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Saying no to fashion


Lise

Lise is Danish and in her first year of a journalism course at The University of Westminster. She hopes to end up writing magazine features and enjoys reading all the latest film and celebrity news.

Girls who vow to follow the latest fashion of skinny jeans and over-sized sunglasses run the risk of looking like a D-list celebrity, laughs Lise.

First, let me just make it perfectly clear that I'm in no way a feminist, a man in disguise or a naturist. I like fashion as much as the next girl. In fact, I'm always curious to see what comes next when the stores put on their colourful and chaotic clearing-sales to make way for the new season's must haves.

As a young girl I raided my mother's closet for valuable pieces that would have the desired retro look. However, living far out in the country side in Denmark, looks would have long come and gone by the time I picked up on them. And so, I'm sad to say, I was never a very stylish kid. Relatively grown up now, I'm still no slave to fashion and this is down to a conscious decision not to be.

Though I adore fashion and find it amusing trying to keep up on the latest trends, I take it in moderation (as any sensible girl ought to do with most things in life, except of course when it comes to Bio-live yoghurt, frozen vegetables and sex...What?) I simply believe that people with a distinctive personal style are far more interesting than those who look as if they've religiously chosen every single piece of clothing from the latest must-have list without even questioning the sense of it. When so-now fashion fads collide with common good taste, it's time to take a step back (and not in your oversized platforms!)

Almost monthly, fashion magazines salute haute couture that's so peculiar that most normal beings on earth (yes, us, the common people) roll their eyes with disbelief. Who hasn't opened an issue of Vogue and wondered if the clothes on display weren't ambiguous pieces of art rather than something you'd actually wrap your body in? I'm talking about dresses that look like everything from elaborate tents - something even Britney would think twice about wearing.

Every so often, fashion whims - obviously unsuitable for display on the streets- live a short life on the catwalks, before being deemed as classics and hidden away in a designer's closet, never to surface ever again. However, from time to time, the world of fashion revives trends we all knew, embraced, and later despised for its hideousness. Remember Ginger Spice's platforms? Who would have thought that this highly unflattering, not to mention un-ergonomically fad, would ever get the chance of a comeback - except with strippers and drag queens - and yet now they're sneaking (or wading) their way back to the pages of our trusted monthly bibles.

"I'm talking about dresses that look like everything from elaborate tents - something even Britney would think twice about wearing."

And how about the upcoming return of the tight leather trousers? No matter how much of a fashion queen you think you might be, don't tell me you actually think these are "simply gorgeous" - as I'm sure several magazines will proclaim they are later in the year. While there might some individuals jumping for joy on their Harleys, I'd like to believe that most sane women would rather don a pair of barely-there Daisy Duke's and stroll across Picadilly Circus on a crowded Saturday than put on another layer of air-tight, skin. If you're not convinced, I strongly advise you to watch that Friends episode where Ross embraces leather pants glory.

Sometimes, no matter what Paris dictates (the city, silly) and no matter what Kate Moss has found in the back of her wardrobe, you should trust your own gut feeling of right and wrong. Big eighties hair. Wrong. Cher's music might have transcended the decade of international ugliness, but her hair never won any critical acclaim and continued to weigh her down for years. Knee high boots, fish nets and mini skirts. Wrong, so horribly wrong - unless you reside on the streets of Soho after dusk. Huge shapeless dresses that will make you look more like a Bedouin's wife straight out of the desert than a "timelessly classy girl who knows how to cover her unsightly bits." Come on now!

When designers worldwide declare that "the eighties are back with a vengeance" and push to release nylon galore, I think it's about high time we take a stand and hold up the consumer's red card. On occasion, re-introduced fashion trends even call for hands-on protests - as we saw last winter when several major designers wanted to celebrate the horrifying return of fur.

When buying clothes, for god's sake try not to become the awkward looking girl you see on the street every day - you'll know her, the one who's squeezed her oversized frame into a pair of all too skinny jeans and teamed them with a pair of sky high wedges she can barely balance on. While taking inspiration from magazines can be helpful when shopping for the season's new pieces, abandoning all common sense and thus betraying your individuality is just silly - if not costly. And by the way, am I the only one who thinks that enormous sunglasses make you look like a bug?

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