There are lots of things I don’t understand. Most of them are in fashion. The “tights-as-pants” phenomenon, for a start. I really don’t get it. Srsly. I don’t say this from jealousy – I think I have lovely legs. Nor do I say this from some misplaced sense of aesthetic sartorial snobbery; I wear chain-store clothing and have never bought designer in my life. In appropriate circumstances, tights are great. For example, I wear tights under skirts to stop my legs turning purple and falling off in the cold. They’re not pants, though. The whole point is that they just make your legs another colour – they don’t hide anything, they add no air of mystery to the proceedings. It takes a skirt or shorts to do that. Maybe I’m just old before my time, but I’m thinking that the day of catsuits can’t be far off if this keeps up. Every woman will be dressed like 7of9 and then we’ll be assimilated by the Borg. Doom will ensue.

I also don’t get women who wear makeup so heavy that it looks like you’ve rolled your face in spakfilla, spritzed a bit of cheese powder on top, and then taken to your eyes with a sharpie marker. I understand that a lot of folks still subscribe to the “bronzed deity of your choice” aesthetic, but folks – if you bought your foundation when you were brown from the summer, don’t wear it when you’re pale from three months of cool and cloudy weather. Use tanning moisturiser. Same goes for smoky and sultry eyes – there can be too much of a dubiously good thing, so go easy on the eyeliner. Otherwise, you risk looking like you went face-first into a vat of cheese and bacon balls for breakfast and picked up two black eyes on the way.

Just so you don’t think I’m picking on my fellow women exclusively – white guys in Gangsta fashion. I really, really don’t get this. As a white Australian male you have access to government sponsored healthcare, a good education system, and relative freedom from oppression. Why, then, does this subset of “white Australian male” choose to mimic the dress, speech, and action of a demographic from halfway around the world, who may only be two or three generations removed from slavery and thing-hood, who still have to face prejudice and disadvantage in everyday life? I know that a lot of these white Australian males are from poor families with low education, but still – it seems like a big leap. Why the adoption of a violent American culture rather than a continuation of boganism? If you have any research on this topic, then by all means let me know.

So, maybe I’m just out of touch, maybe I’m a sartorial heathen, or maybe I just don’t understand being a slave to fashion. What don’t you understand?

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