Couture Femininity isn't that flattering

Project Runway is back this week, and, aside from confirming my long-held belief that people who refer the themselves in the third person should be shot, it got me thinking about an interesting metaphor that Helen developed in the comments trail of this blog post.

To be more helpful: really, try and take the fashion metaphor more seriously. Yeah, fashion has meant lots of different things to lots of different cultures and eras. There are certain common themes (symmetry, simplicity, etc.), but not really enough common ground to hang your hat on. Sometimes we even look back at a particular era and say, "Wow, I can't believe that's what we thought 'fashionable' was!" (A good analogy for how I feel about 1950's femininity: acid wash jeans.) We never completely revert to a former era--fashion is always moving forwards, and so is femininity--but we do look to them for inspiration.

But in spite of all those caveats and admissions of arbitrariness, fashion still matters. You're still not allowed to wear a plaid jacket with a polka-dot tie and blue jeans to your office job and say, "The suit-and-tie uniform is arbitrary. Why can't I just wear what suits me?" If I went up to Tim Gunn and said, "I think that one is most stylish" and he disagreed, he would be right and I would be wrong. On the other hand, I could become a fashion innovator and outpace him (a path that would depend on learning, and to some meaningful extent playing by, the rules).

Let me say first off, this is a great explanation of how femininity matters and how we can live within it without being crippled. I think this is a pretty good analogue, but part of the fashion side has me worried.

Two seasons ago the designers of Project Runway were challenged to design for each other's mothers. The mothers were, to put it delicately, not as petite as the androgynously-skinny models the designers were used to. This challenge produced some of the most hideous outfits I have ever seen on PR, and even the most talented designers were flummoxed. They had never been asked to design for ordinary women before.

Fashion may be moving forward, aesthetically speaking, and it's certainly more comfortable, but I don't feel it's grown more flattering on ordinary women. I fall withing the 'ordinary' range of female bodies and am nearly incapable of finding a flattering shirt or dress in most department stores.

That's why I think Helen's narrative is a little blithe. If the innovators of femininity are as divorced from ordinary women as fashion designers are, there's not a lot to draw on. I'm not sure that couture, aesthetic-only femininity exists, but I'm not listening to Tim Gunn on this one unless I'm sure he knows something about women (though if he has any ideas on the shirt front, I'm all ears).