Life is Like Fashion

Some approach fashion in a highly structured and organized manner. They are concerned about fit, always look "put together" and are outwardly confident and in control. Career-minded, they plan a "successful" life and follow-through with every detail, including wardrobe. They are the upper-middle class.

Those in the lower-middle are lost in a chaos of current trends. Possessing no ability to self-evaluate and seemingly devoid of identity, their clothes wear them. They secretly want to be famous.

Some simply don't choose. Utilitarian and oblivious, the vast army of the working class unquestioningly toils along in pleated khakis and button-down shirts, maintaining the status-quo that ensures the wealth of the upper 2% of the population.

The poor focus on survival and use clothing solely for warmth and protection. No wonder they are reviled.

And then there are the upper 2%, who look a lot like the poor and seek invisibility. Their photographs are not in the tabloids. They don't have reality TV shows.

Changing our social status is nearly impossible. The markers that set us apart routinely change and eventually turn on themselves. Ultimately anyone who is trying to be "fashionable" reveals themself as "lower".

For what do we strive? What does fashion reveal about our culture? What does it reveal about our desires? Is it simply a class marker? Does it celebrate life? Whose life? Is it a vital art form? Who is excluded through the hierarchy of fashion, and why?