uni. It's true. In fact, I was actually early. It was a third year Criminal Evidence tutorial on the other side of campus, past the students napping on the grass next to the ELTs. I traipsed into Menzies College to find a gent already seated at the table. He was wearing a Joy Division t-shirt. It was the artwork to Unknown Pleasures, designed by Peter Saville, concept by Bernard Sumner. My eyes were zapped. Someone in my class likes Joy Division? Surely this must not be so. Without hesitation, I asked if he liked Joy Division. He stopped a moment and furrowed his brow: "What are you talking about?"


It was my first exposure to the artwork of Unknown Pleasures on a t-shirt. Ever since then, I've witnessed an unusually high number of Unknown Pleasures t-shirts around the place. My brother points them out to me when we're walking down the street and it makes me feel narky. How are you supposed to know who really likes the band if everybody who wears the t-shirt buys it on the basis of its appearance? I say this with some reservation, as I understand that I am not entitled to be ungracious about this. It is hardly a Ramones' t-shirt scenario where the popularity of the t-shirt has completely superseded the popularity of the band itself. I can easily recall a time where teenybopper icons would don a Ramones' t-shirt, not because of any due loyalty to Joey & co., but because their stylist told them to. That's right, I'm looking at you, Holly Valance.

My relationship with the Unknown Pleasures t-shirt took a strange turn a week or so ago. In a record store in Brisbane, I found a t-shirt of pre-Joy Division band, Warsaw. It featured the artwork to Warsaw's 1978 EP, The Ideal Beginning. I saw the t-shirt hanging on the wall and I immediately recalled its brief inclusion in Anton Corbijn's first feature film, Control. It was the scene where the fake Bernard Sumner presented his drawing of an HJ banging on a drum to the band. It's a rather haunting drawing, yet eerily enough, it wasn't too dissimilar to all those drawings featured in my girl annuals from the 1930s and 40s. Irrespective of any HJ affiliation, I bought the t-shirt. It's pretty damn cool.


Perhaps my preference for Warsaw over Joy Division highlights a lacklustre desire to be obscure and pretentious. It certainly wouldn't serve as any sort of surprise. Then again, I would hate to wear something that doesn't squarely symbolise my band anymore. That, and I would hate for any confusion to arise as to my allegiance to a musical group. I would hate to receive that odd look of disgust or subcultural suspicion. I'd rather avoid the scenario altogether.

I'm not meant to be here

I'm not meant to be here. I'm not meant to be writing about fashion, style, taste or identity. My best friend from primary school always made it clear to me that I simply had no idea about these matters. It was clear that she was far more stylish and sophisticated than I. She would construct projects based upon drawings of thin girls with long faces draped in short floral dresses. We put together a magazine one time, she was particularly enthusiastic about writing a fashion advice column. For a ten year old, she managed to speak with disturbingly high authority about woolen midriff tops, even more floral dresses and other garb predominately inspired by the clothing worn by the cast of Beverley Hills 90210 and Heartbreak High, respectively. When we sat together and edited the magazine, I felt an odd burn of embarrassment. She had made it clear that every line of her advice was directed towards me. That and her makeover pursuits made it perfectly clear that she always wanted to fix me.

Despite her attempts, she never managed to successfully make me over. A part of it was that I simply didn't have the resources to pull off her desired mid-90s aesthetic. I didn't have the opportunity to shop at Miss Shop or Sportsgirl, simply because my mother bought all our clothes at op shops. At that point in time, op shops did not carry the sort of indie cred as they do now. Op shops were not a haven for stylish bargain buys or unique vintage pieces. They stocked cheap and extremely nasty cast-offs from the late 1980s. You could never disguise the fact that you got your clothing from op shops. Take that pair of purple parachute pants with the odd streaky black lines and fluro-green flecks. Aside from the hideous colours slash material of said garment, there was a very large burn hole around the crotch area. My clothes loudly proclaimed to every kid in the school yard that I had no taste, class or money. There was no way to co-ordinate anything, to pull off a certain "look". There was an incident in August 1995 where I attempted to look decent in an oversized, cut-off denim jacket and pair of slightly tight 501 Levi's. I don't need to tell you that it was an unmitigated disaster.

In retrospect, I should have desperately campaigned for a makeover. I would have wanted her to take away my rag-like flannel shirts, my burnt up purple parachute pants and even my black Cons. I would have wanted her to fix me. Why? Because I am inextricably drawn to makeover sequences in popular media. I love how you don't see very much during the clip itself. I love the feverishly upbeat pop hit that would accompany oblique images of hairspray and lipstick application. Most of all, I love the unveiling where she would look stunning, in a gobsmacked sort of way. All semblance of her former identity would be forgotten, for she would no longer be weird, ugly or different. The success of the transformation no doubt have a cursory effect upon the quality of her life. With some hairspray, lipstick and a short floral dress and she would be set! Love, happiness and success, FTW!


I am starting The Fashion Plague, in spite of the fact that I'm not meant to be here. I never received a makeover, from her or anybody else for that matter. I never conformed to the traditional tenets of feminine beauty. However, that never prevented my growing fascination for fashion design and journalism. Whether it be admiring the cut of a Givenchy jacket in Charade, reading about notions of beauty in Pigeons & Peacocks or sketching designs in my design notebook, this is something that consumes me. It is something that I want to share with you, even though I'm not quite sure I ever got it right.