Thursday 26 March 2015

What's Hot and What's Not



Statements like green is the new black make my blood boil. It is a ludicrous thing to say and highlights the worst façades of the fashion industry and other culprits who try to sell their wares to gullible fools and pseudo intellectuals at ridiculously inflated prices.

Magazines like the Style section of The Sunday Times are full of this kind of nonsense, offering, say, a pair of silver shoes at a ridiculous £400 just because they are currently in vogue and drive normally sane people insane because, apparently, they are the new black in the world of footwear.

Needless to say that Style usually goes straight into the recycling without its pages being turned – that is unless Mrs PM gets it first.

Mrs PM is a very sensible person and even she tuts and sighs as she reads the pages of this dreadful waste of ink and paper.

“Why do you read it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I usually only skim it and look at the Going Up, Going Down section."

She elaborated telling me that this little note at the side of one of the many pages of garbage, is effectively a filler which indicates what is currently cool and trendy, and what is currently on its way out.

I was slightly curious so I grabbed the most recent copy and had a look.

Here’s what I found.

At the bottom of the pile, rolling out of fashion faster than a mad dog on a ski slope, is The Shareable Coat.

What the flump is a Shareable Coat?

Surely all coats are shareable. I know that I have lent a coat to my lads who are now the same size as me, and also, like the gentleman that I am, draped it over the shoulders of Mrs PM and other female friends when it gets a little chilly. Isn’t that sharing a coat?

No. A Shareable Coat is a big scarf-like thing that two BFFs can share together (apparently BFF means Best Friend Forever but I reckon it stands for Bloody Foolish Females in this case).

You've got too much of the coat!
“What else is on its way out?” I hear you cry.

Well brankles or mankles (bloke ankles/man ankles) are hurtling down the fashion parade. Basically this involves men (or as I prefer to call them dickheads) rolling up their trousers or actually buying trouser that are too short in some cases to expose their manly calves and ankles.  I’m sure that women go crazy for such idiocy.

Really? Is this a good look????
What else? Oh yes – extreme aged steak. A steak is usually hung out for 30 days or so but in this case, the meat is left out for much longer, the longest I managed to find was 459 days.

459 days!

I would have made a pair of shoes out of it.

Do you want to hear the hot stuff? The stuff that is soaring so much that it is sizzling?

First, vinyl booties, which are thigh high multi-coloured skin tight boots that must be incredibly weird to wear. Apparently they simply MUST be Dior vinyl boots (that figures!!).

Before I go on, let me just clarify that these are for women so the chances of me ever wearing them are zero. To be honest, I can’t see Mrs PM wearing them either.

I'll bet it takes about two hours to put them on!
Also rising like a phoenix are canelés, something else I have never heard of. They are French cakes that have been around since the 18th century but, for some reason, are undergoing a resurgence of popularity.

Actually, I could probably eat one of these.
Finally, the most disgusting foodstuff known to man (apart from rhubarb) is right up there claiming a high spot on the hot list. I am talking about Oyster Happy Hours when you can apparently purchase cut price globs of disgusting rubbery seafood in shells and slide them down your gullet with your friends.

YEEEEEEUUUUUUUCCCCHHHHHH!!!!!
There are more items on this list but I can’t bring myself to write about them. One thing they all have in common is that they are almost exclusively consumed or used by slaves to the God of Style, a faceless entity that makes people wishing to be seen as cool make arse out of themselves by either looking ridiculous wearing or eating them.

It makes me laugh, more out of pity than humour.

Like pseudo intellectuals, these style chasers will pretend to love this stuff and will pay a fortune to have it. It’s no surprise to me that London is the centre for this overpriced hogwash, not the whole city, just the cool places, where it’s good to be seen and you can slurp you oysters before trying to chew on a battered old steak and diving into a container of canelés, all the time huddled in a shareable coat with your BFF while admiring the local dickhead mankles.

What a load of crap it all is.

Sadly, dear reader we are all slaves to the God of Style, simply because we have no choice about the style of clothes to wear (unless you want to buy all your clothes from jumble sales) although we do have a choice about what we eat.

Thank goodness we can pick and choose our own food. Give me a decent steak in a reasonably priced restaurant any time.

And please – no bloody oysters.

Do you want to know what I think is hot and what’s not?

Hot – The Plastic Mancunian!

Not hotThe God of Style. He’s like a modern artist and all of his followers are pseudo-intellectuals with more money than sense.

(Note to self: Please no more rants about modern art).

18 comments:

joeh said...

And 5 years from now these clowns will mockingly say "Oh that is sooo twenty fifteen!"


BTW
"Basically this involves men (or as I prefer to call them dickheads)" Very funny delivery!

Elephant's Child said...

I am so far from fashionable (in anything) I am in the frigid zone. Which suits me just fine. I don't like heat.

Dale Brown said...

I am convinced that people who write Style & Fashion columns are just taking the piss.
They must be...

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi EC,

You're not alone. You're in the majority.

Just like me.

:o)

Cheers

PM

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi Big D,

I totally agree.

I have to laugh when I read this kind of crap and my first thought is exactly the same as yours.

:o)

Cheers

PM

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi Joeh,

Ha ha! Yes - they will indeed.

:o)

Cheers

PM

River said...

Thigh high vinyl booties? Only in London. The rest of the world more sensibly wears knee high leather boots.
Those Caneles look rather nice.
Brankles do not.
I like rhubarb.

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi River,

I've never seen those vinyl boots around Manchester (though I am sure there are some posers who struggle to attach them to their legs every morning.

Rhubarb is disgusting and should be annihilated.

:o)

Cheers

PM

DrB said...

Dear Mr PM,
You got it wrong. Extreme aged steak is out while oyster happy hour is in, so a cool person will NOT be eating battered steak anymore.

If I can only eat one food the rest of my life, it will be fresh oysters. SO, I LOVE OYSTER HAAPY HOUR!!!!

It is a pity that mankles are out, I actually quite like the style, but Rob won't agree to wear them.

Can't understand Vinyl high boots, will have very sweaty legs and feet, unless you are wearing them in sub-zero conditions.

Mind Of Mine said...

As someone who has a keen interest in fashion, I couldn't help but remember the words of Anna Wintour.

'I think what i often see it that people are frightened about fashion. Because it scares them or make them feel insecure they just put it down. On the whole people that may say, the meany things about our world I think that's usually because they feel, in some ways, excluded or, you know, not a part of 'the cool group' so as a result they just mock it.Just because you like to put on a beautiful Carolina Herrera dress or a pair of J Brand blue jeans instead of something basic from K-Mart it doesn't mean that you're a dumb person. There is something about fashion that can make people really nervous.'

I look at avant garde fashions in the same way I do art and I enjoy and absorb seeing unusual styles.

Just because you don't like it or understand it, doesn't make it any less valid.

Although I can appreciate the scorn with vacuous editorials like the one in Style magazine but have you ever read something similar to Vogue or Elle? Serious fashions?

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi MoM,

Long time no hear. :o)

No - I'm not interested in fashion at all. Not one bit.

Mrs PM is, of course, and because of that I find myself having to dip a toe in occasionally.

Each to their own I guess.

I won't be reading Style again - unless I want to take the pee again.

;-)

Cheers

PM

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi DrB,

There's a reason Rob won't wear mankles - it's the same reason I won't wear them either.

Oysters are definitely an acquired taste - and I don't plan to ever try to acquire it again.

:o)

Cheers

PM

DrB said...

If you ever come to Melbourne, I will pay you A$100 to eat one oyster.

JahTeh said...

Oh dear, vinyl boots are right from the 70s and the height of cool until the 'ladies who service creeps for money' made them the uniform of the night. They only were made in white or black and they stretched over fat legs where other boots didn't. AND they did sweat and make the fat legs itch.

I stopped watching fashion at the end of the sixties when simplicity was elegant although the rise of the caftan still earns a gold medal for comfort.

And I can't believe after ditching the girdle and boned bras, Spanx is under many a movie star's dress. (ask Mrs PM, she'll enlighten you.)

Anji said...

Are you going to do a weekly what's hot and what's not?

What amuses me is that when the fashion gurus look back on the past they go on about what fools WE ALL were then.

I like to look because I occasionally accidentely am doing something hot. E.g. grapefruit perfume

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi DrB,

I might do it for A$1,000,000 if you're feeling generous...

;o)

Cheers

PM

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi JT,

I know what Spanx are - I've actually mentioned them in a previous post.

I prefer people to just be themselves to be honest.

:o)

Cheers

PM

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi Anji,

Grapefruit perfume? What on earth is that?

I'm tempted to do a weekly Hot/Not Hot post - but that would mean having to read Style or another terrible magazine.

Mind you, I could just take the pee I suppose.

:o)

Cheers

PM