We need trend setters to give ideas to young people these days. Aside from having creative designers with good taste, we need icons to wear them. I bet if Britney Spears wears elegant, more feminine clothes, many girls will follow.

This is the crisis we face today. We need to discover exemplary icons.

I agree with Lyon, we need icons - celebrities - to usher in the new trend of good-taste fashion.

We really need the retailers onside with this. I can’t begin to tell you how difficult it has become to outfit me and my children (esp. my daughters) nicely. I’ve been a mother of ten for 19 years now, and I’ve seen a lot of trends come and go, but it truly used to be much less time consuming and much less expensive. When one is on a tight budget and shopping is confined to the clearance racks at the mall (second-hand and consignment shops don’t always have what I specifically need), it really is tough. I’ve given many an entire Saturday up to finding a suitable outfit for someone for this or that occasion.

I think many an unattractive outfit is the result of someone simply giving up-- running out of time and money.

Oh my! What a dreary description! I can, very unfortunately, believe it though. Large cities tend to reflect the gray and rush of life in its fashion.

I don’t see that around me, however. I am in a midsize (and miswestern) American city, and I see a gorgeous array of embellished skirts, bandanna tops, embroidered jackets, print dresses, and the like. It could be that we are awaiting spring with every fiber of our beings (I live in a very cold climate), and so I wouldn’t be saying such things in January. (Black parkas rule those days.)

I would just like to say “Bravo!” to all those wonderful retailers who satisfy a real woman’s desire to dress beautifully. They are out there. It just might be that to find them, you’ll have to look toward the sunshine.

Oh please, Joanna, please look beyond the subway platform! There are probably legions of suburban mothers and “country” girls who should be the leaders in fashion, but you can take that role by sporting your gorgeous, colorful self at that platform, just daring the others to look in your direction for inspiration!

Admittedly, fashion is in my bloodstream (I am a fashion consultant). I watch these things closely and point women in the direction of the good (rather than the bad and the ugly). You can do the same.

Mary Sheehan Warren

In order to face this crisis, we need to have eyes to recognize exemplary icons. Eyes that see beyond the passion for fashion.

This job is done at home - by fathers and mothers - who educate their children and teach them how to use their senses properly.

To build a house is a tough task, yet to build a home is even a tougher one.

Ridiculous!  Wear whatever you want and please do not cry out for “feminine” clothing in others!!!  What I wear as a female is by definition feminine.  It’s my choice to wear what I please, and thank my lucky stars I am not in a backwards fundamentalist religious country that devises and enforces dress codes, as well as other strictures, upon women.

Dresses encumber movement, as do other “fashionable” items such as stilleto heels.  Pants, shorts, and the like, and running shoes or loafers are logical clothing selections: they do not restrict movement, nor do they cause a health hazard (i.e., slip/trip/fall, or simply twist an ankle).

bewaechterin

While I think the black pant is a necessary staple, I think I fall back on that too easily. But… there is a group of young women in NY that are trying to create a forum for young women to discuss true beauty and what it means to be feminine and fashionable at once. They’ve got a great blog (http://www.nyfashionforum.blogspot.com) and hold monthly meetings during the school year.

I was practically the only person at my boarding school who did not own a pair of blue jeans and was ribbed mercilessly about it.  I just never particularly liked jeans but the pressure to conform was enormous. bewaechterin, you have missed the whole point of this article!  There is no need for any fundamentalist to enforce a dress code in the UK.  We are perfectly capable of doing it ourselves.

P.S. Incidentally, Joanna, I think Mercatornet’s subs have misinterpreted your article.  You are complaining about the current fad for dressing down in which people predominantly blue and black jeans.  But the byline and picture suggst that it’s formal business suits with black trousers that are the problem.

hi
I liked that post I followed a link to this site (but not this page) from LAF.
Upon reading the first 2 comments I just thought something that was worth pointing out.
Lyon and Andrew metioned that celebrities should be giving us an idea of how to dress. to that I say both yes and no. It is true that celebrities should have more respect for other people in the way they dress (allthough I dont want to sound to damning). But I beleive that the women and men around us ...our friends, teachers, family members, community minded people and such are the ones that exert the greatet influence over our lives and the way we dress. allthough many people do copy celebs, I feel that it is mainly because they have been told that they should. You tend to copy the people around you, and if one person starts to copy a celeb then many other people will learn to look to them for inspiration. A lot more responsibility needs to be put on us, the public, to provide exellent role models amoung us that our young people can aspire to be like, can take tips from, and can respect.
thank-you
Liz