Monday 28 October 2013

Fashion crimes

We've been talking about fashion crimes in the office recently - not necessarily because of outfits particular people have worn but more as a general line of conversation. We asked ourselves the big question: "What is a fashion crime?" Urban Dictionary's definition of a fashion crime is simple and to the point: "wearing clothes that do not match or look altogether stupid".

The old adage of "blue and green should never be seen" seems well known but can go just as well for any colour combination, so long as the second colour is green or cream and still rhymes (white and cream?). Surely that can't be right? I distinctly remember hearing that wearing red and green makes you look like a Christmas tree, but is that true for any combination?

We brainstormed a few more: double denim (especially double blue or double black), double leathers (unless you're immediately about to hop onto a motorbike), non-matching handbag and shoes, short shorts on people who are obviously not designed to wear short shorts (most people), mixing metals when wearing jewellery (gold and silver etc), brown and black, mixed patterns and prints (checks, stripes, different florals etc), red and pink, redheads wearing red (or pink), socks or stockings with open toe shoes ... the list went on.

But apparently fashion rules are made to be broken, as these examples show. That's when our resident office clown decided to put this theory to the test. She promised to turn up to work the next Friday committing as many fashion crimes as she possibly could while wearing one outfit. Then, we'd watch people's reactions and see if anyone called the fashion police.

She arrived at work in a blue denim jacket with tight black jeans, a patterned scarf (which is actually a dress) over a horizontally striped top, black suede high heeled boots with frilly white ankle socks that left a gap between the bottom of her jeans and shoes, then finished off the ensemble with a yellow smock and a brown belt.

How did she look? Strangely, quite fabulous. It would seem that certain people can get away with committing fashion crimes while barely raising an eyebrow. We didn't even take a photo as there was simply nothing to report - she even received compliments! I guess it's back to the fashion crime drawing board. Clearly, the rules don't apply to everyone.

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