she's addicted to clothes

I’m not sure how edifying my answers to this one will be, due to some of my own personal limitations here, but, as always, thanks so much to Katy Rose of Modly Chic for organising this knees up.

1) What magazines do you subscribe to?

None. This is for two reasons, the first being, I hate junk mail, and one magazine subscription will bring on an avalanche of it. The second reason is because I have some rocky body image issues, and a history of eating disorders, as I’ve documented rather extensively here, and I like to be in control of when and if I’m going to buy one. If I really do want to read a fashion magazine, which tends to happen about quarterly, when the big season trend mags ghcome out, I want to be able to quickly skim it in the shop to see if there’s anything I’m going to find exceptionally triggering in it, or if the whole thing just seems too painfully stupid to bother. I wish we got Lucky over here, because I swear, that’s exactly what I want out of a fashion mag: pictures and info about stuff I can buy, and spare me the diets and patronising and offensively heterosexist “what men want: blow jobs!” sex advice.

2) Do you watch any fashion tv shows?

We only JUST got our television aerial fixed last week (and the bloody Sky doesn’t even work, leaving us with only the terrestrial channels at the moment, alas) so it’s been a few years (er, yeah, not much of a priority for us) since I even watched television other than on holiday. However! Before that all happened, I did used to occasionally watch What Not to Wear. Now that we’ve got the telly back, though, I will probably check at least a few out to see if there’s anything that interests me.

3) Beyond blogs, which websites do you frequent for fashion inspiration?

I trawl through the Flickr Wardrobe Remix pool, which I really like, every now and then, and I sometimes go through the fashion and style sections of the British newspaper websites I read. And I will end up occasionally on something like Glamour or Self, just by doing a search on some fashion-related term, and that almost always leads to me poking around for a bit.

4) Advertisements play a huge role in forming public opinion about a product or brand…what ads do you like, and why?

It’s hard for me to be specific here, because of the whole ‘no TV for years’ thing, and I have an outright shuddering horror of stuff that’s too obviously branded (I don’t mind sourcing my stuff in my outfit posts, and appreciate it in others as well, just because it’s nice to have that information, if you really love something, and would like a clue as to where to start looking if you want to get something similar) so, basically, an advertisement has to be pretty or quirky and interesting for it to register with me, and then, most of the time, I’m just enjoying the visual experience, and not really responding with an urge to buy or anything. The best you’re gonna do, as a general rule, is make your brand register with me in a positive way by entertaining me in some sense with your ad. 

And then you can blow that straight to hell with another ad that does something like, I dunno, or portraying women as whores or animals or trafficking in some kind of racial or ethnic stereotype or somesuch. You can easily make me hate you forever, even if I’m otherwise inclined to buy your stuff for positive reasons. This is the American Apparel Effect.

5) Do you own any fashion books?

Not to my knowledge, but we’ve got serious book hoarding issues around here, so it’s entirely possible. I did have a smallish collection of fashion history books, before I moved to the UK many years ago, but they got left behind.

Hi! I’m still here, will be back soon. I got laid out by a wretched migraine, and computer screens kind of exacerbate it. I’m starting to bounce back, and will be catching up very soon. Thanks for all the lovely comments; I’ll be answering them individually as soon as looking at the screen doesn’t make me wanna hork.

XOXO,

A.