Blame it on Louis XIV

When it comes to fashion, you have to admit that women seem to accept some really dumb things that men have either never been subjected to or have skillfully managed to avoid.

Let’s start with shoes. Up until the year 1630 men and women wore the very same style and cut of shoe but somewhere around 1660, during Louis XIV’s reign, women’s heels started to get higher.

Coincidence? I think not. I’ve chosen to blame that mishap on Louie himself. History tells us that his vanity went beyond the legal limit and he would not permit anyone to approach him in any aspect of his life, from military to millinery. With this in mind I’m convinced it was he who mandated that women should stand unnaturally and uncomfortably in high heeled narrow shoes meant to be worn by people with only three toes.

Louie’s reputation as a womanizer probably also influenced his desire to glimpse a little ankle under those masses of stiff scratchy crinolines and the added shoe height served to raise women’s skirts and men’s hopes. It didn’t take long for shorter skirts and higher heels to catch on. And today women’s heels and hems have gone as far as they possibly can without exceeding hazardous boundaries.

Will women stop at nothing to be stylish? When it comes to fashion, women are crazed robots. They want to express their uniqueness — their individuality — but they don’t do this until they’ve checked out what everyone else is wearing, so they can duplicate it.

This past week I tapped three different women on the shoulder and gently pointed out that their bra straps were showing. I thought they’d want to know. I sure would. Little did I know that these women were actually following the latest fashion. Can you believe it? Bra straps in plain view are currently fashionable? Who thinks of these things? I would wear my entire bra on the outside if I could find one designer who thought men were dumb enough to parade around with their jock straps exposed.

It’s got to be really challenging for those who create woman’s trends — always having to come up with something new and innovative; micro mini skirts, glittering makeup foundations, freshly ironed hair, hair that looks like you got too close to an electric fence, denim formal wear, satin and velvet jeans, slinky black cocktail dresses worn with chunky army boots, silicone injected lips that are heavily lined and colored with blood red lipstick that end up looking like slabs of liver.

I saw a show on the comedy channel recently that depicted a woman out shopping. She came upon an exclusive boutique that was promoting its newest trend — a stake — to be worn through a woman’head — priced at $350. The shopper became indignant with the salesman because she insisted it was overpriced and she could get it elsewhere for less. This same woman was wearing the latest in women’s footwear — shoes fashioned from glass shards. I think that the fashion industry is largely made up of misogynists, who sensing that women will accept anything they create, without question, set out to humiliate them in the guise of high fashion. Every year these fashion gurus gather to display their designs and vote on which ones best meet Conference requirements and goals of making women look absurd in the coming year. In order to qualify, a good design must fit into one or more of the following categories: Bizarre, Tasteless, Ridiculous, or Precarious.

There are only two prerequisites to taking part in this conference; you must have been totally plastered when you created your design and you must be equally smashed when you take part in the voting process. The conference ends when everyone has at least one more for the road and has signed a waiver agreeing to laugh all the way to the bank.

Blackwell recently handed in his list of the ten best and the ten worst dressed women. First of all I’d like to know who made him King of Fashion. I agree that some of the people he’s selected as being poorly dressed do not dress to my taste either, but so what? I applaud them for their individuality and for having enough confidence and chutzpah to follow their own convictions and not bow to convention. Are we to assume that in order to be respected and accepted we all have to dress in cookie cutter creations? Yay Cher. Yay Madonna.

I could go on and on about this, but I have to stop now. Macy’s is having a fashion show and I absolutely must get a front row seat so I can see what outrageous outfits I’ll be wearing this spring.