More clothes should come with warning labels. No, seriously: they should. And I’m not talking about the washing instruction ‘do not put this white top with colours’ (clearly) or ‘do not iron this plastic print because, well, if you do you clearly have no concept that plastic melts under extreme heat’. No, not those kind of warning labels.
No, I’m talking about the kind of labels that either point how preposterous the clothes are or how devastatingly beautiful they will make you appear and feel. I mean, seriously: they should. Then I think designers and such will have more luck at actually moving clothes off the racks and into people’s wardrobes.
Imagine being at some hip little boutique and buying a top that says ‘Warning: this top will make you look super cute’. Imagine the sudden moment of intense uncertainty you’d be faced with: should I buy this top? Would I really look super cute? What happens if I don’t? But what happens if I do?
The same could go for clothes that clearly certain people shouldn’t wear. You know the type of clothes – the kind that when you see some people wearing them you shudder inside. That shudder is your inner stylist cringing (and yes, we all have an inner stylist – some people just don’t realise it). That inner stylist cringes at fashion faux pas but, if clothes came with warning labels, they wouldn’t need to cringe as much.
Examples include:
But unfortunately, many clothes don’t come with warning labels. Well, besides the Material Boy Boyfriend pants with stirrups I bought last season, which stated they possibly had the skinniest leg on the market – and they did. The warning label is pictured above. There were also the Thousand Reason weekend pants who inner tag stated that no roosters had been harmed in the making of these pants (?!) plus the Ksubi top that stated we should all be thinking more green, more of the time. But by and large, clothes don’t come with warning labels.
Which means that, more often than not, you have to travel the hard path to good fashion. This means you either find yourself blessed with a partner who has an inscrutable eye for clothes (as I have… phew!), or you make some really bad fashion choices and take them on the chin (as I have too). Either way, there is a certain joy in shopping for clothes and making purchases which lead you closer to sustaining an ultimate look of sophistication, street cool and chic-ness.
Yes, if clothes came with warning labels then this path would most certainly be an easier one to travel. A very easy one. But unfortunately this isn’t the case: although it genuinely wouldn’t surprise me that if in the not too distant future, some designer actually went with the idea in an attempt not to belittle the buying public, but guide them toward making purchases that better suit their body type and personality.
Until then, people such as myself will continue to write blogs such as these in some vague attempt to either impart knowledge, poke fun at the sometimes preposterous nature of the fashion industry or… both. After all, we are all human and we all make the occasional crime against fashion (except my partner… apparently) so it’s ok… it’s alright… you can put down the size 0 top you’re never actually going to fit into, breathe in, then out and just relax – it’s ok, you can sell the top on eBay and (hopefully) make your money back. In the meantime, if you want to check out any more of the fashion writing I do for OUTinPerth then click here. Alternatively, click here to check out my arts pages or here for my regular Perth Street Art columns, two other areas I’m more than likely to write about here in my blog. After, I’m sure some people wish art would come with warning labels too, such as: Warning – this art isn’t meant to appeal to everyone.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
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