“Florals? For spring? Ground breaking,” as put by Meryl Streep’s power bitch, alter ego, Miranda Priestly, in The Devil Wears Prada. Year after year, and season after season it’s the same thing regurgitated, swallowed and spit back up again, earth tones for fall, nautical Americana for summer, chunky sweaters for winter and the worse offender of all; florals for spring. It’s not even so much that high fashion runway designers are producing the same themes for each look every season, but it’s the chain stores we find in our malls and the young adult fashion publications we read that are to blame. Neon’s, pastels and floral prints season after spring season are listed under headlining articles, “hot new trends”, “spring must haves”, and “pieces everyone should invest in for spring”. Listen up ladies, and you too brave men, for I am about to spit some hot fiery truth upon thee. Florals for spring is like saying ice cream for a hot day: its obvious.
This seasons spring 2012 runway, while amazing, didn’t let me down completely by generating floral-esque attire that even I will bow down to. When appropriate, I can admit that yes, Miu Miu’s floral cape was fabulous, and of course Prada’s bustier and matching pencil skirt were hot and obviously Louis Vuitton’s floral eyelet cutout dress was just the perfect balance of risqué for my liking. Unless I ever plan on blowing a year’s worth of those hardly earned minimum wage checks on $800 floral hot pants, I keep the florals on lock. If at this point maybe you’re thinking, “But you just said even high fashion designers are sending florals down the runway, obviously they know what they’re talking about when they say florals for spring are right on,” I would have agree with you. When I hear this in my head, in a whiny super fem voice for added emphasis no less, the only thing I can say to you is that the sad truth of the matter is: florals sell.
You can thank consumerism for this rant, because I wouldn’t even have this problem if shoppers weren’t running out to their local mall to buy a frilly flower dress that their favorite girly magazine told them was “trendy”. News flash: there is nothing new and innovative about this concept, and that’s what bothers me so much. Gone is the creativity and ingenuity I die to see coming down that catwalk come fashion week, fashion is not an artistic representation anymore; it’s a business. Bigwig designers present their collections, companies rework these designs and dumb them down when retailers come in to sell them to the masses; it is a vicious cycle of floral folly.
So am I telling you to burn all of your florals and socially outcast anyone who wears them? No. Wear whatever your little heart desires, if that be floral or not, and leave the daisy donning tribe alone. It just fires me up that there is never any change, nothing new and the ideas are stagnant, boring and played out. Why not rock neo gothic in head to toe black, channel the tribal prints of warrior priestess, or get flowy and free like gypsies? What I mean is, it can’t hurt to try something a little wild and unexpected and totally out of the box, except for maybe your reputation, and the approval and respect of your flower power pant pals.
Angry? Fed up? Tired? Have something you’d like to say? Get it off of your chest, leave a comment and rant with me!
