September 10, 2021 - 11:30am
If you spent all your time online right now, you’d be forgiven for thinking fashion had arrived somewhere deeply strange. Every third girl on TikTok wears a ‘sub choker’ to make videos about doing laundry, while social media ads for an absurdly high-cut bodysuit recently caused a mixture of sniggering and nausea among the middle-aged women of my acquaintance.
Now, courtesy of yet more unsightly social media adverts, we can learn that the forward-thinking individualist should choose to empower themselves with slave shackles and accessories reminiscent of equestrian bridles.
German jewellery brand MYL’s ‘Rebellare’ collection offers these heavily fetish-themed treasures along with platitudes about feminism, self-expression and the terrible scourge of conservatism. The ‘Geschirrtasche’, for example, ‘an empowering fashion item’, is essentially a BDSM chest harness with a large wallet attached. The ‘Bold, Dominating, Empowering’ ‘Halskrause 1’, meanwhile, comprises a stainless steel neck choker connected by long rein-like chains to a bit designed to be worn in the mouth.
In response to such a barrage of poor taste, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in the offline world, women’s clothing has taken a strikingly traditional turn. M&S, for example, abounds with high-necked, long-sleeved, mid-calf florals:
Of course it’s absurd in a sense to measure Berlin clubwear on the same yardstick as clothing marketed at bourgeois Englishwomen. But I can’t remember a time in my adult life when trends for this latter group turned quite so conservative.
Doubtless Britain’s Muslim community is helping to drive demand; but it’s not just Muslim women who are gratefully embracing ‘modest activewear’ as a more appealing workout option than tiny crop tops and skin-tight booty shorts.
What strikes me about the rhetoric of radical self-love, stereotype-smashing and fetishwear as empowerment is how exhausted it feels as a trend — and how self-defeating. Who has the energy for standing out from the crowd, when that means dangling annoying bits of metal off your lower lip all day, impeding your ability to talk or eat?
In contrast, the ultra-trad turn in high-street womenswear feels like a mutiny against the long-unchallenged belief that clothing is a vector for self-expression — an idea that usually precedes someone trying to sell you something uncomfortable and expensive.
Old-fashioned styles like the one pictured below, currently in stock in Sainsbury’s, imply the reverse. That is, it can be possible, even desirable, to find blessed relief in dressing not for oneself but for others, in clothing that makes a selling-point of self-effacement.
And it’s not even clear that this is the option most likely to efface your self. After all, how much attention will anyone pay to what you’re saying, when they’re boggling at the fact you’re wearing a bridle and reins?
My hunch is that fashion is having a ‘your nan was right all along’ moment, as growing numbers of women twig that the less people stare at what we’re wearing, the more likely they are to listen to what we have to say. In other words, the mums of Middle England have a better handle than the club kids of Berlin on what ‘empowerment’ actually looks like.
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SubscribeMary the Mormon wife look has been around for at least the last two years. Funnily enough where I live no-one seems to be wearing the frumpy floral frocks, old and young alike, women I see everyday are wearing leggings or trousers. I think it’s a top down style, pushed by the fashion industry, an offshoot of the ‘I can wear frump because I am so uber fashionable that for me frump is fashion’ – witness the popularity of socks with sandles on catwalks and in fashion shoots. I don’t think you can draw any societal conclusions from it until a majority of women are wearing it.
The biggest change over the last couple of years seems to be the wearing of gymshark outside the gym. Can’t think why, but I fear the dread hand of the patriarchy in there somewhere.
But what is with the nose and lip, rings and studs, on women? I find them extremely unattractive. Ear rings in men are so stupid looking as well (unless you are a Seaman working out of Port Sudan or Dar es Salaam on a Clipper Ship. This also excuses the Tattoos, that and being a Military Non-Commissioned solider)
Any way, what is it with the mutilation self-art of the modern young people? Anything modest which covers it up is a great plus.
Let’s face it, 90% of women out there look like a hot mess on any given day. There’s no ‘style. It’s mostly athe-leisure wear or what I call ‘the hooker look’ which is worn by all ages desperate to hold back time. The feminine sex has lost-the-plot when it comes to dressing, perhaps it is because they are uncertain that they are ‘women’ on any given day – at least that’s what the Progressives would have us believe. That said, designers produce reams of unwearable clothes and the fashion magazine industry offers little inspiration for ‘pulling-it-together’, being more intent on photographing a ‘compelling and edgy’ narrative than letting the consumer actually see and understand the clothing at hand. There’s no joy in walking down the street and seeing nothing to look at or admire.
perhaps the frumpy clothes are being bought by actual hookers to distinguish themselves from the rest of the population. Or could frump be the new fetish? Wasn’t there a thing a few years ago about dressing like a 50s housewife?
Very true Mary.
hah, yes
Mary – the lack in this article is you failed to give us a side story of your youth, to contrast with the sobering up of the modern youth, which always adds something to your writing.
My local outdoor pool (in Vienna) is somewhere to observe these two diametrically opposed fashion instincts up close. Teenage girls (mostly of Turkish origin) splash around in groups: some wearing a full-on burkini while others frolic around in bikinis that would make a Victoria’s Secret model blush. A thong in a public swimming pool when you are 15? Really??? While the only reason I will defend a burkini is on skin-protection grounds, the skimpy swimsuits worry me a whole lot more. Young girls are so sexualised these days.
The frumpy look (lots of chunky knitted cardigans, florals, and large-rimmed specs) has also been popular among girls over here generally.
” … the less people stare at what we’re wearing, the more likely they are to listen to what we have to say.” Very noticeable in the House of Commons, where all the men are dressed much the same.
It cannot just be me. Well maybe it is. I cannot get my head around the idea of fashion. Just keep your clothes cheap and simple.
Make sure you look good naked.
I was in fashion for many decades and am not inspired by much at the moment. There is a blend of frumpy Mom’s jeans, crop tops, crop jeans, joggers – some of which I’ll wear, mostly I won’t because lockdown fashion dominates many age groups – joggers, leggings and anything comfortable.
Bored ‘of’? Sorry, cannot do that grammar.
Speaking as a man, and looking at the trends in mainstream male fashion since the early 1990s, I can only recommend that you be careful what you wish for. If you give up the choice to dress “immodestly” in certain situations when skimpier clothing or swimwear might be more practical and comfortable, you may never get it back in your lifetime. This has happened for us guys, and the expectation that we wear only baggy and concealing attire has become fully entrenched, perhaps permanently.
Desire the right to dress modestly, but while doing so don’t sacrifice the right to make other choices at other times.
Speaking as a man, and looking at the trends in mainstream male fashion since the early 1990s, I can only recommend that you be careful what you wish for. If you give up the choice to dress “immodestly” in certain situations when skimpier clothing or swimwear might be more practical and comfortable, you may never get it back in your lifetime. This has happened for us guys, and the expectation that we wear only baggy and concealing attire has become fully entrenched, perhaps permanently.
Desire the right to dress modestly, but while doing so don’t sacrifice the right to make other choices at other times.
There’s a contradiction here between “self-effacement” and “being listened to”.
The point is, surely, to take stupid fashions right out of the situation, to make space for more important things.
Obviously fashion is part of the lighter side of life, and there is something a bit amiss with people who centre their life on it. But short of that, who wants to be serious all the time and focus only on « more important things » whatever they might be.
You missed the point I was making. When clothing styles get in the way of more important things in specific situations, then they are a problem. For example, compulsory super-high heels forced on women in some work situations which detract attention from contributions they are trying to make to meetings.
To criticise some inappropriate aspects of fashion does not in any way imply I am against the “light side of life” in toto..
My comment focussed on “self-effacement” vs.”being listened to”: those are deeply serious considerations which merited a more thoughtful reply.
Linking the word “modest” to certain types of women’s clothing is in itself an assault on their personal freedom of expression.
It pre-sexualises clothing styles into one type, “modest”, or the other, “immodest”.
What we need is liberation of women’s clothing in its entirety from compulsory sexualisation. This applies to all women’s clothing, not just that of young teenage girls.
Is a wetsuit “modest”? Of course not! The amount of skin coverage is determined by need for protection from cold, wind-and sunburn. It is functional, non-sexual, well designed for a specific purpose.
There is also such a thing as elegance and beauty which has nothing to do with sexuality. Clothing can be well-cut, hang well, original… just think of a man’s suit.
The uncritical adoption of sexualised, sexist terminology in this article is unacceptable.
Surely you are not serious.
Yes, I’m serious. Women’s freedom needs to include space for us not to have to be perennially sexualised all the time. That extends to clothing options.
Is this a spoof. And news to me that women in wetsuits look « modest ».
from the name – Penny Lane – it’s either a spoof or your parents have a lot to answer for.
I’m quite serious. Fed up with never ever being able to get away from compulsory sexualisation of everything I am and do as a woman. Just basic feminism.
And you missed the point about the wet suit: it was an example of non-sexualised clothing, i.e. clothing simply performing a function.
And you are quite wrong about my name, which is, or should be, irrelevant to the point I was making.
Is it partly also the American influence of fashion along with the coffee shops and preppy straight laced clothing designs and lack of formal workwear. Everyone, not just the young, wear the same clothes everywhere as most of the time they just stare at screens or go to retail outlets.