The article cites that 2004 book "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz, who famously took the position" that — as the NYT paraphrases it — "too many choices makes us anxious."
I've already written — back in 2011 — about Barry Schwartz agonizing over which jeans to buy when there are so many choices and you just want "normal" jeans. That's how he begins his book! I wrote: "Get a grip, Barry! I feel like Barry I-just-want-normal-jeans Schwartz was the guy who inspired one of my favorite songs." And I'm absolutely delighted that the embedded video — "Randy Normal Jeans" — still works.
Individualism: It seems like an almost too obvious place for this inquiry to land.
Too obvious! The NYT writer — Haley Nahman — is thwarted in her originality if all she can do is acknowledge that each person is original. Whence fashion writing if there is no fashion?
Nahman quotes Haley Mlotek, "a fashion critic and an editor for the website Ssense": "This idea... that the ultimate expression of style is one that is completely your own feels very lonely to me."
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15 comments:
To quote “we are all a minority of one”.
Giving clothes no thought makes it individual. Agonizing about it is social.
Really? No trend?
Try to find a pair of jeans without those stupid horizontal fade lines across the pelvis.
The lack of story is the story.
Fashion trends are not created by the consumer. They are created by people who are trying to sell you new clothes. Those of us who wear jeans for their utility know a good pair of jeans will last for 10 years or more. It takes four years for them to be properly broken in. High-rise, low-rise, straight leg, boot cut, dark wash, faded on purpose. If the only reason for ditching a favorite pair of jeans is their style isn't current, then the fashion industry has brainwashed you.
The heart is a lonely hunter...of jeans.
Decades were a big thing in the 20th century. Fashions in fashion and in everything else changed every ten years or so. In this century, there aren't those kinds of dramatic changes any more. And in fashion and in everything else, a lot of new trends are simply recycled old trends. We aren't living in very creative times.
You can choose your jeans, but in Castro-Chi Com lair Maddow America - you will not be allowed to take any proven drug therapy that doesn't land billions in the pockets of the elite.
So, after market drugs are out.
Levi 501 button-fly.
End of story.
And don't wash them more than once a year if that...
Maybe that means that women can pick which ever style of jeans is most flattering to their shape? That seems OK.
So it is pants we are talking about, and denim at that? J. Alfred Prufrock at your service! His pants are flannel, but hey, the mermaids would sing for denim just as well.
I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
As I recall, Levis were picked up by the hippies as a political/cultural statement: 'I am with the people', the Woody-Guthrie-workingman types. Soon, Jordache, Britannia and cocaine made jeans Bev Hills fashionable.
The people I know personally who care about fashion are not wearing jeans.
Good grief, jeans! Denim jeans! "What does that say about the era we're living through?" She reminds me of Opal in Nashville "Oh, cars, what are you trying to tell me?"
I buy Real Ranch 5 pocket straight leg jean for $9.99 at Atwoods Ranch and Home store.
https://www.atwoods.com/department/clothing/men-clothing/jeans/real-ranch-men-s-light-wash-5-pocket-straight-leg-jean.html
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