BLOG: Ridiculous fashion staples. Have they invaded your wardrobe space?

By NICKY CHAMP

There is a cultural shift happening in fashion right now.

And it won’t surprise many dedicated followers of fashion as it’s probably already invaded their wardrobe space. And possibly unbeknownst to you – yours too.

It’s what we’re calling the advent of the ridiculous fashion staple. Something you would have never dreamed of wearing 10, five or even just two years ago is now something you can wear to the office/park/cafe without anyone blinking a sartorial eye.

Sometimes it’s the mash of several sparkly/printed garments that separately are not unusual but together culminate into a car crash print ensemble (but in a good way).

Case in point: here at the Mamamia office, Jamila often rolls out her green tutu dress, Mia owns a sparkly harness (it’s Sass & Bide and actually surprisingly versatile), Lucy is fond of sequined footwear, Nat frequently pulls on leather leggings and I have more printed kimonos and sequin caplets (an almost pointless piece of clothing) than several consignment stores put together.

Really, who can blame us for coveting such things as feathery tutus and beaded garb usually reserved for horses when fashion designers are sending all kinds of wacky pieces down the runway?

I’d like to present you with Exhibit A:

Renowned fashion journalist, Suzy Menkes wrote in her piece, The Circus of Fashion, about the more unusual outfits bloggers and fashion hangers-on are wearing outside Fashion Week events in order to get attention and therefore photographed for style blogs.

“Today, the people outside fashion shows are more like peacocks than crows. They pose and preen, in their multipatterned dresses, spidery legs balanced on club-sandwich platform shoes, or in thigh-high boots under sculptured coats blooming with flat flowers.”

“There is a genuine difference between the stylish and the showoffs — and that is the current dilemma. If fashion is for everyone, is it fashion? The answer goes far beyond the collections and relates to the speed of fast fashion. There is no longer a time gap between when a small segment of fashion-conscious people pick up a trend and when it is all over the sidewalks,” Menkes writes.

And now I’d like to present you with Exhibit B:

Left: The Vogue Japan editor-at-large Anna Dello Russo in an Alexander McQueen dress and sunglasses. Right: Bryanboy, a blogger, in Maison Martin Margiela headwear.

Unlike Menkes who has a love for head-to-toe black and a vested interest away from fashion’s new era of “show-offs,” I love that more interesting and fun pieces are filling our wardrobes. And truth be told, growing up I was always kind of jealous that the 90s didn’t have the deep rooted fashion subculture (and no grunge doesn’t count) that the 70s hippies and the 80s punk rockers had.

Maybe this could be the twenty-tens version? Is that a good thing or have I already drunk too much Kool-Aid?

What crazy fashion staples do you have in your wardrobe? Or what pieces are you coveting now that you would never have dreamed of wearing years ago?