Images fr. Style.com
Today, I give you a story, extracted from my mind and dribbled smoothly into the pensieve, that has been making its rounds inside my deteriorated head for the past week.
Aside from my budding excitement for Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, due to release this September the 14th, I am currently finding myself fascinated--absolutely fascinated--by the art of blending in; namely camouflage.
Camo traces its ancestry way back when to the dawn of animal-kind. You see, kids, this all-knowing, omnipresent spirit called God created the Earth and all the planets and spaces and ideas around this crusty sphere because he felt like it. And, seizing the day even more, although I can't imagine days or the reality of time had worked in the ancient days, he (oh, wait--couldn't this be a she, you chauvinist?) poofed up little critters with eyes and ears and mouths. Those creatures with tangible "feelings, emotions, souls, etc.," were deemed as time progressed to play the role of "humans." I've never had the honor of watching The Lion King, but I have had the graces of hearing "Circle of Life," and, well, you should know how that goes. No time for revolving diagrams just now. These lil' critters, you see, felt like they had to protect themselves from the corrupted big critters so that they could reproduce, survive, and all that rubbish. As time progressed, the case in question of camouflage appeared, much to the heart-fluttering action of a flip book. To this Charles Darwin, esteemed writer and theorist, declared in triumph, "Hoorah! I now have in mind an abstract theory of natural selection that can be proven!" and spread his wings and flew as a sparrow.
Now then, on to the real history of camo. The fellows at the military courteously issued out their ingenious textile print of earthiness around the time of the first world war. The year of 1919, ever so near to the roaring twenties, witnessed the glamorous "Dazzle Ball," whose black-and-white dazzled-donned guests traveled the world and back again by way of trendy postcards. Since that time, various artists have glorified this orderly frenzy of blobs as sparkling brilliance, i.e. Finlay, Veruschka, and founder of Interview, Warhol himself.
Then came the 1990s. The entire fabric of the world held on by its seams as culture and scenes faced a wayward direction. Not one soul can forget the populace of urban and suburban streets alike display the print on its flesh. Nor can we not call to mind Issey Miyake and Comme des Garçons' successful play on reptilian proportions. Since then, the fast fashion trend has appeared and reappeared, as though from repeated concussions when diving off Dante's nine circles of Hell.
Will this olive/tan design be back for good, or will it flop like a real fad and show its face brazenly at the end of another five-year cycle? I only hope it's not on Wal-mart satchels. What do you think?
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Above: Valentino menswear AW13; Marc by Marc Jacobs Resort '12.