We'd up and fly, if we had wings...

I am not in a very good mood right now, reader. Not in a very good mood at all. My sister F left, after spending nearly 2 really cool weeks here in Colmar, I am home alone, the weather is crap, and I am experiencing a bad case of the MSN annoyance. So I figured I'd log off, and come over here and write an annoyed post. Which reminds me that I have not written anything on the Cranberries concert I went to last week, invited by my best friend V, and which was great (zoommmmbie, zoooommmbie), even though... well, I'll write something about it soon.

Anyway. In order to spread the joy and surf on the mood, here it is : the top 5 things that annoy me about clothing these days.

Let me, first of all, say that I am not a fashionista. The sheer fact that I say "fashionista" proves this. I am not good a getting dressed, I was laughed at throughout junior high for wearing jeans that were too short and having a haircut that made me look like that thing you use to scrub the burnt part at the bottom of pans and pots. My hair hasn't changed, though I manage it a little better, but I now only wear jeans that are a leeeettle too long, to compensate (hell of a challenge, when you're more than 6 feet, I tell you). Still, I enjoy shopping and choosing clothes. They are, also, a necessity (I don't know if you had noticed this fact, but they really are). Sometimes, however, designers seem to take a particular delight in making them as inconvenient as possible...

1. "Dresses" that have no skirts. Oh come on. Ok. Mini-skirts are sexy, we live in a modern world, and I have no moral objection to them as such, people should just go ahead and show as much as they are comfortable with. But then again... How about you guys give us a choice, maybe? How about you just add a teeeny little bit of fabric, so that we can sit down, and maybe even stand up, and maybe, even better, not have to pull everything down and look daft everytime there's a tiny breeze? I'd like a study to be made about that. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one annoyed. Once again, I'm freakishly tall, which only makes the problem worse, but still...
You find the puuurfect dress, English old lady style, but slightly modernized, maybe with some tiny pearls sewn on it, or maybe with a little lace here or there, and then you take it from the rack, and it's actually a glorified t-shirt which would suit Kate Moss, but no one else. I hate, hate, hate clothes that are too short.

2. Trapped clothes. You go to the shop, you find a lovely, black t-shirt, with the right cut and a nice neckline, you're happy as can be, and then you turn it around, and there it is, a huge pink heart, bedazzeled by a colorblind maniac, with ruffles all around, and something like "Lovebirds are forever" written in gold lettering underneath. I think having stuff written on you clothes is, generally, something one should be circumspect about (cf that guy we saw the other day in Strasbourg with "iPood" written on his T-shirt, and a guy sitting on a toilet drawn underneath. Oh puh-lease).

3. Clothes with a piece missing. Armless pullovers more than anything. Things with only one shoulder. Things with only one sleeve. Ok, sometimes I find these pretty on other people. But armless pullovers? They are pretty too! Oh, of course, they are pretty, the fiends ! But then: why wear a bloody pullover if it doesn't KEEP YOU WARM AT ALL? Why, why, why? This is probably "so last season" or something, but it did really drive me mad last winter. Impossible to find any stupid pullover with arms on it. Are you trying to save money, Mr H&M? Well, you sure won't get mine. Said the girl who'd been looking for a sleeveless cardigan for weeks...

4. The fact that the clothing industry manages to change my TASTES. It freaks me out a little. One of the most ridiculous clothing items I heard of over the last few years is most definitely the "sneakers with frills" footwear thingy that I saw for the first time in the Parisian subway, maybe... three years ago. At the time, I figured: aw come on, this is just ridiculous, sir (yes. It was a sir, not a miss. He was wearing white sneakers, but the tip was shaped like that of those italian mocassins things, all pointy and aggressive). And the other day, I saw a lady in the street wearing one of these ridiculous pairs of Converse with heels, and I thought "Oh, cool". I don't like it very much when someone proves that I have no opinion of my own...

4. The fact that they had me convinced that I couldn't tie my shoes anymore, there, for a while, because tying your laces is not "fashionable". Are you crazy, people? I'll tie my laces the way I want, you're not the boss of me. Ok. So maybe I will hide the knot a little bit, just in case someone looks at my feet and laughs. Because nothing interests people more than the way I tie my laces, apparently. One more Junior High trauma, there. Because I figured "hey, who cares if my jeans are a little short, honestly" and then people did care. It was an insult to their sense of fashion that you could see a thin slice of my socks between the bottom of my trousers and the top of my PROPERLY TIED sneakers. Life's tough this way, when you're 12 and don't have a care in the world.

5. Jeans that are meant to be worn low on your hips, (actually meaning that you can't sit down in them unless you are wearing a long t-shirt (or maybe, say, a "dress") on top), high heels shoes in which you can't walk, those t-shirt you never can figure out quite how to wear. But hell, that's also what I love about clothes. They are unconvenient and sometimes, you need to have a little imagination and be a little clever, cause they're not just meant to keep you warm. They're here to make you feel secure (which sometimes involves giving you blisters, just to remind you of their presence), pretty, and sometimes proud, when you've tamed them.

Anyway. Here was my rant for today. If you are now in as bad a mood as I was 20 minutes ago, you can watch this here. Will make you feel better. Or this here. Won't make you feel better, but it's still nice, I figure.