Dedicated followers?

Or do you just do the sex quiz at work? (And wonder what you'd look like in those Donna Karan slingbacks?)

I tear pages from the magazines and use at as inspiration at thrift stires.

Damn right I do. Its nothing but sundried tomatoes and truffle oil round here. And skirts for men are so passe unless they're above the knee.

I'm rather confused about the whole business. I am mildly obsessed with womens fashion (poss. inner drag queen tendencies) and follow men's reasonably avidly. But anything hyper fashionable I can afford normally ends up looking bollocks on me because of my odd shape so I'm never that fashionably dressed myself. I'm also afflicted with a deep seated worry about looking like man at top shop or uber-indie kid, which doesn't exactly help with the whole trauma of clothes buying either.

I don't read style mags, which is why I look so terrible.

Fashion is dear, style costs nothing. My dears, I actually help to WRITE Edgy Consumer Magazines (meaning: the ints with artists that lend them a bit of cred). Every so often I have the urge to completely fabricate a fashion trend just to see which poor Shoxton/Notting Hell dorks will fall for it hook, line and indeed Sinker.

There is no way in Hell I would ever put my name on a Bond Street waiting list. That's for rich proles with stylists.

I have also been known to buy unsuitable ladies' thrift for 50p and make a gift of it to a certain ILM poster, claiming it is the height of style for a variety of spurious theoretical reasons. He will then wear the item and the plan will backfire due to the garment coming 'in' roughly 18 months after the gift has been given.

As far as cheap restaurants go, I'm generally there 6-12 months before they/cuisine X are discovered by the mags of which you speak, but in point of fact am a total slut for places like Moro and Hakkasan (which is what PUBLISHERS are for) which give critics on the Evening Bastard the jones. How else do you expect me to be chief Gastropornographer?

Is it good? Do I like it? There, my beginning and end regarding fashion of all stripes. Trends = fiddle.

I love reading/viewing style. Despise bothering with it. I have one magnificent pink/silver/black jacket which is TIMELESS, and the restomy fashion is timeless in the other sense.

used to read a flat mate's Sleaze Nation which is is ridiculous, but sometimes amusing. I buy most of my clothes at two shops, reduced to one here in turin, neither of them the epicentre of untrendiness, so I am probably a dupe of the fashion police.

However what we were talking about way down there was body image fascism, for which the Daily mail is like some viscious quisling or the Nazi Captain in Roma Città Aperte. Dictating what shape our bodies should be. Now i ignore most of this but am part slave to this since one of the shops I shop in doesn't do anything above a 36" waist..

Fashion falls under the Weblenian "Conspicuous Consumption" thing and is therefore under my radar and probably beneath my contempt. All my clothing is bought by the bag in markets and thrift shops. If you ever see me in anything that looks even remotely fashionable, it was either A) a mistake or B) the Lollies got signed to a label who *made* us get personal stylists. I just don't understand it, and I really have no urge to.

That said, I do occasionally buy The Face or Dazed & Confused with the specific intention of laughing at the models.

As an art historian it is my job not to comment on art but to syntheize aesthics. Therefore it includes film,design,craft,theater and fashion. Fashion is political and social as well as aesthic.

I am actually influenced by these things occasionally, but I seem to just end up having a weird mix of styles from no one source in particular. Right now I seem to look like a character from an 70's anime, which probably isn't cool...

I'm more influenced by vintage styles than by the stuff in the magazines, they can get a bit ridiculous -- um, poorly constructed dresses with a horse on the front are worth the hundreds of dollars that Chloe charges for them? I think not...

I do read them once in awhile, the photography can be beautiful.

I read tons of fashion magazines, but mostly for the quizzes that make me laugh* and the skincare advise. That's about it. The clothes are ridiculous - "Hey, look a denim jacket! You don't have to blow your budget on it, because THIS one is only $7,948!" Uh, yes, if your budget happens to match Ivana Trump's, sure...Besides, I hate most of the outfits, besides the overpriced thing - Nicole is right, who wants to wear an ugly sack dress with a fucking horse on it? Idiots, that's who. I wear whatever I feel like wearing that I can find in the stores - if that happens to be in, great, whatever, if it happens to be out, great, whatever, I don't give a shit.

* True story, when I worked at Ticketmaster everyone thought I was a big time priss virgin snob because I refused to talk to anyone and ignored the advances of the men there, and wasn't very well liked (including by the person who is now my roommate). They then read my magazines and read some quiz I took in Cosmo re: sex (is there any other type of quiz in Cosmo?). Apparently there were some questions in it regarding # of partners and sexual orientation, and when they read my answers they were first shocked and then decided they wanted to hang out with me and I wasn't an aloof bitch snob after all.

My roomie subscribes to W. And Spin and Vibe and Victoria's Secret Catalogues. She needs to get her nose out of them for a second and make up her own mind about things.

I ignore trends unless they're shiny. Then I look at them wistfully and wish I was built like a Greek sex god.

So what are you really built like, then?

Hush Ned, or Dan will start posting those naked pictures he was talking about...

Since when did keeping quiet about something stop Dan from doing it anyway?

I don't even have the naked pictures of me. As far as I know, one is in Minnesota and the other is in North Carolina. (Scavenger hunt!)

I'm a fairly normal-looking person, I think; the beginnings of a gut are appearing and my arms and chest aren't massive, but I got it goin' ON from the waist down.

In some respects, I'm glad I don't have to demand proof of the entirety of that assertion. ;-)

One thing my wife tells me I inherited from my father was his booty, to which I replied, "Why are you checking out my dad's ass?"

The the only thing I know about any of those magazines is that there is usually some famous woman one the cover, showing as much clevage as she can. Unfortunately as actresses get thinner and thinner, there is less and less clevage to oggle. sigh!

Ms. rockstar sez she doesn't bother with fashion. Yeah right.

You have seen the photos of me on the website, right? Go look at those again and tell me you think that I follow any kind of fashion.

Fashion is grate as a) it pays my wages and b) it gives variety. When I am out shopping I tend to think, hmmm, that's a nice pink vest top, oh shit, I already have about 5 at home. Must find something different. And fashion is there to help me! Don't knock it.

I wasn't even sure he was talking about you, Kate...it was a rude snide comment, really, just ignore it, you fashionista.

Its really disconcerting to see an extraordinarly thin woman with huge tits ( ie Gisele) You know there has to be surgery. But Ms. Venzula admitted to having 37 procedures this year.

Not true, Anthony, just as women with huge arses can have very small tits. My cousin is very petite (about 5ft, UK size 8) but about an F cup at least. She just got married, too, before all the blokes start asking for her number.

I mean thin not short. I may be wrong anyway, i really no nothing about tits.

UK size 8 = thin (I would say).

People come in many different shapes and sizes and some lucky lucky women do in fact get to have big breasts but be thin elsewhere. As much as the rest of us may resent it and mutter about surgery in an envious way.

UK sizes are about one bigger than US, I believe? So for all you USers out there, UK size 8 = US size 6. I'm guessing on this because I know in UK I wear a size 6 or 8 depending on the garment. Which means that this girl has really enormous breasts, I mean a size F with a size 6 body is nearly comical, if it wasn't so terrible that she'd have to be walking around with those things, it must kill her back. She's so tiny too (in terms of height). Has she considered getting them taken down a bit?

Well, maybe she's a UK 10 and I was exaggerating for dramatic effect. But she's still small, and yes, Ally, she does indeed get back problems and when younger thought about a reduction but has resorted to expensive but very well fitting bras.

That's the thing, bras that are both well-fit and actually attractive for someone of that size are impossibly expensive. A lot of people I hear about with that sort of size discontinuity have gotten reductions so I was wondering if she did it - someone told me that the cost was irrelevant because the amount they would've spent on bras equalled out to the amount of the surgery. I just couldn't help thinking about the scarring though...

Well us Brit chicks must be better endowed than you lot as you can find decent bras for large breasts that aren't horrifically expensive.

Though some sizes are hard to find. I am fed up of wandering aimlessly round M&S / dept stores in a vain quest for a bra my size, I want to go up to the assistants and yell 'Do my breasts look weird to you? No? Well why can't I find a bra in my size?'.

But I don't.

I have done that. I was in a Victoria's Secret in Boston and there was no 34C in any of the nice bras. 34C!!! We aren't talking some bizarro size here, I mean the average for American women is like 38C/D so it's not exactly like I was asking for much. None anywhere to be found! So I asked them, "What, am I weird or something, why aren't there any 34Cs on the racks?" "Oh, those are very popular, they sell out quickly". SO THEN WHY DON'T YOU STOCK MORE OF THOSE INSTEAD OF 800 DIFFERENT TYPES OF 32A!!! Argh. No offense to 32As around here, it's just that you're not as common as 34C.

It's the same argument I always get into in clothing stores. I tend to shop in "younger" stores when I go the regular retail "high street" route, and they never have size small. I have to run through tons and tons of stuff til I find a size small. Why? "Oh, those are so popular, we sell those right away". But there are always like a million larges. I mean, I understand that the population is getting larger, so to speak, but if your sales stats show that you sell out of a certain thing very quickly, don't you want to stock more of that than the slow seller?

I think this is the problem in the US with "unusual" sizes. I wear the sizes that sell quickly and can't find them, god help you if you wear a 34F around here.

Comment was re: Kate and was only mildly snide, in the sense that I hadn't seen the photos, but imagine that band types generally have style, even if deliberatly thrift-story style, and then I just went and hunted down some photos and indeed ALL members of the Lollies are quite stylish.

There is a BIG difference between style and fashion. This is why those who can afford designer clothes willy-nilly seldom look good in them, even if they've bankrolled a stylist (and I think, especially so).

I personally like my look to be referenced with relevance to my other interests (maybe it's the exhibitionistic librarian in me).

Breast reduction surgeries make me sad. I know they're necessary sometimes, but man, what a waste.

indeed ALL members of the Lollies are quite stylish.

To echo what Suzy says, there is a very, very big difference between style and fashion. Style is a personal thing, about wearing what appeals to you, and you feel suits you. I'm very complimented if you think I have style. Fashion is something dictated by other people, into which other people must try and force themselves, to appeal to a generic and unattainable norm... I'm sorry, but I think fashion is evil, and I generally simply try to ignore it.

As I said, fashion pays my rent, so I feel the need to defend it. Of course it is ridiculous in a million ways but on the other hand it is not as generic as it could be / used to be, there are generally lots of 'looks' or 'trends' or whatever each season and you can - if you are interested in fashion - take your pick from what's around and still have room for individual expression. I think if you take it very seriously you are daft and deserve to be laughed at but it can be fun (and zzzzany....) and all that malarkey.

Em, in what way? If you are designing for Warehouse please memo someone so that they stop using that evil, pallid MAUVE colour on items which then clutter the sale and are well, just gross. I call it Secretary Lavender (in the sense that Company = secretary's magazine) but that might be me and my demographic snobbery again.

Kate: one hi-fash designer on your wavelength has got to be Boudicca done by two indie kids called Brian and Zoe. They name each garment after songs by groups like MBV, Stone Roses etc. I would personally LOVE one of those Vivienne Westwood gowns as made for Tracey Emin, only the Viv could make me look like I had anything like breasts.

The only PROPER piece of designer stuff I have is a Pucci dress I picked up for £50 a few years back (I hate Hi Street Pucci ripoffs, that's another memo for Emma). Not bad considering they're usually about £300+ even for secondhand. And I got to indulge my Lady Miss Kier fantasy too.

Suzy, we are getting rid of Warehouse so even if I had previously had anything to do with them I certainly wouldn't any more!

As for high street / high fashion rip offs... bring it on! That's the whole point, surely? And while it may be just 'I'm down wit da kids' bollocks, loads of slebz claim to shop at Top Shop (other fashion stores are available) cos of its fab designer 'imitations'. I reckon it makes a lot more sense to buy some daft fashion item that will be 'out' in a month in TS for 20 quid than spend 500 quid on it.

I don't mind designer knockoffs at all, only Pucci ones REALLY irritate me because they're generally so cackhanded. That is all.

Fair does. What is shoddy is designer rip offs that get flogged from dodgy stalls e.g. fake Gucci bags or whatever. I would rather have a high street imitation without the label than some crappy quality version with the logo on it.

Yeah, you have to be picky about fakes. I see so many girls with these fake Kate Spade bags, and they are brutal awful quality - the label is just glued on! I'm like, don't you NOTICE that?

When women start talking like this, I swear to god, I must have been born missing a chromosome or something. I *just* don't get it.

Kate: I think the moral is the following fashion is a harmless enough pastime as long as you don't allow it to bankrupt you and you don't make yourself look like a fool (hence high-quality designer rip- ofss being super peachy keen).

Kate, it's JUST A DESIGN THING. I like good design whether it's architecture, furniture, clothes or product packaging. This is because when I moved here I asked myself questions like, 'which people are going to pay £1200 for that ugly floral three-piece suite in the weird high-street furniture shop?' Reports from my mum suggest that even when I was TINY, I'd go down the rails going 'no, no, no, not that one, the seams don't line up', thus driving waiting parent MENTAL. I set myself some pretty exacting standards about what works for me, but in reality I don't lose that much sleep over it. Anyway, I know more architects than clothes designers. I'm not much into the minutiae of the designer handbag (when they start going ON and ON about this topic at work I want to prang someone with a Bottega Veneta holdall) and have a maxim where if Posh Spice wants it, I do not. The stuff I like is NEVER mass- produced in knockoff form at Top Shop and I rarely spend more than £20 on items in shops anyway (Muji sale, hooray). Why should I, when I can get weird and wonderful jumble sale stuff for 50p a throw?