Psycho-Fashion

On The Nature Of ‘Things’.

Posted on July 24, 2012 by tim in Fundamentals, Psycho-Fashion | 2 Comments

‘Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of sweetness show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;’

W H Auden from ‘Lay your sleeping head, my love.’ Read more

The public scrutiny of squirrels.

Posted on June 12, 2012 by tim in Fundamentals, Psycho-Fashion | Leave a comment

There are many inherent contradictions embedded in what seems to be the human condition. We all seek security while railing against anything that constrains our personal freedoms. Truth and wisdom are some of our most valued commodities yet we incessantly engage in wilful self-deception and asinine behaviour. We value fidelity while celebrating diversity and new experience… and so on, ad nauseum. The seesaw of human desires and emotions would be a tired catskills punchline if there were actually a god. But one of the most difficult examples of these contradictions is our relationship to beauty. There is a tacit implication throughout history (platonic ideals and Helen of Troy just for instance) that beauty is a somehow universal and shared aesthetic. How can someone not see that flower or Porsche or Angelina as beautiful?

To Be or To Be Something Else.

Posted on April 26, 2012 by tim in Fundamentals, Psycho-Fashion, See | Leave a comment

Essentially this is about what is real and what is something other. It seems like the lines that once delineated fantasy from reality have vanished. More significantly real, live people have begun to distort themselves in ways that are, to me anyways, alarming. I’m going to give an extreme example and then try to work back from that.

Hard to believe these are real people, isn’t it? (In one case, and I’ll let you guess which one, there is some real doubt as to the actual existence of the person represented in the picture.) What I find alarming though is not the degree to which both these images are constructed or even if they’re actual pictures of actual people who actually look like this. Actually.

No, the alarming aspect is these people are now absolutely plausible. Whether they exist at this moment or not is irrelevant– because sooner or later they’ll be our neighbor or even us. Presently they exist as outliers but that won’t last long I don’t think. These body types are becoming more and more prevalent every day. Just look around. Read more

Clothed and naked.

Posted on April 23, 2012 by tim in Fundamentals, Psycho-Fashion, Watch | 2 Comments

I Thing Therefore I Am. Heh.

For me, writing is kind of like sculpture. There is an image underneath the stone and my job is to find that image and give it shape. Meaning as well. And yes, I realize in that metaphor my head is made of rock. Inelegant but accurate.

Clothing and fashion can often create the illusion of evolution in both an individual and a culture. Illusion because the movement, the ‘progress’, is often contrived and meaningless, a ploy to create an artificial and banal ‘revolution’ — a tale told to idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Like tattoos or other consumer purchases, fashionable items cannot bestow real value or meaning, cannot graft that onto you not matter what they cost or who created them. At best they are an expression of who you really are, at worst they are a mask for an otherwise empty existence. But like all other forms of self-expression their value is irrevocably tied to who you are as a person and are an accurate reflection of your character.

Clothes are, after all, one of the first created articles that humanity produced with its big brain and opposable thumbs and tilted pelvis (pelvii?). Hunting implements and funeral ornaments, clothes and shelter: these are all primary and essential pieces of early homo sapien’s toolkit. Read more

I love me. Who do you love?*

Posted on April 14, 2012 by di in Fashion Bad, Psycho-Fashion, Read | Leave a comment

It’s been over a year since we started this project and now that I’m in the home stretch I’m less excited about getting to shop again and more excited about not having a camera following me around. I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. What I didn’t expect was that I would be so goddamned sick of myself.

H&M Trauma! Is My Collar Popped?

Posted on April 4, 2012 by di in Project, Psycho-Fashion, Watch | Leave a comment

What was I thinking walking into an H&M? Did I somehow think I was impervious to their ridiculously trendy and reasonably priced fashions? Man, I’m dumb sometimes.

Coyote Smugly

Posted on February 7, 2012 by di in Psycho-Fashion, Read, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

For many, many years I had to look good for a living. I also had to know how to mix a killer martini, carry a tray weighed down with fifteen pounds of glass and alcohol over my head through a crowd of inebriated morons trying to grab my ass, help drunk, crying girls use the debit machine, tell the party of fifty civil servants to quit switching seats so I can keep their orders straight, sell about $3000 over the bar in four hours without screaming and still balance my cash and credit card receipts at the end of the night. But mainly I had to look good. All those other tasks are secondary in the bar industry, which you already know if it’s ever taken you half an hour to get a drink from a ridiculously good-looking yet completely inept bartender. A bar’s function is to make money by selling alcohol. In order to do this successfully, a bar will try to keep the patrons in the premises as long as possible. An easy way to do this is to hire pretty people that are paid to be nice to people they would normally cross the street to avoid.

Torn down before she was even built.

Posted on February 3, 2012 by tim in Psycho-Fashion, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

CAN you erase an idea and by extension the constructs it manifests as? Memes are notoriously hard to eradicate* because it’s inherent in the nature of anything that behaves like a virus to mutate and piggyback.

Usually though, it is remarkably easy to destroy a specific host. Read more

New Year’s Di

Posted on January 12, 2012 by di in Fashion Good, Psycho-Fashion, Read | 2 Comments

For many years, New Year’s Eve was the night I got to watch people with unrealistic expectations pay $50 to get into a bar (that on any other night they could walk into for free), get a dollar store party favor and a NyQuil cup half-full of cheap ‘champagne’ that would later be puked onto their good shoes while they wait 45 minutes for a cab. So just like Canada Day and St.Patrick’s Day, New Years Eve is a night where you won’t find self-respecting former bar staff (of which there are five) anywhere near a licensed establishment. The few years that I haven’t spent midnight kissing my sweaty bar-back I have spent in the company of friends in someone’s home. There are many advantages to a house party. The champagne is better, there are no annoying strangers at the next booth requesting ‘Sweet Caroline’ (bar staff hate that song*), no line-ups, no last call and everyone is there because they want to be, not because they purchased their ticket months ago and feel obligated to get their money’s worth. My BFF, Julie had the mother of all formal house parties several years ago that was catered, had a heated tent for smokers, and a horse and carriage for guests to take rides around the neighborhood. After all that excitement, several of us chose to doff our evening wear for bathing suits for a soak in the hot tub. Beats changing kegs and emptying slop buckets full of Guinness and regret any day. Read more

Eve of the New Year. (Plus Bacon.)

Posted on January 4, 2012 by tim in Fashion Bad, Fundamentals, Psycho-Fashion | Leave a comment

And fun was indeed had by all.

PJ/DRUNCH NEW YEAR'S EVE.

What happens when you add eight pounds of bacon and elastic waistbands to New Year's Eve? Lots and lots of drunken schweatnaps in appropriate clothing.