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Fashion & Clothing: Follies, Fads & Social Norms

Timble2

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If this is the start of a trend gents could be letting their dangly bits swing free....

Exposed nipples? Naked bottoms? Bare breasts? The insouciant editors who sit in the front row of fashion shows have seen the lot at womenswear shows – and will barely raise an eyebrow. But the flesh on show at Rick Owens’ menswear show in Paris on Thursday surprised even them.
In a highly unusual move, the American designer sent four of his models down the runway wearing clothes with peepholes that showed full-frontal male nudity underneath.

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/jan/22/-sp-penis-flashing-at-rick-owens-menswear-show
 
'High fashion' like this is always ludicrous.
Who actually wears this stuff?
 
There're different types of fashion shows. Some're to exhibit what the company're going to be selling in the coming season, like a Marks & Spencer show. Others'er more arty and are intended to show off the designer's coming trends and ideas. The actual clothes that end up on the customers' backs will be a lot less extreme.

Nobody really expects blokes to be walking down the street next week with their willies out. Not in this weather anyway.
 
Perhaps I analyse too much (well, I do) and notice trends too easily....

Anyway: everywhere I go at present, any city or large town in the UK, I'm noticing people wearing Canada Goose arctic jackets. I didn't initially understand the significance of these little badges on the arms of people, but I've now worked it out....

04-10-2016_canadagoose_selkirkparka_navy_3801m-67_cj_3_1.jpg


It's like they're all wanting to be extras in a Bond movie, in the bit where all the henchmen of Dr Bad all get blown-up during the attack on his polar base. Or all intent upon being part of a remake of Ice Station Zebra...

Why this strange fascination for £1000 excessively-warm jackets? Has someone turned off the gulf stream?? Do they know a new ice age is imminent?

Or is it standard slavish sheep-shopping? Agghh....fashion victims. Such a strange effect
 
Must be a local shop doing a good deal on those. I've never heard of that brand before.
 
Or is it standard slavish sheep-shopping? Agghh....fashion victims. Such a strange effect
Completely externally actualised as it were. I am who people think I am --> the media tell me successful/cool people wear this 'thing --> I buy the thing so people will think I'm successful/cool.

I see it as a subset of materialism, i.e. conspicuous consumption as status signalling.

Oddly it's only about a quarter of the (western) population, and even more amazing this 'recognition' only really works with that quarter. The other three-quarters think (a) nothing much or (b) 'twat'.
 
They were fashionable here as well, some years ago. I didn't see more of a reason for that than for other fasions
 
Must be a local shop doing a good deal on those. I've never heard of that brand before.
No, it seems to be everywhere. Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle are seething with polar explorers.

I fully-expect to see giant white-furry bears dining in McDonalds. And seals shopping for fish in Marks & Spencer....
 
No, it seems to be everywhere. Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle are seething with polar explorers.

I fully-expect to see giant white-furry bears dining in McDonalds. And seals shopping for fish in Marks & Spencer....

EDIT....ahaa. I now see it's the brand worn by Dennis Quaid and Nicholas Cage etc in the likes of "The Day After Tomorrow". So it's a viral fashion.
 
It's really expensive!
Must be a lot of money about in this country.
 
Perhaps market stalls now do 'knock offs'? As a slight aside, these fashion slaves I think are similar to a kind of person who irk me immensely. It is the person who knows you, perhaps from work who sees you outside of work and blanks you. I have a personal theory that because they are surface deep they make a subconscious calculation as to whether an interaction with you will increase of decrease their social standing, so they blank you. Frankly, if someone is so vain they can kiss my arse.
 
The progression from expedition wear specialty shop to mass market fashion company is characteristic of a number of formerly cutting-edge outdoors apparel manufacturers. Generally, these are companies whose products were once state of the art but are now mass marketed as fashion items for urban / suburban wannabes. Other examples include:

- Filson (high quality wool and canvas outerwear; once the gold standard for backwoodsmen)
- Eddie Bauer (once among the premier manufacturers of down apparel)
- Woolrich / John Rich & Co. (once famous for their Arctic down parkas)
- L. L. Bean

Each of these companies has gone mass-market and upscale over the last few decades. By and large their products are still of reasonable or higher quality (Filson's stuff is still superb), but anachronistic in terms of technology / performance.
 
I haven't noticed these but I have been noticing people wearing coats with something like "Super Dry Japan" or something on them and have wondered about it.

On top brands - we have a friend who travels a great deal for work and who splashed out on a super-light, super-tough suitcase to try and lessen the pain of having to carry heavy luggage about all the time. He tried in vain to rough it up a bit to disguise it a bit before parting with it on to airport carousels but because it was so super tough, he didn't really succeed. He then found himself pursued by suitcase enthusiasts in airports. Yes, people recognise suitcase brands.
 
I didn't realise Canada Goose was a "thing", but the biggest wanker I know parades around in one, so that tells me all I need to know.
 
On a related note.....after doing some related 'jacket sleuthing' online, I'm amazed to discover that Fjallraven (which I used to buy back when I originally was still hill-fit, in the 1980s) which was a brilliant Scananavian outdoor equipment manufacturer, is now also being worn as high-end high street fashion.

Which also means that when I thought I recognised the badge on the backpacks being worn a few weeks back by a gaggle of giggly teens, it was a Fjallraven kanken (I thought they were called knappen....)
F27172_0.jpg

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... He then found himself pursued by suitcase enthusiasts in airports. Yes, people recognise suitcase brands.

Yep ... I've seen extended comparative analyses of luggage features, and even brand-allegiance flame fests, on dedicated traveler web forums.
 
Yep ... I've seen extended comparative analyses of luggage features.

A strange case.

Brand loyalty = bought bias.

But, if based upon absolute physical parametric comparisons (eg Peli cases, Hardigge cases, SKB racks etc) then I can see that there's some sense in the discrimintion.
 
I confess that I spend far too much time buying and looking at buying Haglöfs kit and clothing.
 
I'm noticing people wearing Canada Goose arctic jackets.

Me too.

They look super-warm and high-quality. Funnily enough happened to look on their UK website this weekend, fancying one...er £800 quid? Seriously? I can't afford that.
 
My wife has one - duty free makes it a chunk cheaper; though in her defence it does get damned cold here in the winter.

Are they actually a Canadian company?
 
Apparently this one is top of the tree: "Warmest Coat in the World", they claim.
http://www.canadagoose.com/ca/en/sn...id=shop-mens-FW16#start=1&cgid=shop-mens-FW16

To test the coat, I hiked a couple miles one evening outdoors in minus 20 degree weather with only a short-sleeve T-shirt under the Snow Mantra. [...]

In this getup, I was toasty warm the whole time and sweating when I walked up hills in the woods. Indeed, in weather above 10 degrees, Canada Goose's offerings were almost too warm to wear for anything more than standing around in the woods or on a frozen lake.

[...] But the cocoon of heat has performance disadvantages, too. This coat is bulky and heavy, tipping nearly seven pounds on my scale. Its hood is huge and immobile, blocking peripheral vision when deployed with its fluffy coyote fur stuck out.

http://www.active.com/outdoors/articles/the-gear-junkie-world-s-warmest-winter-coat

Sounds absurd for wear in the UK.

I've been in the mountains in -21°C, but I've found that with a couple of good layers it's seldom your torso that gets cold. Extremities obviously need covering, but my legs were where I started to feel the chill - and that's with thermal long-johns, tracksuit bottoms and decent ski pants.
 
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I can't afford Canada Goose jackets either. If I want to get warm I go for the low budget version:

Bjork.jpg
 
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