Fashionable adj. - fashion, noun - fashion, verb
Today this word seems to mean "anything that's too hideous and freaky to even wear on the
catwalk - too freaky and garish for even
Vivienne Westwood or
John Galliano to contemplate showing".
It also means stuff that 5 years ago was being ignored in charity shops and jumble sales as being too frumpy and out-of-date.
Not so long ago, people would look at the shit that walked down the catwalk and just hang their mouth open cuz it was so godawful weird.(BTW - this definition almost exlusively applies to women of course. We were told, "oh
the styles will be watered down before it gets to the shops for ordinary mortals to try to fucking figure out how to wear."
So by the time it got to the shops, it was almost unrecognisable as being associated with anything seen on the catwalk. But it would still be different enough to
terrorise women into thinking that if they don't wear it, they won't look cool, or if they do wear it, they will look silly and foolish. What to do??
Of course, every season brings new colours and accessories, so that nothing goes with anything else you have bought in the last 6 months - oh how we just
lamely accept and buy without question! Everything totally different so they make more and more money from these stupid people too dumb to figure out
what the hell's going on, or if they are smart enough, to fucking apathetic to care and scared to look uncool.
This definition is quite extreme but most people will recognise this issue. Most are sensible enough to not obsess over their clothes as such, but there are many who do.
So, to get round this problem, these days the catwalk principle applies in reverse. You take any combination of items of clothing, the more they clash with each other the better (ex -
red and green tartan jodpurs which gather at the waist, tucked into
blue cowboy boots with gold effect, very wide crocodile belt, orange tank top with pink glitter edging, and a wooly hat in the shape of
a cow's udder- I won't even get started on the accessories).
This way of dressing is in many ways a backlash to fashion fascism about what to wear with what etc. But it is becoming dangerously fashionable now meaning, "you can look like everything was thrown together by a colour blind
myopic nerd, without thought or looking in a mirror, but it still has to look like constructed in a meticulous and well thought-out way but stil looks as if it was not".
Jesus.