Vildy sent in the link to this fascinating article:
A dress code will be observed
Think you stand out in a crowd? Not according to a fascinating photographic exhibition
Elizabeth Day
Sunday February 17, 2008
The ObserverThere is a scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where the eponymous hero addresses a vast crowd of devoted followers who have mistaken him for the Messiah. ‘You are all individuals,’ he shouts. ‘Yes,’ they reply with one voice. ‘We are all individuals.’ It is the sort of joke that delights Dutch photographer Ari Versluis, who has spent the last 14 years documenting the disconnection between our human desire to feel unique while also belonging to a greater whole. Since 1994, he and his stylist, Ellie Uyttenbroek, have travelled the world seeking to document the dress codes of different social and cultural groups. What they discovered was a series of modern fashion tribes – people who dress the same, often without even realising it.
clickable photo groups
Personally, I was unable to find the “exact” group I would fit into amongst the pictured, which perhaps wouldn’t be represented there anyway if they hadn’t traveled to Spokane to take pictures. I’m positive I am subject to a dress code, the degree of “exactitude” with which the individual submits to it varies according to personality, etc.
For example, I am currently in the market for a new pair of glasses. Feeling immense pressure to conform and buy something like these,
that is, horizontal, with heavy temples. They remind me of “Geordi things“. (When the ladies were very small and we still had TV, they used to flip their little plastic headbands down over their eyes … )
At any rate, this style is not for me.
If I should happen to mention to anyone that I don’t want whatever the current style is, they inevitably say “rimless” which is worse. Rimless, or wire rims, just make my eyes disappear altogether.
What I really want: something with a delicate-looking plastic rim and a larger field of vision. Leave links if you have suggestions.
More on this to come. 🙂
Wow. I was absolutely overwhelmed by the tiny thumbnails!
Good luck finding the right glasses, Rebecca!
I wish they’d differentiate the groups; past the top and bottom rows it’s annoying.
I found something like me, which is a crossover between girls and guys (although most of the groups are one or the other.)
From what I can see of your face, I think you’d look better with oval frames, but square ones are more interesting.
Lol, “Geordi Things”. My friends and I at school totally used to do the headband thing too! As an avid sci fi fan I was horrified to hear a woman in the video game aisle at Wal Mart yell “Look! They have those Star Trek poles!” in reference to the (Star Wars) Lightsaber accessory for the wii. As an avid follower of fashion, I was even more horrified when I turned around and saw that she was dressed head to toe in a hot pink tracksuit, with the pants tucked into uggs, topped with a bronze puffy jacket with fur trim around the hood. *shudder*
I agree with you on the thick plastic frames… they look absolutely awful on me. I’ve found a few rimless styles that I liked but couldn’t get them due to my prescription. Since I feel that my face is a little on the round side, I choose a rounded rectangular shape more often than not. I also completely loathe eyeglass shopping… Not being able to see a damned thing is not conducive to picking out an item you’re going to wear every day for at least the next 18 months. Luckily I can finally get soft contacts in my prescription. So Exciting!
These were my picks from Lenscrafters.com:
These are wire rims that give a nod to the heavy-temple trend:
http://www.lenscrafters.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product|-1|11151|10051|10546|10518|brands|WomensFrames|16562
I think the rose is fun, though impractical….
http://www.lenscrafters.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product|-1|11151|10051|10535|10518|brands|WomensFrames|15313
Classic:
http://www.lenscrafters.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product|-1|11151|10051|10541|10518|brands|WomensFrames|15536
These are both similar styles that come in clear. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but it might be fabulous with your haircolour, Rebecca!
http://www.lenscrafters.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product|-1|11151|10051|10544|10518|brands|WomensFrames|17173
http://www.lenscrafters.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product|-1|11151|10051|10542|10518|brands|WomensFrames|15621
Emily said: she was dressed head to toe in a hot pink tracksuit, with the pants tucked into uggs, topped with a bronze puffy jacket with fur trim around the hood.
Ahahaha. She’s my peer! I don’t own a hot pink tracksuit but I used to have a raspberry one – that count? If I still had it I would wear it. I have light blue ugg-style boots that I bought just recently!
And I have a bronze puffer long jacket, but no fur trim. I think of myself in winter as walking around some Aspen of the mind. You know, Hollywood bunny bundles up. No matter to me that I happen to be plunked down in Camden, New Jersey. Lessee, what’s the reference point for that. Newark?
Detroit? East St. Louis? No peers of mine here. The minority of college educated people are more Chico, Old Navy or Eddie Bauer types. I guess they think they’re in Spokane! You can take the girl out of California but you can’t take California out of the girl.
Maybe, Rebecca, you would do well with colored frames in that pale coral/pink you like to wear.
Vildy, please, please, PLEASE tell me you would never tuck the sweatpants into the uggs to leave the house… (checking mail, driveway shovelling, most activities that occur in your own yard excluded) I live in London, Ontario (Canada) which is a University/College town. Sweatpants/Jeans tucked into boots (ugg or otherwise, though uggs popularity seems to be waning, thankfully) is pretty much most younger ladies’ uniform around here. A friend of mine commented that all the women on campus look the same. The wal mart shopper in question definitely stood out, though…
1st – a clarification: I think alot of ladies look good in the horizontal plastic frames, so if that’s – don’t feel insulted. It just isn’t going to work for me. 🙂
Concerning the clickable photo groups, I agree they are overwhelming and I wish there was a way to see them better. But it’s fascinating how formulaic people are in how they dress. And the names they selected for the “tribes” are interesting too.
Vildy – you know who features alot of that look I think you’re talking about? Vivre. It’s sort of a combination of traditional, glamorous, and romantic outdoorsy (that’s what I think you are talking about, that is).
Emily – all I can say is, “that’s what you get for shopping at Walmart”. 😉 And thanks for the links. I’ll check them out.
Hi Rebecca, could you please update my blog’s link on your site? I moved to a new address. It is http://www.ma-petite-chou.com. Thanks a lot!
Touche Rebecca… if they hadn’t been one of the only places open that sold Guitar Hero at 9:00 on a Sunday, I would certainly not have been there 😉
aw you guys 😀
I luuuuve tucking my pants in the ugg boots *and* I shop at Walmart – ya gotta have an eye.
Where I live it’s routine to see both men and women on the streets in fuzzy bedroom slippers so nobody noticed when my husband called to say he forgot his airport ID and could I find it and meet him. I did, in brown cord floral fleece lined sneaker boots from Walmart 😀 and a men’s flat fleece plaid bathrobe, vanilla, brown and indigo. Nobody looked at me twice, though it *was* dark. The floral boots, though, strangers call out to me how much they like them. I’m a very young 59. 🙂
I’ll check out that Vivre, thanks.
I think Emily’s describing what I call a ‘gangsta girl’ and even if Vildy’s peers have clothes that could be seen as the same, the overall appearance probably doesn’t come across the same way. 🙂
What a fun exchange! Good work, keep it up.
ohh Tia, good one. You’ve got the look in most of this city down: gangsta girl. I sometimes do borrow elements of that to keep me safer on the streets and looking like I live here and am not here from the suburbs to buy drugs. My 20 year old son deems any look where the older woman is anachronistically overdressed and too matchy with accessories as “crazy looking” (frozen in time and leaning toward senile dementia) and sometimes he laughs approvingly and calls me Gangsta Mom when he thinks I fit in and am not calling attention to myself. If I’m too colorful it’s Hobo Clown or with my faux fur hat Russian Hobo – “hobo” means vagrant here. And the best of all is “You look PRETTY!”