A Fluffy Blog
Nice day for a sulk
I’m finally through with my resits/exams and I am incredibly glad because I struggled with my art history course so much. Not because it went above my capacity to understand, and not only because I found it a highly one-dimensional course (art is never just art but an indicator of a certain zeitgeist so how can you only teach us one viewpoint? etc. etc.) but also because it quite simply completely ignored women’s liberation. One of the more telling examples is that only one woman in the Bauhaus is mentioned, whereas the director of the institute claimed gender inequality was over in 1919. This, despite the fact he only let women work in textiles (these women are not mentioned even though their designs are still being produced). This I know because I read and researched it myself, not because it was in my course. Does that not show you the zeitgeist of that time but also of the time this book was written and of the time this course was given? Does that not show you how women’s liberation happened but was only often executed on the surface (or not at all), but a deep-rooted misogyny on the inside? This is not the zeitgeist of the 1930s, but also of today. At least that’s what I conclude out of the overlooking of pretty much every female artist of 1900-1950. And if they aren’t overlooked, their autonomy in their own work is often completely negated by explaining this or this man told her to do this so and so etc.
It made me feel so incredibly alienated. I feel like it subliminally told me I have no right to study this, that I don’t have a place in the art world, and the world in general. It made me feel like I was going mad, because surely this course couldn’t be telling me this subliminally and/or consciously or not, right?
I can’t deny it; lately I’ve noticed an exponential rise in my anger towards (gender) inequality. So I wondered, do I have some sort of superfluous anger to vent and am I just projecting? But I realised, the older I get the more I start to identify myself as a woman, female and consequently the more I understand and feel the sting of gender inequality, the more I see that society’s image of a woman is almost completely opposed to how I feel. How I see myself as a woman, and how society tells me a woman should be is completely contradictory. There’s a giant discrepancy between those two images and it is extremely alienating to me. Man, is that how it feels to be a woman? Because it sucks, it suxxxxxxxxxxx.
That said, how amazing are these glittery sheep hair clips? Glitter. Sheep. In. My. Hair.
Fly me to the moon
It may have been my being absolutely and wholly broke, or an increasing tendency to eat, you know, actual food instead of ramen, or more admiringly a disgust in my own shopping habits but in May I made a personal pledge to not buy anything non-edible for a month. In the case of the latter, I felt pretty awful about this sort of undying urge to get shiny, new stuff, no matter what. And I have to say, seemingly unlike most in the fashion blogosphere I was inspired by blogs and blogger’s questioning of their own habits and general consumerist zeitgeist to stop shopping and live consciously rather than getting an even more consumerist urge to perpetually show new clothes instead of new combos of old clothes. And to be fair, when I think about it now, the latter is much more interesting. I find it quite inspiring.
So, I ended up not buying anything for four months up until very recently and I am planning on continuing this, no matter how difficult it may be with my soon to be newly acquired money. To keep that in check I’ve laid down a couple of rules.
I am mainly posting this for self-reference and hopefully an outside pressure to keep myself to these rules, hah.
1. Is it well-made and will it last for at the very least two years?
2. Will I wear it frequently? Or will I cherish it mightily and occasionally pull it out of my wardrobe stare, sigh wistfully and wear it while drunkenly dancing, holding a gin & tonic in one hand a brush for lip-syncing in the other on a lonely Friday night? (Let’s be frank here, we all need that kind of dresses –although not too many- , guys, even the men amongst us. Just saying.)
3. And lastly, but definitely not least as I must remember that I am still only a student: Is it in my price range? Or is it worth eating noodles for a month for? (It hardly ever is any more; I literally cannot stomach noodles any more. Oh, the heartache.)
+++ (edit) : at the very maximum one shopping trip per month unless I see a desired item that I’ve lusted after for months/years.
(These rules may not seem impressive, but if I have to keep to all three of these all the time, they are for me! Which might be quite sad…)
I’ve often reasoned that dressing up is my hobby and that I quite deserve buying a lot of stuff because that is basically my only hobby and the only thing I spend actual money on (aside from books) and even so most stuff I buy is really cheap and also second hand so why should I stop, I mean it’s totes okay for the environment? etc. etc. But really, there’s no need for me to have an unreasonably large collection of clothes so I’ve also recently donated four bags of clothes and one bag of shoes and 6 purses to good will and I am quite relieved. And I must remember this! Feel free to remind me of this post when you see some new dresses popping up here, because I kinda have a problem! :D
I am not stopping shopping completely though. I finally have money to spend on decently made clothes that aren’t second hand and 2 Euro a pop. And I am looking forward to buying from some independent designers or whatever, damn it.
Tigermilk
As it is written in the cheapskate clotheshorse bible, “thou shall not ignore a €2 vintage sale”. Therefore I am now the proud owner of 70s, floor-length, Swiss-dotted dress, but I don’t know what to do with it! I was thinking Picnic at Hanging Rock but I know I could never reach that lace-layered-majesty :(
Needless to say I need to cut off several centimetres as I am standing on the tip of my toes already in this photo and especially because I’ve decided to stop wearing dangerously high heels (sad times – hollow back). Could I make bows of said leftover fabric? But where to stick them? Obvs in my hair but where else??
What would you do with it? What do you think I should do with it? What could I do with it?
