fashion style types quiz

Fashion may be bent on newness, but we apparently can’t stand it when something looks too new (who can bear the blinding whiteness of new sneakers?). The industry has taken to calling the shabby, imperfect look distresseda word that carries a connotation of pain and suffering. This fashion agony does not come cheap, from Jean-Paul Gaultier’s distressed leather pants for $1,560 and two-piece distressed leather jacket and bustier for $2,740 to Versace’s distressed ball gowns and midpriced shoe maker Aldo’s distressed leather pumps for $70.

On most new clothes, a flaw is reason to return a garment to the store; on others, it is a reason to love the garment with even more fervor. The Fashion Victim understands that ready-to-wear clothes are mostly mass produced, and that a handsewn article somehow possesses more soul and uniqueness. Minute blemishes in a fabric’s color prove that a gown was hand-dipped by a dressmaker in Paris; slightly raised threads on a vest attest that it was handcrafted by the real wives of authentic sherpas in Nepal. Some clothes, like a sweater I bought years ago, come with tags explaining how the pills and flecks you may see in the fabric are not flaws at all but rather intentional imperfections, there to add to the garment’s charm.

In our hunt for substance in style, we covet clothes that evoke the blue-collar world, like the Authentic Prison Blues shirts (actually made by inmates!) that Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton wore in the 2001 movie Bandits. Why do we do it? Fashion is our way of visually signaling to others how we want to be seen, and even though we all want to be considered stylish, we do not want to look like we have put too much planning and money into doing so. Glamour and neatness have their place, but premeditated nonchalance is the Fashion Victim’s Holy Grail. We shop at stores like Filthmart, the Manhattan vintage store co-owned by Drea de Matteo of The Sopranos and featuring Hell’s Angels meets Jewel wares. Hip-hop fans spend exorbitant amounts of cash on urbanwear to prove they are still street: a pair of denim and Ultrasuede pants from Phat Farm for $150, an Enyce bulletproof nylon vest for $97, puffy down jackets from the North Face for $199.Fashion Style Quiz | Determine Your Personal Fashion Style | How … Ltf