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Fashion-consiousness

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wishbone

Do you keep up with current styles?  

94 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you keep up with current styles?

    • I mostly remain up-to-date in clothes, home-furnishings, hair, etc.
      3
    • I keep tabs of the current trends and select what I like from them
      21
    • I do not really keep up with fashion.
      24
    • I set my own standards for style. I make my own fashion
      28
    • Fashion is for the fickle
      3
    • Other... post your views...
      2


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1)  I mostly remain up-to-date in clothes, home-furnishings, hair, etc.

2)  I keep tabs of the current trends and select what I like from them. 

3)  I do not really keep up with fashion. 

4)  I set my own standards for style. I make my own fashion. 

Let's be objective here for a moment and consider one of my favorite expressions. "When there is no bread in Russia buy leeks". 

Choice number two,  I keep tabs of the current trends and select what I like from them and choice number four,  I set my own standards for style. I make my own fashion  are not very different.  You can only create your own fashoin from what is available in the market place.

Now some may attempt to argue that you can create your own fashion if you can cut and sew, weave, or knit.  In reality you would have to be able to obtain all the raw materials to really create you own fashion.  What people do not know is that the color Gods set all the shade and tones of color in stone every tens years.  All our choices for clothing and furniture are made for us years in advance.  Then these are produced for the market place. Consumers  and producers then purchase these materials in the market place. No one really sets their own standards. We can only choose to choose from what has been cast and dyed for us.

ophelia

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My mother and i argue continually about how many clothes i own.

I work hard and earn my money and prefer to buy better made clothes that fit me well and help to exhance my good qualities and hide my negatives... She buys all her clothes and shoes at second hand stores, which i have no problem with. but she chooses things that do not flatter her, and she has no thoughts about her appearance. I tell her that is her perogative, but that I want to put my best foot forward, i want to show the best me possible.

That is what i think we should be doing with our fashion... I love the show 'what not to wear' because the hosts continually rant about not following trends, but finding the clothes that suit your body and your personality.

I keep track of fashion, but really pick and choose what (if any) trends i follow. I try to make what i wear my own.

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What happened to living your own life and not caring about the irrational opinions of others?  The two seem to be at a contradiction.

What about living your own life and caring about the rational opinions of others? No contradiction.

Also ---

What about enjoying and decorating your body with clothing and accessories and proudly displaying the result in public?

What about surveying the rich variety of ever-changing fashions available in the marketplace and choosing the ones that best express your values and meet your needs?

What about treating yourself to new and different items of clothing?

What about giving thought to and taking pleasure in all the aspects of your life, big and small, public and private?

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What about  living your own life and caring about the rational opinions of others?  No contradiction.

Also ---

What about enjoying and decorating your body with clothing and accessories and proudly displaying the result in public?

What about surveying the rich variety of ever-changing fashions available in the marketplace and choosing the ones that best express your values and meet your needs?

What about treating yourself to new and different items of clothing?

What about giving thought to and taking pleasure in all the aspects of your life, big and small, public and private?

I'm not arguing against any of these principles Betsy. I do disagree though with the view that you can't be a good Objectivist and not have a desire to be 'fashionable'.

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I do disagree though with the view that you can't be a good Objectivist and not have a desire to be 'fashionable'.

Michelangelo, may I ask WHOM you are arguing with? :confused: No one here suggested that you can't be a good Objectivist and not have a desire to be fashionable.

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...  You can olny create you own fashion from what is available in the market place.

... No one really sets their own standards. We can only choose to choose from what has been cast and dyed for us.

There is so much choice in the marketplace that one can easily set one's own standards by selection rather than by cutting and sewing.

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Michelangelo, may I ask WHOM you are arguing with? :confused: No one here suggested that you can't be a good Objectivist and not have a desire to be fashionable.

Right. "Fashionable" in this context meaning "in line with fashion trends." We do say it is impossible to not be concerned with how you look. (Thus, the example of the potato sack or hammer-and-sickle shirt)

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We do say it is impossible to not be concerned with how you look.

I like to put it this way: "I don't care about what other people think of me, but I do care about what I think of myself." (And this applies to every area of life, not only clothing.)

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I like to put it this way: "I don't care about what other people think of me, but I do care about what I think of myself." (And this applies to every area of life, not only clothing.)

How about - I am a narcissistic Objectivist who always feels good when she sees her reflection in the mirror as a breathtaking young lady? :confused:

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I think my disagreement stems from a different understanding of the word fashion. Obviously some people here think of it in quite a different way then I do. On the same note, I don't know if the term has been sufficiently defined in a way that all parties can agree on. I admit that my perception of fashion may be skewed; what with the mind dumbing anti intellectual channels like E! and the celebrity worshiping demon Joan Rivers.

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  • 3 months later...
Is it possible to be "fashionable" and "timeless" at the same time? What ideas do those terms name?

What would be a particular example of clothing that is fashionable and classic -- for a 60 year old male who shops only at Goodwill Industries, for budget reasons, who is very active in walking and bicycling throughout the day, and who already has all the hobbies he can handle?

What is the vice you see in wearing pleated pants?

Two words for you Burgess:

Khaki pants

Why?

Confortable, inexpensive and versatile (said the man who owns no jeans).

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What is the vice you see in wearing pleated pants?

Pleats bulge and make your hips look big. Take a look at your silouette in the mirror when you wear pleated pants. Sit down, get up and look in the mirror again. Don't just look from the front, turn sideways and look.

The no pleats rule goes for women too.

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I do not follow fashion, but I care about how I look. I alter my apperance purely for my own enjoyment and I do not care what others think of it.

My fashion sense is kind of a "feather in my cap," a representation of my values on the aesthetic level. Since my 'favorite' value is mental independence (yes, I know that my cardinal value should be reason, but 'reason as an epistemology' was never a radical, earth-shaking idea for me, it was obvious to me that it worked and that nothing else did, so I never considered faith an alternative), I dress in a way that I think portrays that. I paint my own portrait.

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  • 3 months later...
Pleats bulge and make your hips look big.  Take a look at your silouette in the mirror when you wear pleated pants.  Sit down, get up and look in the mirror again.  Don't just look from the front, turn sideways and look.

The no pleats rule goes for women too.

I'm a little sceptical when I hear reasons for fashions like pleats/no pleats and so on. My dad was a young man in the 50's and 60's; he wore pleated pants and then moved to "drainpipes". When I was young, I started with "drainpipes", moved to "bell bottoms" :(, and then to pleated pants. At any stage, there always seems to be some reason proferred. For instance, one fashion might be pushed because it accentuates a certain body part, while its reverse might be pushed because it masks the average-ness of that part.

One element of fashion is change for change's sake: just for the fun of it. Even fashions I never expected to see again (like flares, the tame cousin of bell-bottoms) make a come-back.

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One element of fashion is change for change's sake: just for the fun of it. Even fashions I never expected to see again  (like flares, the tame cousin of bell-bottoms) make a come-back.

The problem with this is that nothing seems to stay dead forever. I never want to see another peasant skirt again. Ugh. :(

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