Are you kidding me?, How am I supposed to wear that?

In a parallel world people go to the supermarket wearing something like this

Usually these are the first words of someone who has little or none sense about fashion. I can tell you  most of the people that work in the fashion industry, they have born with that sense, some others have developed it through education. Today I want to teach a very important life skill, and that is how to "read" fashion in general.

When people get involved with the fashion industry they start obviously with a famous brand which has a commercial focusing. Stores like Zara and H&M are the first ones targeted by people when they want to buy something "nice" and for a "special occasion". But when they attend to a fashion show that showcase the most out-of-this-world clothing, when presenting their ideas of what is going to be worn next season people get a little bit obfuscated. So here are my points about fashion:

• What you see on the runway is not actually what you will get at the store...

You can see those Galliano/Dior pieces from the mid 2000s', or even every some Comme des Garçons collections, and you might think who on earth would wear that, and the reality is that those pieces were selected to give you a show, a spectacle of what they can do (Couture works almost the same) with fabrics and with special techniques. At the end those pieces will be reconstructed and we will have new pieces that are more profitable than the "artistic" pieces presented in the collection. Usually the "sample" pieces are used in editorials for magazines and some others are being worn by celebrities when they want to appear on the red carpet, or even in public with an outrageous look (cough, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Nicky Minaj, Anna Dello Russo, you name it!, cough). And if they are artistic enough, they will go to a Museum.

This is an example of what we get at the end, probably a few of us will be able to afford and wear the expensive leather version of the dress, they sent this fabric version to the stores that will give more profits to the brand.

There is always a way to wear Mcqueen and to look good on it.

• If needed, customize it...

Of course sometimes we find a piece that is a raw diamond and you tell yourself: "only if..." And this is when you need to wake up your lazy imagination and start thinking, okay, I have this piece that I bought and I can really customize this to make it look good on myself, and ta dá!, you will have the most amazing piece of clothing ever created with just a little bit of work. But if your sewing skills are from I just bought my first sewing machine to Basic, please have a tailor or a professional seamstress to get this done, so they can do what they do best with just a little price. And if you are not sure about customizing a piece or not, don't touch it, or even better, don't even buy it.

Best way to customize something

This is possibly the WORST WAY to customize something.

• Think of the collection as pieces not as total looks...

Again, your imagination must be on the wide-open-imagination button on your brain in order to succeed at this. Runway shows are that, SHOWS, you don't need to wear a total look (only if you want of course) from the collection. Sometimes pieces presented on the collection look good if they are worn exactly as they were shown. And sometimes you must extract pieces from the look, and again, as I said before, if and only if needed, customize it.

This is Ms. Wintour giving you a lesson on how it's done

•  You are free to wear whatever you want...

 Again, the vision of this blog is not to teach you how to dress yourself, because we all had a mother who taught us that. But you have millions of brands you can choose your pieces from and at the end, once you have managed the art of buying clothes that go well for your body type, skin color, height, and also culture, you will end up having a closet full of outstanding pieces that will look impeccable on you.

• Buy it because you want it, not because of the brand...

Everybody have that feeling that if what you are wearing is not from a certain brand you are not cool, and you are not a fashionista/o, or that if it does not have the tag all over the place, we are poor people that can afford something from a well known brand, and the thing is that you might get a sweater from_________ (fill in the blank with a famous brand name) that is red and looks good on you, but also your friend that is starting as a designer made a similar sweater that looks even better on you but because you want to wear something from a brand you will end up with a loose-fit-ugly-as-crap sweater and your friend who is a designer will die poor because he is not famous enough to have you as a client.

So dear fellows, those were my points of view on how to read fashion and how to choose wisely what you will wear. Remember to invest in your local designers because you never know and they might be the next designer to present in Paris and you have a "vintage" piece from them. Stay tuned for my next post...

Images thanks to: http://www.redcarpet-fashionawards.com/