The Citizen, 2001-05-02, Page 5Final Thought
Sons are the anchors of a mother's life.
— So/Modes,
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THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2001. PAGE 5.
Other Views
The confusion about high fashion
/
remember when it dawned on me that the
world of High Fashion was bogus. It was
back in the 50s and The Sack was all the
rage.
For those of you who weren't there, The
Sack was a dress style - if that's not putting
unreasonable demands on the definition of
'style'. It had no waistline and made the wearer
look like an animated garment bag. •
But it made a big splash in the media and
everybody talked about The Sack for quite a
while.
The thing I remember most clearly is that for
all the-talk, I never saw anybody, aside from
models, actually wearing The Sack.
And that, as far as I can see, is the one
abiding feature of High Fashion.
Each spring in Paris and London and Rome,
lizardy, androgynous gargoyles with names
like Dior and Lacroix and Izima unleash bony,
scowling models draped in the most unlikely of
costumes.
The models stomp and prance down runways
looking like death camp Barbies suffering from
PMS. They flounce about crankily as the
cameras flash and the fashion doyens scribble
notes - and then you never see those outfits
again.
Well, who'd want to?
i
' m sure that any readers who have a fair
amount of travelling under their belt have
stories to tell about times when Murphy's
Law was alive and well. For any who do not
know what this law is, it states simply that, if
anything can go wrong, it will.
While I have stated that I enjoy travelling and
always have, there are times when I have had
the distinct belief that this law was
concentrating all its energies on me.
How can I forget the time in Yugoslavia
when I was on a train going at a leisurely pace
from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik'? I was supposed to
change at some small station as the train I was
on was headed for Titograd (now Podgorica in
Montenegro).
The conductor told me he would let me know
when to change trains. Imagine my surprise
when he arrived at my seat and said he had
forgotten. We had just left the correct station.
The upshot was that I had to get off at the
next stop and walk the 25 odd kilometres to
Dubrovnik. Fortunately I had company. It was
a Yugoslav army officer who had been
subjected to the same treatment.
We were not, as the saying goes, amused.
It doesn't end there.
The day I was to leave Dubrovnik, I was
informed the train had been cancelled and I had
to walk the 25 kilometres back to the same
station to catch my connection to Titograd.
This time I did it on my own. There was no
army officer to accompany me.
Come to think of it, Yugoslavia was filled
with Murphys but I am only citing one bad
incident per country.
In Spain I sent my luggage on ahead to
Barcelona from Santander intending to pick it
up on my way out of the country. When I
arrived at the latter city, it was a Sunday and
-and the luggage department at the station was
closed. The wall between me and it, however,
went only half way up to the ceiling and it all
seemed a case of so near and yet so far.
I could see my luggage through a small
Recently in London, designer Alexander
McQueen sent a model out wearing what
looked like my grandmother's dressing gown
accentuated - I am not making this up — with
a gold-painted skeleton of a dog around her
neck.
I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of those at the
Governor-General's soiree.
I should add that the canine remains were
only slightly more emaciated than the ghoulish
wretch who was wearing them.
That's the other thing about haute couture, of
course - the models are virtually skeletons
themselves. In the world of high fashion, no
look is more highly prized than that of the
angry, half-starved junkie waif.
It's a look that may be on the way out.
Seems as if some people in the fashion
business are tired of riding on the backs of
clotheshorses who look like they should be
sent to the knacker's yard, rather than down
Raymond
Canon
The
International
Scene
window and, thanks to my fluency in Spanish
and the widespread tendency of poorly paid
clerks to be open to some form of bribery, I
managed to persuade a young employee to get
a ladder, climb over the wall and retrieve my
luggage.
That done, I added a bit to the bribe already
agreed on and away and I went, just managing
to catch my train.
At least Mr. Murphy let me have a happy
ending.
When I was in Athens, Greece, I bought a
ticket on a steamer that would take me to
Brindisi in Italy. However, when I got on
board, I found that my admittedly small cabin
had been overbooked and, since my ticket bore
a later time, I lost out. The boat was totally
booked and for this reason I spent the next two
nights trying to sleep on the deck.
The first night was not too bad, but the
second night we were on the Adriatic Sea and
it was, to put it mildly, rough. I spent a most
miserable time and was really glad to see
Brindisi harbour come into sight the next
morning.
Sleeping on decks was certainly. mot my cup
of tea.
Even Switzerland gets into the act, at least
partially. I was flying one time from Zurich to
Hamburg, with a change of planes in Frankfurt.
First there was a bomb scare at Zurich and we
fashion house runways.
Last year, fashion magazines in Britain
moved to adopt a code that would set a
minimum size for models. They also put
forward a motion to ban advertisements
portraying unhealthily thin women.
Not surprisingly, a lot of folks in the fashion
biz aren't too crazy about these ideas. The
British fashion mags, under pressure from
modeling agencies, advertisers and the models
themselves, kicked out the idea of changing
the image of fashion models.
I'm not surprised the fashion moguls are
satisfied with the status quo — I'm just
surprised there's any kind of public demand for
it. Who follows this stuff? And what do they
get from it?
High fashion. It's a cruel con job perpetrated
on women in the name of beauty.
Not that there's anything new in that. A
very wise person once wrote: "Taught from
infancy that beauty is a woman's sceptre, the
mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming
round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its
prison."
Mary Wollstonecraft wrote that - and she
wrote it more than 200 years ago.
To paraphrase the old ad: You haven't come
a long way, baby.
found our luggage all over the tarmac.
Sorting that out caused considerable delay.
We had just got off the runway at Frankfurt
when the pilot announced: "Ladies and
gentlemen. Due to technical reasons we are
returning to the airport." There was
consternation in the ranks when we looked out
and saw tire trucks, ambulances and police
lined up to await our landing.
We did manage to get down safely but never
found out what was wrong. Later (much later)
we were put on another plane but it was almost
midnight when we got to Hamburg instead of
the scheduled early afternoon arrival.
Fortunately there have been far more
Murphy free flights and trips but all this just
goes to show you that out there lurking is
Murphy and his Law, ready to pounce
unannounced on unsuspecting travellers.
Letter
THE EDITOR,
Before we send out our Perennial Swap
Membership list, "Lilies for Lupins", the
Communities in Bloom Committee would
welcome any new gardeners. The fee is small
compared to the rewards. Now is the time to
divide most of the perennials and we would
like you to take advantage of this offer for a
nominal $5 fee.
Also May 12 is the Communities in Bloom
committee fundraising blitz on the Car Wash
parking lot in Blyth from 10 a.m. - noon.
Watch for our advertisement. next week.
If you would like to help in some small way
to spring plant, fall cleanup, maintain a flower
bed, please get in touch with one of the
committee members or send a note to P.O. Box
130, Blyth, ON. We welcome any participants.
There is passion
Generally travelling in packs, they
appear at times a somewhat insolent
lot. Dressed in scruffy denim, or
drowning in baggy nylon, they demonstrate a
cavalier attitude, an insouciance towards life
and responsibility that often puts their world-
weary predecessors on guard.
Andre Maurois has said: The minds of
different generations are as impenetrable one
by the other as are the monads of Leibiz.
Now, I don't know about the monads, but
since the beginning of time the understanding
of teens by their elders has created not just a
few problems. It wasn't all that long ago for -
me to recall how fashion tie-dyed my mother
into anxious knots of confusion. "She can't
possibly be thinking of going out like that."
To the consternation of our parents, my
peers and I idolized bands with long hair and
preferred a somewhat unkempt appearance
over the neat and tidy bobby-soxers who went.
before us.
But if they could forget being puzzled by our
look and behaviour, if they found a way to go
beyond all that, they saw there was passion in
our hearts.
Today the rock 'n', roll boomers have
reached middle age and now it is their turn to
peer into the interior of adolescence. To those
unfamiliar, it can be a daunting proposition
indeed.
But one need only have spent time at this
past weekend's Coffee House for Cancer to be
assured that beneath the slouched shoulders,
behind the sloppy shirts, are hearts also 'filled
with passion.
I have attended the coffee house for each of
its three years. It bega.i when a Madill student
got the idea that the multitude of talent at the
school could be showcased for this worthwhile
cause. Every aspect of putting together the
event was done by young volunteers aided
only by a staff advisor. From organizing
performers, to getting door prizes, to
advertising it has been handled with a
professionalism that belies their youth and
inexperience.
If that's not enough to impress, the poise of
the performers, the diversity and ability can be
humbling.
I have been, each and every year without
exception, awed by the talent, energy and
effort. It has been not just wonderful
entertainment, but emotionally inspiring. The
first year I wept when personal accounts of
how cancer had impacted lives were delivered
with an innocent poignancy.
The second year was a little lighter, but still,
the sense that these young people believe they
can make a contribution, that they can affect
change for the better was evident and moving.
This past weekend's House was no less so. I
was again impressed by the magnitude of the
project.
But perhaps, even more important is to be
reminded that despite any differences we may
have with them, the majority of kids are great.
This can be easy to forget I suppose when faced
with ugly stories in the media and quite simply
those differences. Young people are generally
never going to dress quite the way adults would
like. Their attitude may not always be perfect,
their ideas not always agreeable.
You can be assured, howevAltimpthey are
much more than 'what they woo. And the
coffee house is just one example of where to
find the passion in the heart of adolescence.
Discussing Murphy's Law of travel
people, Plants and Pride ... Growing
Together.
Sincerely,
Bev Elliott
Chair of Communities in Bloom Committee.
**4 •
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