Seen at the launch of Neeeew Jaguar in Miami, with the actual photo caption:
All part of the Neeeeew Jaguar ethos, no doubt. What a shit show, in every sense of the word.
Category: Grooming
Every Minute
…a fool is born, goes the saying. And chances are that the first thing said fool will do is slap down $600 for a pair of… flip-flops?
I’m not kidding.
How the humble flip-flop became the shoe of the summer with unbelievable price tags to match
JHC.
I remember the wonderful little speech given by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, in which she schools ingenue Anne Hathaway about the importance of the color “cerise” and how great minds in the fashion industry planned its future appeal, years before it became “fashionable”. (Don’t bother looking it up; it’s dark- or cherry pink.)
I thought the speech was a great example of how easily people can be fooled into thinking that something of little value or consequence actually matters.
As an Olde Phartte of many summers, I can recall many stupid fashions — platform shoes, wide psychedelic neckties, wide lapels on suits, etc. etc.
But I never ever dreamed that fucking flip-flops — which should all be burned on a giant bonfire (along with their wearers*) — would become the new overpriced trend.
When I see F1’s Lewis Hamilton wearing a pair of Laboutin flip-flops in the pits, then I’ll know how far we’ve fallen.
Time for gin? I think so.
*Note: No snide references to Australians, the worst offenders in this footwear folly.
Not Alone
Seems as though I’m not the only one out there who is looking askance at the current “dressing down” (or as I refer to it, “prole drift”) of society. The redoubtable Laura Perrins of TCW* Magazine has an even more jaundiced view than I:
Never trust a politician without a tie
I’d post an excerpt, but her entire article is just too delightful for words, so go there now.
And while she uses Oily Little Shit Tony Blair as her exemplar of the Untrustworthy Politician genre, there are several Over Here, too. Like this fucking asshole:
Q.E.D.
*stands for The Conservative Woman — and has nothing to do with the Brits’ version of our Stupid Party.
One Out Of Three Ain’t Bad
Consider this pic of one couple’s happy day, and spot what causes my nuts to ache:
No, it’s not the bride’s tattoo — I’ve pretty much given up on that irk — and in fact she’s the only pretty thing at this little ceremony. Nor is it the female minister / ministress, who looks like she was just pulled out of a company meeting, complete with name tag. (FFS, if we’re going to have female priests, can they at least wear the fucking uniform?)
Anyway, none of those get up my nose as much as the groom’s medieval haircut.
This seems to be all the fashion nowadays, and I think it’s uglier than Hillary Clinton’s fat naked buttocks.
The only consolation I’m going to take out of this is that when his grandchildren look at Pawpaw’s wedding-day pics, they’ll laugh their asses off.
I’m assuming, of course, that he’s capable of actually fathering any children, because that’s not clear (unless the bride is already pregnant hum hum). Even then, her rather alarming stomach protuberance isn’t evidence of any prowess on his part, because that might be / probably is Homeboy Jamaal’s chocolate babycake cooking in her little oven, and this Ginger Childe Harold is just the substitute father.
And by the way: brown shoes at a wedding? Oh well, it least it wasn’t Adidas sneakers or flip-flops…
En Passant
In yesterday’s funnies I featured a meme which contained the following pic:
Am I the only guy who hates this “style” with a passion? It’s a modern one — it certainly doesn’t appear in any art or photographs before the 20th century — and I can only think that whoever first came up with it must have hated women, a lot.
Missing: Self-Respect
Dalrymple talks about how everyone’s all concerned about self-esteem, but completely lacking in self-respect.
Not only do people fail to make the most of themselves, they seem determined to make the worst of themselves, as if they were setting a challenge to others not to remark on them or pass a judgment about the way they look.
Actually, it’s worse than that. People are so caught up in their self-esteem that they think it’s more important than self-respect — in other words, that how they feel about themselves is more important than how others feel about them, and missing the point that both are important.
T.D. talks about clothing:
In England, fat young women (of whom there are lamentably many) squeeze themselves into unbecomingly tight costumes, like toothpaste into a tube. It is as if they were intimidating you into not noticing how hideous they look.
Well, yes; it’s the classic mark of the narcissist. And that attitude is just as prevalent in these here United States.
Look, I understand all that: goths, hippies, biker gangs, Mods ‘n Rockers (yeah, I’m dating myself badly here) and all the so-called fashion trends that bedevil every generation.
All of them, however, have one thing in common: they denote that the wearers are societal misfits.
Since I passed the age of adolescence, where such nonsense was important, I’ve always had one or the other of these self-imposed restraints on myself whenever I leave the house: would my Mom / wife / grandfather be ashamed to be seen in public with me, dressed as I am?
If the answer is even marginally “yes”, I change my outfit.
And quite frankly, if there’s anyone who doesn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks of me, that would be me. But I care, deeply, about what my close family and -friends think of me, and that reflects itself in many aspects of not only my dress but also in my behavior.
Alone with my male buddies, I’m a total lout. In polite company, I’m a different person altogether.
It is the habit of a lifetime, drilled into me by parents, boarding school, the army and wives; and frankly, I’m too old to change my ways now.
In a business setting, for example, I’m always well-dressed (suit, tie, polished shoes and all that) and likewise groomed (neat hair, trimmed beard, clean-shaven and nice-smelling).
So when I go to a company and see a bunch of men with scraggly beards, clothing which looks like they were slept in and with body odor to gag a vulture, I honestly don’t care about their self-esteem; I just find them repulsive — and no matter what, I can’t take them seriously.
Judgmental? You bet your fucking life I am.