Fashion statements

My sisters and I are dedicated followers of fashion ridonculousness. As such, we were all over Balenciaga’s new tote. First off, I wasn’t even aware that Balenciaga was still in business. I thought they went the way of the Jackie Kennedy pillbox – at about the same time. (Luxury gowns on TV when I was a kid were often from Balenciaga. Or maybe they were the gowns worn by the beautiful ladies in the Modess…because ads.)

Anyway, that blue “Arena Extra-Large Shopper Tote Bag” is causing quite a stir, since its price point – $2,145 – is quite a bit higher than the 99 cents that the lookalike Ikea bag will set you back. Come on, folks…

All I could think of was the I Love Lucy when the Ricardos and the Mertzes go to Paris, and Lucy and Ethel want Ricky and Fred to buy them some French couture. Instead, the boys fake up some designer duds out of potato sacks and feedbags. And damned if the fashion world doesn’t take up the look once they see the girls sporting it

All that money for a knockoff Ikea bag! I’d rather have the real deal and pocket the extra $2,144.

And then there are the jeans by PRPS, now available at Nordstrom, that sell for $425. We know that this is not, in fact, a crazy amount of money to pay for jeans. And we know this because we blogged about it last month when my sister Trish announced that the retail outrage of the day was $1K+ jeans that were inside out Levis.

Still, it sure seems like a crazy amount to pay for jeans that are covered in fake mud.

If I were the cultural appropriation police – which I’m not; the history of just about every culture other than some isolated tribe in Borneo is built on cultural appropriation, and I’m all for it – I’d say that the rich db’s buying these jeans are culturally appropriating the look of F-150 driving guys with calluses on their hands from doing stuff like hauling logs and mining coal. (And those guys wouldn’t be caught dead in those shoes, by the way. You could drop a concrete something or other on those nifty oxfords and break a toe. For the real muddy jeans wearers, we’re talking steel-toe.)

Will anyone really buy and/or wear these things? Are white collar white bros, now that they’ve voted in solidarity with blue collar white guys, looking to boost their testosterone levels by doffing the Brooks Brothers and donning the working man’s uniform?

Kind of like Marie Antoinette moseying around in a shepherdess dress.

Après nous le déluge, I suppose. And if the deluge is deluge-y enough, there’ll be plenty of opportunity for all of us to roll around in the mud getting our jeans dirty – without having to pay $425 for faux muddied gear that we haul to the laundromat in our $2,145 big blue bag.

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Sources:

Blue bag: Buzzfeed

Muddy jeans: HuffPost

Courtesy of my sister Trish