Last week Myer and David Jones launched their autumn/winter collections to fashionable A listers across the nation. The frenzy got me thinking about seasons and how some things are only meant to last a little while before we are forced to wake up and smell the roses (or be pricked by the thorns).
The Morning Show aired a segment where gossip columnist Shelly Horton, interviewed guests at the Myer fashion show on fashion faux pas – the do nots and the please-don’t-mentions of fashion mistakes from today’s fashionstas. The segment had me wondering, what other forgotten trends did we wish to keep buried in our closets or to donate to someone else.
If one man’s trash was another man’s treasure, was giving old loves the boot an act of kindness and goodwill to the universe or was it a blunder on our end for not keeping something that may be valuable in the future? When is foresight an investment and when is it delusion?
As I started thinking of fashion trends for autumn/winter, I was surrounded by friends with relationships reaching the end of their season and that’s when fashion met relationship. While retail therapy is always in order, at a less superficial level, I wondered about how many couples nakedly reveal the truth in their relationships, how much truth can a relationship handle and does the removal of our cool (mostly fashionable) exteriors bring chilling change to a couple that moves them from summer loving to an autumnal period where leaves fall and are eventually replaced with new ones?
One friend took the end of her relationship to be an investment; like a Burberry trench – the end of her relationship meant the shedding of girly trend-pieces and the start of classic-cuts. These cuts would hold her better than her last trench, support her shape as she grew in her new career and hopefully (for what you pay for a Burberry coat) would last a lifetime.
It’s trench warfare! Except on this battlefield, new wars (sometimes just as mental battles) begin with each season because every weather change sheds new light, forces us to rid of old trends (sometimes the enemy) and if we're wise, inspires positive changes towards new changes that fit better.
My other friend told me about facades that both she and her partner were wearing for a period of time. They were both wearing the same coat: the we-are-fighting-but-smiling-through-it-and-maybe-if-we-fake-it-long-enough-we’ll-convince-ourselves-we’re-ok coat. A passive rage was building between them and an inferno of contempt for each others neglect made the coat too hot to handle – it had to come off. With a step away from a fad that had long phased them, a little distance and a new perspective made the coat look ugly and unwearable. Time to donate the coat to the needier or the less fortunate (however you choose to see it).
This is where curiosity stepped in about trash and treasure. If everyone was ditching an old love, this would set new people into the single-sphere and men and women alike would have a few more options to choose from. Sometimes antique is attractive, vintage always seems to travel back into our wardrobes but others find no substitute for what is shiny and new.
If new is better then we’re all screwed, because everyone is an old love of someone else. What is good about what is old is that it is also matured, experienced and every season it’s given a fresh spin.
My love and fashion lesson suddenly took a turn I wasn’t expecting it to – I learnt that everything comes to an end, that what we learn from each relationship is similar to what we learn from a fashion faux pas – what not to do again...but when we recycle that knowledge we learn what we should do, then new coats look better, feel better and eventually become trans-seasonal and among the recycled, we might find a classic piece worth keeping.
