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The Return of Ugliness

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  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    The Return of Ugliness



    THE RETURN OF UGLINNESS



    This past summer a girl in her twenties I know cut her shoulder-length dark hair to military grade shortness, which made her look decidedly less attractive. When I remarked on this to another friend, also in his twenties, he said without hesitation that unattractiveness has become a trend among his peers. You can also see this quite clearly in fashion, especially in the rise of brands as seemingly disparate as Hood by Air, Vetements, Gosha Rubchinskiy, and Gucci, and their calculated ugliness and awkwardness.

    This is not a new phenomenon – virtually nothing in fashion is new by now. One need not dig too far back in history, but simply look at the 90s – the decade constantly referenced these days – and see Kurt Cobain’s frumpy cardigans and messy hair and Winona Ryder’s outsider looks. It was only a matter of time before Marc Jacobs put grunge into a Perry Ellis show. Dig before that and you have the Pop Art movement championing, while at the same time aestheticizing, the commonness of life. Susan Sontag remarked in her essay Notes on Camp that the modern aesthete (she used “dandy”) finds a way to partake “in the coarsest, commonest pleasures, in the arts of the masses.” Jeremy Scott took this notion and has made a career out of this, beginning in the late 90s.
    What the above-mentioned brands do is not new either. Hood by Air started out by doing a ghetto version of Rick Owens’s sleaze. With Vetements we see the seemingly sloppy blue acid-washed jeans and oversized trench coats reminiscent of Martin Margiela. Vetements’ Demna Gvasalia put a floral dress in his first Balenciaga collection that’s not that far off from the one Kurt Cobain wore on the cover of The Face in 1993. And the whole deliberately awkward aesthetic mess at Gucci is not that remote from the ugly-made-pretty thing Miuccia Prada has been doing at Miu Miu for what seems like forever.

    Continue here

    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine
  • beyondthemeans
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 479

    #2
    Great read!
    Coincidentally, Dazed posted a somewhat similar article yesterday.

    Comment

    • Faust
      kitsch killer
      • Sep 2006
      • 37852

      #3
      Originally posted by beyondthemeans View Post
      I must question how coincidental that is.
      Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

      StyleZeitgeist Magazine

      Comment

      • eleves
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2012
        • 524

        #4
        Very good observations! I agree with you and see this "ugliness" every day around the city for sure. And Celine Dion?? Style Icon for the youth???? hahaha
        Originally posted by Faust
        HOBBY?! HOBBY?!?!?!?!?! You are on SZ, buddy - it ain't no hobby, it's passion, religion, and unbounded cosmic love rolled into one.

        Comment

        • SafetyKat
          Senior Member
          • Aug 2014
          • 169

          #5
          Originally posted by beyondthemeans View Post
          Good lord, I don't think I can stomach all of that fucking pretension I was just served...

          Taking inspiration from a decade in time is one thing, but completely rehashing the cheesy side of 90's fashion as a new statement while hiding under a mentality of "I know it looks bad, but how retro and knowledgeable I must appear right now!" is hollow and ultimately imaginatively void.

          It happened to film and video games; about time the fashion industry caught up on the total rehash trend...

          Comment

          • lowrey
            ventiundici
            • Dec 2006
            • 8383

            #6
            Originally posted by beyondthemeans View Post
            jesus what a blatant rip off
            "AVANT GUARDE HIGHEST FASHION. NOW NOW this is it people, these are the brands no one fucking knows and people are like WTF. they do everything by hand in their freaking secret basement and shit."

            STYLEZEITGEIST MAGAZINE | BLOG

            Comment

            • drusts
              Junior Member
              • Sep 2016
              • 3

              #7
              Originally posted by lowrey View Post
              jesus what a blatant rip off
              "Great artists steal"

              Comment

              • matglenn
                Member
                • Jun 2016
                • 90

                #8
                ^ Assuming the Dazed article is an artwork, which it definitely is not.

                Comment

                • Ahimsa
                  Vegan Police
                  • Sep 2011
                  • 1879

                  #9


                  I've been seeing this shirt-under-a-dress trend a lot out on the streets lately. I don't know what to make of it as I've only known it to be a toddler uniform. It's quite hideous.


                  I'd like to say that I largely blame streetstyle photographers though. What they take probably does have a large impact on consumers in terms of trends, and I wish they would be a bit more discerning with style other than taking every shot of Vetements they see out and about.
                  StyleZeitgeist Magazine | Store

                  Comment

                  • ahn
                    Senior Member
                    • Jul 2012
                    • 293

                    #10
                    This look was huge in the 90's. I definitely have photos of myself rocking a plain white t-shirt and plaid empire-cut spaghetti-strap dress that tied up on the shoulders as both a 6 year old and probably still as an 11 year old.
                    some do it fast, some do it better in smaller amounts.

                    Comment

                    • Faust
                      kitsch killer
                      • Sep 2006
                      • 37852

                      #11
                      Originally posted by Ahimsa View Post

                      I've been seeing this shirt-under-a-dress trend a lot out on the streets lately. I don't know what to make of it as I've only known it to be a toddler uniform. It's quite hideous.


                      I'd like to say that I largely blame streetstyle photographers though. What they take probably does have a large impact on consumers in terms of trends, and I wish they would be a bit more discerning with style other than taking every shot of Vetements they see out and about.
                      True, but it's like a vicious cycle. They need to take photos of what's already trendy (besides what their sponsors want them to take photos of) in order to get more Instagram followers.
                      Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                      StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                      Comment

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