Fashion faux Pas

This August, Jo Burke, the NIU Art Museum Director (who is also an enviable owner of a pair of fantastic black knee-high boots with kitten heels), and I were discussing some of her ideas about Fashion and her desire to introduce an online forum for participants and viewers to share their Fashion Faux Pas. We wanted to focus on the incidences that brought about questions of "What is the right thing to wear?" and "When to wear it?" What happens when things go awry? How does one feel and react? What stories of fashion foibles are ingrained in our memories?
And perhaps the biggest question of all--are fashion foibles significant enough to take up the mental and emotional space for a community dialogue?
Please include your comments and photographs about your very own Fashion Faux Pas.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

androgyny is destiny

This may say something more about my nephew or the stylings of the seventies than being a fashion faux pas but it certainly was unfortunate....at some point in the mid 1970s my brother and I had basically the same hairstyle; shoulder-length or longer, parted in the middle, frizzy wiry auburn hair hanging over our glasses. We apparently also mostly wore the same uniform of the era: bell-bottom jeans and tee shirt. I don't remember how quickly I modified my look after this but the trigger was when my 3 year-old nephew Bill, still coming to terms with the meanings of words, upon seeing me in a dress, was thunderstruck enough to question: "Aunt Jo is a girl?"
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1 comment:

  1. Deliberate CreatorSeptember 20, 2010 at 8:54 AM

    What a great story! It is amazing how aware children can be about the nuances of dress and appearance.

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