Cape Town - Being a lifestyle editor takes one down some interesting paths.
This week I came across a wonderful video. It's an advert for clothing giant H&M, encouraging people to bring their unwanted clothes in for recycling.
There are no rules in fashion says the video, as it stylishly encourages people to break those rules by wearing brown shoes after six, wearing a hat indoors, showing your pantyline, mixing red and pink or even wearing yellow if you are blonde.
Oddly, on the same day I was being entertained by this, I had come to work wearing a blue dress and a purple scarf (this happens sometimes when you leave the house in the dark, before 6am). Now, blue and purple do not “match” and wearing non-matching colours is Against The Rules.
Some of the H&M rules are foreign to me (I had no clue about the brown shoes) but the colour-matching thing was drummed into me a long time ago.
There's an even more important rule, established in my teenage brain by a terrifying sewing teacher, and - believe it or not- part of the syllabus: Do Not Show Your Bra Straps.
To this day I feel a little shock at the casual way bra straps are visible, everywhere, all the time.
My own bra straps stay modestly inside my clothes, no matter what pretensions I may have to individual style. That teenage girl lives inside me,still.
It's not just fashion where there are rules, it's our bodies too: this week came news of the “thighbrow” - apparently it is desirable to have some kind of fold between one's thigh and body. So if you are not worrying about being thin enough, now you can worry about not being the right kind of curvy. Sigh.
The grown woman in me rails at all these rules, all these cultural ideas about what woman should and shouldn't do, the way we carry these rules in our heads and use them on ourselves (and our friends) all the time.
But I know that I am really never going to be able to wear red and pink together. That's a teenage girl thing.
* What are the most ridiculous fashion rules you ever heard? And which ones must you always obey? Please use our comment form below to share.
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