Fashion Just Doesn’t Feel Fashionable Right Now

Posted Sep 29, 2008 by Sandy Hughes

Updated Sep 29, 2008 at 01:32 PM

We’re probably not supposed to admit this, what with this being a fashion blog and all, but….are we the only ones who are finding fashion this year to be a total bore?

Politicians aside, (looks like Sarah Palin’s secret fashion team took our advice on everything except the glasses and the pearl necklace…ah, well, one can’t win them all) we just can’t seem to get excited about any of it this season.

And it’s not like we haven’t tried. 

We’ve plowed through every obese September issue of every fashion mag out there, we’ve shopped the stores, we even went to New York for fashion week earlier this month (more on that later). 

And what we’ve found is that nothing’s really changed since last fall:
Shoes are still all about the high-vamp and the bootie, which we told you about a year and a half ago.
Handbags are still big and obnoxious and hideously overpriced, jeans are still skinny and/or wide, hemlines are still short, and pencil skirts aren’t going anywhere.

In other words, we’re in the middle of a fashion cycle, so if you’ve been paying attention up till now, you probably already have everything you need to stay current in your closet already.  Because what’s in the stores this fall just seems to be more of the same of what was in the stores last year.

Which, if this were a normal fall, might not be so bad, but let’s face it,  with the current economic crisis,  none of us is in much of a mood to buy more of anything.

Oh, sure, there are a couple of little trendlets-deep purple is the hot new color and tweedy plaids are getting some attention—again—but overall, there’s nothing out there that we didn’t tell you about months ago, and certainly nothing we absolutely MUST have right now. 

[Okay, maybe a bottle of purple nail polish, but that’s about it.]

Even our Twentysomething Top Secret New York Correspondent had an unusually modest shopping list for this fall, less for financial reasons (the implosion of Wall Street has so far has had little effect on her industry) than because there just aren’t many things out there she doesn’t already have.

And while there are some big changes on the horizon, (and don’t worry, we’ll tell you about them soon enough) it’s going to be a while before they trickle down to the likes of us, especially if the economy stays slumpy.

So our best advice right now is to shop your closet and sit tight for a while—because this, too, shall pass eventually, and when that happens, we’ll be all over it.