thoughts: the feminist fashion blogosphere

art by julia pott

lately i've been thinking long and hard about how and why i blog. this is mainly due to some major changes in my life that came about this fall. due to the fact that i've been working full-time for the past month now, beginning renovations in my apartment (inspiration tumblr here), on top of all the normal things life throws at you, i've found my "free" time in short shrift these days. i've had to give up volunteering at the thrift store around the corner after a year of doing so, and really have to focus on how to manage that "free" time. as of this fall, i've decided to let my etsy store close up quietly, letting the listings expire without any kerfuffle or big sale or anything. i've been changing little habits here and there in an attempt to cut back on bad time wasting habits, and have been constantly trying to remind myself what situations are not worth my time. there are simply not enough hours in the day.

"Rheinmetall / Victoria 8" by Rodney Graham. 2003, (Detail) 35-mm Film

but one thing i simply can't put aside, however, is my writing. i've decided, over the past few weeks, that i absolutely must find a way to radical restructure the way i spend my time so that i can write. having a partner who is a part-time poet helps; suggestions of putting aside x amount of time a week to sit down with a cup of tea and setting (realistic) deadlines for myself have been much appreciated. coming from someone who has published a few books, i'm hoping these changes work for me too. i know my biggest problem is that i simply try to juggle too many things all at once: my friendships, my photography, my love of vegan recipes, affection for vintage clothing, passion for my politics, and then coming in last and sadly often least, my writing (about those aforementioned things).

i love writing. i have a huge passion for trying to express my (often overly complicated and elaborate) ideas in an accessible, online space, which is why this blog is here. but the thing is, i don't do enough of it and don't have the time to do my ideas justice. right now, i have 39 files in my "drafts" folder for this blog. THIRTY-NINE. i tend to feel so overwhelmed about where i should even begin, trying to write for a bit, feel anxious and get no joy out of it, and then i end up not writing anything at all. no good. however, last week at work, i sat at an absent co-workers desk (whose work i greatly admire) and saw this quote taped to her computer monitor:

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.

those soothing words of reason come from William Zinsser (who, ironically, i have never read). this is something very few people remind me of and that i need to remind myself of more often. writing is work. it is valuable, but it is also difficult. lots of people in my "real" life view my blogging (whether it be the more personal stuff, the absurd stuff, or the very public stuff that you are reading here) as optional and relatively unimportant, and definitely not as what one would qualify as work. and as an anarchist, this is something i struggle with: the search for redemption in the very classic 9 to 5 grind (which, might i add, when you are a journalist feels more like a 24/7 grind) is an endless one simply because it does not exist. it all depends on how and why you work, in my opinion. in the past, i've been let go/pushed out of jobs because i am an independent worker/thinker, which in the employment world means "issues with authority figures" and "insubordinance."

ni dieu, ni maître (self-portrait) november 2010

here at my blog, and in a lot of my favourite kinds of work, i am the one who calls all the punches which has its advantages (i get all the credit!) and disadvantages (very few people but me see it as actual/valuable work!). writing (and by extension, blogging) is work, and i'm going to try to treat it as such. find satisfaction in it as work, feel satisfaction when i accomplish goals i set for myself... even if they are as small as "post a picture the same month/year you took it."

clearly i've talked about these issues with friends who read blogs and read mine. here is a wise piece of advice from iris:

Re: blogging and real work - it totally is (real work). I think you should do only as much of it as you can handle. I really was feeling like I had to keep track of thousands of things at once, my whole life was being processed through this blog filter, like, I need to write about this! This person would love it if I linked to that! It was tiring and you're right, there is no credit in it. I like the tiger beatdown model of "oh shit it's asking for money time again, pay us or we won't post".

this leads me to another point: lately i've been thinking that the simple act of valuing and viewing critical fashion blogging as "work" in and of itself is a feminist act. a close friend of mine asked me why i call my blog a "feminist fashion blog" because i very rarely talk about feminism/feminist issues. i beg to differ. i could ramble on ad nauseum about why i find this space a feminist one, why if you take any of my articles i could give you reasons why i think they are feminist... but i think most of my readers get the point without me having to spell it out. but again, the blogosphere itself is ripe for criticism. the fact that, yes, "anyone can create/have a blog," does not negate that fact that some blogs are deemed more important, reputable, serious, and worthwhile than others... and that these things are constructed through a gendered, race, class, etc. lens.

think about it for a minute: almost all of the most popular blogs (whether or not we discredit gossip blogs) are written and run by men. most of them write about typically gendered "manly" content, such as business and technology. it would be hard to argue against the fact that when men blog, more people tend to take note and more people take them seriously. pair the fact that most fashion bloggers are women, on top of the fact that fashion is hardly seen as a worthwhile or serious enough topic to merit actual critical thought... and here we have what i think is a perfect formula for dismissing fashion blogs as unimportant and frivolous.

art by j. bee

but i am getting off-topic and wandering into unresearched territory. i am writing about the very politics of writing in this space because even though i might be posting less and less, i don't have any plans of retiring this platform. but! i do feel like my readers aren't getting the attention they deserve. i don't have the time to respond to all of the comments and emails i receive, and do justice to the thoughtful, beautiful, and complicated questions so many of my readers ask me. this does not mean they are not valuable or important; rather it means that the world often spins too fast and the bank account too empty to allow me the time to show you that i care.

i just wanted to very quickly acknowledge the most common inquiry i receive: how do feminists who are interested in fashion marry their politics with their critical minds? i don't have a simple answer to that, other than the fact that it is possible to be a feminist and love fashion (i would just encourage you to love it critically).

as long as women will be judged, by their peers, by their families, and even by a court of law, by how they dress, fashion will be a feminist issue. as long as women are told they are what they wear, what brands they wear, how much money they spend on their clothing, etc....fashion will be a feminist issue. as long as fashion advertisers objectify women in order to sell their clothing and products, fashion will be a feminist issue. and basically every time someone asks me "is x a feminist fashion issue?" the answer tends to be yes.

so in the end, i suppose this post is just a really long-winded thank you to all of those who read what i write, who link to my articles, who leave comments, who send me thoughtful emails and curious questions. it's really wonderful to know there is an audience out there who not only wants to read what i write, but engage with it.

2011 will bring big changes to à l'allure garçonnière, and i hope you will be along for the ride, with all its ups and downs. thanks for being along for the ride.

in the meantime, seeing as i have surprisingly never done this before, here are some of my favourite blogs which present themselves as feminist take on fashion.

threadbared
fashion for writers
good morning midnight
fashion abecedaire
fat fashion feminist: whatever the f i feel like
definatalie
nicolette mason
i feel pretty
worn journal
dapperq

if you have any other suggestions, or feel like your blog fits the bill, feel free to leave them in the comments!

LINKS:
F bombs at Threadbared
Is a Feminist & Queer Interest in Fashion Possible? at Good Morning Midnight
Why I feel guilty when I don't blog at Threadbared
Post Feminist Fashion Guilt (i take issue with the term "post" feminist...)
Retail: It's Complicated (the rise of "fast fashion") at Feministe
Feminist Frequency YouTube channel

inspiration: advanced style

this weekend, i was walking down la rue charest on a sunny afternoon, and an older woman caught my eye. she was a waitress leaning out of a window, speaking with a friend. her hair was bright white, except for a streak of neon pink and a dash of purple. on her left upper forearm, there was a small tattoo of a little unicorn's head in black and white. i was in awe. i find it so incredibly refreshing to see older women not get trapped into those boring "how to dress at 40, 50, and 60" scripts that all too many "women's magazines" promote, but at the same time can you blame those who do subscribe to that ideology?

just by taking a quick look at mainstream fashion magazines, we see that the message is overwhelming the same: you are either dressing too young or dressing too old, especially if you are over the age of 30. since you are no longer simply a sex object (with the assumption being that you are a hot sexual nubile young thing in your teens and twenties, but when you're in your thirties you are either a mother, wife, or career woman, or better yet all three!) then you're not really worth looking at or pandering to. advertisers will try and sell you the idea that if you buy our clothes, you will look as young as our models, you will relive your youth, etc. etc, because aging/being old is so completely horrible.

of course, there are exceptions to this boring sexist ageist script. every once in a while fashion magazines turn the attention on their own, like grace coddington, and the runway history makers like linda evangelista, naomi, and kate. but even while purporting to celebrate women of "all shapes and sizes," we all know this is a joke. even with articles hidden in the back, or one editorial that celebrates an actress or singer who is in her forties, older women are constantly being erased or worse, policed. year round, we see that their covers (think of elle, vogue, allure, etc.) feature almost exclusively women in their late teens and early twenties on their covers. the exception, of course, is made when they publish their "age" issue, which now shows skinny, blonde, white women in their 30s! how revolutionary.

gwyneth paltrow (37), uma thurman (38) and kate moss (34) grace the covers of the vogue "age" issues (age when they were on the cover)

but back to my love for the style of many older women i pass on the street, at thrift stores, at the grocery store. one of the main reasons i believe fashion magazines don't pay attention to older women on a regular basis is because they know most of them simply do not give a shit anymore. clearly this is not universally true, but for the most part i think it is easier for younger women to put all the emphasis on their appearance and to buy into the scripts fashion magazines sell them because they are the target audience. they are being pandered to, they see themselves, or at least someone they could aspire to look and/or dress like all the time so it is easier to buy into those illusions and fantasies. based on what many older women have told me, and the conversations i've had with them about fashion and clothing, you often have a better idea of what you want, like, and need which makes it all the more simple to not give a shit about what a fashion magazine has to say about your choices.

seeing this stylish woman this weekend was not the first time i have loved the style, demeanor, and fashion of a person twice, or perhaps even thrice my age, and it's a question that has been on my mind lately. my friend anne-marie has been expressing frustration at ageism in the fashion and beauty industry. around the same time, jezebel posted about a german magazine called brigitte which recently stopped using professional models, and now often posts the age of the "real" women participating in their photoshoots. last but not least, hellovagina was posting some amazing photos of stylish older ladies on their tumblr.

but honestly? the fashion blogging world isn't much better than the fashion magazine industry when it comes to representing older women. anyone who takes a quick glance at fashion bloggers will see that it is a relatively homogenous group; almost entirely white, mostly female, relatively thin (at least falling into the "straight" size category), able-bodied and young. 14 (including tavi) to about 30 years old, max. there are a lot of factors that could lead to this (it's a new technology, youth-target audience, etc), but i'll leave it at that seeing as this post is not about deconstructing fashion bloggers or even criticizing them. rather, i want to call attention to how, in some ways, the fashion blogosphere has created at least a small space for us to call attention to and celebrate stylish older women.

to cut to the chase, here are some pictures of some particularly stylish and savvy older women.

iris apfel

chantal thomas (loving everything except for the shoes)

lynn yaeger

mimi weddell

some photos from one of my favourite street fashion blogs, hel-looks.

Annikki

maritsa

hel-looks

all from hel-looks

and i even found some from a few of my favourite photographers:

photos by diane arbus

the critic, 1943 by wee gee

even the most recent CocoRosie video indulges my love:

as my wonderful friend iris says, "i don't plan on my twenties being my most fashionable decade."

the wonderful helen mirren.

but before i go, i want to make one thing particularly clear if i haven't already; i want to celebrate older ladies style, not police them. i feel like the only conversations we have about older women and their relationship to fashion is how to look more youthful, how to hide the fact that they are older, etc. but i like to think that most of the women whom i posted photos of are the kind of women who say fuck off to those rules. they are the ones who have gotten to a point where they simply do not give a fuck what a fashion magazine has to say about their choice of clothing, or their bodies, etc.

but don't let me have the final word! who are your favourite stylish older ladies? are your grandmothers particularly stylish? share photos! links!

my three all-time favourite stylish older ladies:

anna piagi

orlan

louise bourgeois

LINKS:

advanced style
the old ladies rebellion

oprah article on lynn yaeger

what a major ladymag looks like without professional models on jezebel

SHITTY LINKS:

are your clothes too "tween"? on the Tyra

currently reading: cat party

anyone who knows me knows of my fondness for cats (well, of animals in general). so when i discovered i love cat party, i was excited and happy to find a blog that combines a love of cats, a love of fashion, and a combination of the two.

seriously.

favourite posts include:

• a post about what her favourite L Word characters would wear to a christmas party.
• film stills from movies about badass punk girls
• a love letter to alber elbaz
• an homage to isabelle huppert, oh be still my heart/loins
• masculin féminin appreciation of annemarie schwarzenbach
• bobs and bad behaviour

louise brooks in pandora's box (g.w. pabst, 1929)

• photos of a young kate bush
  
• people we love: edwige belmore, with this choice quote:

  Edwige is so cool, she makes Edie Sedgwick look like Stephanie Tanner.

aaaaaaand last but not least, colette with cats:

i love her sense of humour, love of pop culture, and little hilarious jabs at celebrity worship. the perfect balance of kitsch, ridiculousness, and awesome taste. just what i needed to waste my thursday afternoon.

that is all.

have a nice day!