Fashion Forecast: Stormy

There are years when fashion is alive with a sort of electric promise, when each collection is a wildly inventive and witty romp through the wonder of clothing and last year’s styles by comparison seem frumpy and full of odd, useless accoutrements—such as shoulder pads. This year is not one of those years.

This year in fact makes last year seem like a glistening beacon of originality, and leggings a glorious flattering invention (I know you may find this hard to believe; I do too, because I looked like Jean Paul Sartre in my leggings). 2007 boasts universally unbecoming trends such as huge puff sleeves, mid-calf length skirts, mod-shift dresses and, horror upon horror, cigarette pants.

Sometimes, while daydreaming in a particularly horrible lecture about the life of Wordsworth, for example, I fantasize about what designers were thinking when they designed this year’s collections. Did they all think that huge sleeves look good on all women? Did they? It is with this combination of healthy skepticism and vague wonderment (which is much like the attitude I preserved while looking at the findings in Parisexposed.com) that I present the trends of 2007.

Mod Mini Dresses:

I don’t know if you agree but I feel like the past couple of months have pretty much sucked for Sienna Miller. Jude Law cheated on her and then she decided that she was going to take him back, and justified it by saying that all humans are fucking animals. Which I thought was a pretty interesting anthropological observation, but betrayed a nihilism in her world view latent up to this point. Then she got that awful short haircut when she was trying to play Edie Sedgwick in a movie that Mary Kate Olsen is also in. Then she called Pittsburgh the “shit,” and many truculent Steelers fans made threats on her life.

The whole time this was happening, however, Sienna was wearing Mod dresses and even she, normally a very attractive woman, looked awful, which leads me to the conclusion that not only are these shift-like tunic things extremely hard to wear, but they also, much like cursed mah jongg tiles, bring bad luck on all aspects of one’s life. Wear them with opaque tights and approach them with caution.

Large Sleeves:

I inevitably associate large puffy sleeves with this one production of Silas Marner that I saw where everyone in the cast had their hair parted in the middle and had no discernable chin. The whole time I was wondering if George Elliot thought brown muslin was ugly or awesome, and I really couldn’t concentrate. These disturbing recollections haunted me as I sat in several fashion shows, wondering why we were bringing this particular trend back.

The large sleeves of 2007 are not necessarily Victorian in nature. Sometimes they reflect late sixties movies where Doris Day tries to pretend Rock Hudson is not gay. This year’s big sleeves also reflect the butterfly kaftans that dominated parties in the early seventies where everyone had sex with everyone else’s husband and listened to Donna Summer while they did it. Pair this trend with something narrow in the bottom, or you will wind up looking like Miss Patty on Gilmore Girls.

Mid-calf length Skirts.

This length skirt makes pretty much everyone look dumpy and fat. I really have nothing more to say. Wear heels or be 5’10” to even attempt this.

Cigarette Pants

Remember how last year everyone and their mother wanted a pair of skinny jeans so that they could feel bad about their thighs in public? Well, skinny jeans are out, but skinny pants are in, meaning that you cannot click your heels up with glee and smash your Tae Bo tape with your instep, as you were wont to do if you had only read the first part of this sentence. Cigarette pants are like a trouser version of skinny jeans except they show your cellulite more. Thus you must work out harder with less reward and repeat to yourself the mantra “I love my body and myself” as you throw yourself on your bed trying desperately to zip these babies up. Good luck to you.

This may seem grim. It is. However, like Britney Spears, many of these trends have their good qualities. They are just hidden under layers of Von Dutch hats and cheetos. I want you all to try out these trends, but do so in a sensible way, a way that makes sense for your figure. Heck, all these trends at once are better than a Harvard sweatshirt and ill-fitting jeans. I die a little inside every time I see that outfit.