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The Cerulean Top Smackdown Guide to Life
10 months ago
General
This… “stuff”? Oh, okay. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you.
You go to your closet and you select that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back.
But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue. It's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean.
And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner…where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin.
However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs.
And it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact…you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room…from a pile of "stuff."
This is the one clip from The Devil Wears Prada that everyone's seen. I think about it sometimes, like when I'm pulling on today's black jeans and t-shirt, or when someone around me feels a need to trumpet their contrarian opinions on subjects they know nothing about. Because loudly proclaiming your "individuality" somehow automatically makes you more interesting.
The books on fashion illustration I've been reading are informative. Yes, fashion illustrators rely on those stick-thin, elongated bodies on which clothes always look good, but these artists know that their task is to provoke an emotional reaction in the viewer. Everyone wants to look good, and in the fantasy world the artwork presents, the viewer imagines themselves, however fleetingly -- just long enough to feel something, some longing, some resolve to take their appearance up a notch. It's not much different from the time and effort that comic book artists and animators put into designing and executing characters' costumes. They have to be eyecatching, appealing statements about who the characters are and what motivates them.
What you wear is a code that others can read, whether they choose to do so or not.
You go to your closet and you select that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back.
But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue. It's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean.
And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner…where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin.
However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs.
And it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact…you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room…from a pile of "stuff."
This is the one clip from The Devil Wears Prada that everyone's seen. I think about it sometimes, like when I'm pulling on today's black jeans and t-shirt, or when someone around me feels a need to trumpet their contrarian opinions on subjects they know nothing about. Because loudly proclaiming your "individuality" somehow automatically makes you more interesting.
The books on fashion illustration I've been reading are informative. Yes, fashion illustrators rely on those stick-thin, elongated bodies on which clothes always look good, but these artists know that their task is to provoke an emotional reaction in the viewer. Everyone wants to look good, and in the fantasy world the artwork presents, the viewer imagines themselves, however fleetingly -- just long enough to feel something, some longing, some resolve to take their appearance up a notch. It's not much different from the time and effort that comic book artists and animators put into designing and executing characters' costumes. They have to be eyecatching, appealing statements about who the characters are and what motivates them.
What you wear is a code that others can read, whether they choose to do so or not.
