Monday 22 March 2010

A blog about the clog

Dr. Scholl is having a fashion moment. No, seriously. I'm not kidding. Stop laughing! Fine, don't believe me? Here:














These images are from the Chanel and Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2010 runways respectively. Know what that means? They're the most expensive clogs ever made. Which, as far as statements go, ranks up there on the Whaaa? scale with "I did not inhale" and "Imma let you finish. But Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!"
And don't think it's easy for me to criticize, because my soul is covered in quilted leather and accented with a silk camellia. It physically pains me to say anything negative about Chanel and that crazy, ponytail'd, fingerless glove'd, size negative four-propagating Karl Lagerfeld. I love that droopy emaciated bastard as much for his prolific talent as the nutzo shit that comes out of his mouth. I mean, "The most important piece in the house is the garbage can" and "I’m a kind of fashion nymphomaniac who never gets an orgasm"? That's gold!

I'm struggling with those clogs, though. And I think I know why. When I was a kid I spent my summers in Italy, where the pre-teen sartorial aesthetic varied largely from my middle class Toronto schoolyard. The paternal side of my family is dominated by boys, which you can imagine was a total drag for a WHAM!-loving girl like me. And to make matters worse, my grandparents lived in a rural suburb, so my testosterone-charged cousins weren't just annoying boys but country bumpkins to boot. Where I would don rubber flip flops or sparkly jelly shoes for the beach and colourful espadrilles around town, they were always walking around in ugly, clunky Dr. Scholl's sandals. I can still hear the clank-and-drag of their heavy wooden soles as they made contact with the terracotta tiles on the veranda in my nightmares today. Eventually, I learned to distinguish their respective noisy gaits, which allowed for quick hiding upon discovery of mangled G.I. Joe figurines and stolen pencil crayons courtesy of moi. Much as my tall and fashionably slender cousins probably would've been scouted by a modelling agent if they had lived in, say, Milan, their choice in footwear was hardly what I would have deemed en vogue back in the day. Or today.

  Karl Lagerfeld's inspiration for Chanel s/s 2010?

It's hard to tell just how much life this trend will have. On the one hand, it goes hand-in-hand with the recent spate of heinous shoes disguised as high fashion; a phenomenon that even Andre Leon Talley, the Grand Dame of capes for Chrissake, is opposed to: http://jezebel.com/5496512/the-13-ugliest-shoes-in-the-world/gallery/?skyline=true&s=i. On the other, I kind of feel like fashion designers may be having a laugh here. Which would be fitting, because I'm pretty sure Karl Lagerfeld has been laughing at me and my garbage can for some time now.

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