...Or Style On The Street

Walking down the street is free, but it's becoming to be as entertaining as if I had spent an inordinate amount of money in an effort to have fun. Blowing the contents of my bank account, however, very rarely leaves me with the feeling of wonder and bemusement at what I have just witnessed - where on earth has all the style gone? I know that living in Hobart isn't quite as remarkable as downtown Tokyo or the cafe precincts of Paris, but people seemed to have forgotten what clothes actually are, especially in the arctic months of winter. As the months get cooler, the clothes tend to become more and more disastrous.
Silly me, I was under the impression that people still wore jeans. I guess they still do - if you're a boy, you wear them so the waist sits in such a way, that only a stride similar to that of John Wayne will keep them from falling to your ankles. If you're a girl, you wear fake ones. They look like jeans - ones that have been painted on. Wearing tights as pants is becoming a bit of a social debate, but this new player tips the whole scale to a big ol' no for me. How do you keep things in pockets if they're just a drawn on outline? (And why aren't you freezing cold?!)
In my job, I often get the chance to do a lot of people watching, and now that winter has rolled around, the dreaded orange tinge of fake tan is slowly beginning to fade. What I'm finding, though, is that now there is more wind in the air, the ladies of our little city are pulling a full on trans-gender John Travolta and flogging the hairspray - they've got long hair that should be flapping about in the air, but it's solid like a queen's guard. And with the first snow (i think that was in March…) came the unique ways that people use to stay warm. Out come the fluffy boots that look like you've collected the hairs of a border collie and glued it to your shoes and hoodies that are about 14 sizes too big and look like they let in more draught than Stone Henge. Trackies move from the couch to the main drag of the shopping centre, and if we're all so very lucky, we might find the odd one or two patrons with a combination of everything.
I work in a place where our heaters are always on, and it inevitably brings people in out of the cold. But surely these people would have a sense of decorum and be a little bit subtle about their hunt for refuge from the cold. I happened across one young couple (no older than 16) who literally came in out of the cold to make out in the warmth of my work place. They looked like they were going to mount each other right there on the iPhone display. I found myself almost staring and thinking "why do you think that is normal?" The girl had a ring the size of a hula hoop in her lip, and I caught myself laughing at the idea of it getting stuck in the boys braces. He looked nice and innocent enough, but she looked a right mess - apparently, looking like you have just pulled yourself out of spin cycle is attractive.
With all these fashion faux pas, how is it that we know what to really expect out of the fashion conscious? What if I were desperately interested in what is and isn't 'in' right now? And what if, god forbid, these fashions are exactly that - fashion? What would a jean-toting, hoodie wearing soul like myself do then? Probably do what I do right now - walk from one end of the mall to the other, smiling because I now have that much more self esteem than I did thirty-four seconds ago.