Kate Langbroek: Why must fashion act like a Bad Boyfriend?
WHEREVER your physical insecurities lie, fashion will sniff them out and expose them. Which, ironically, means you need to cover them up, writes Kate Langbroek.
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I HAVE only ever had one Bad Boyfriend in my life. This is pretty fortunate, because we all know friends (or showbiz girls) who have had nothing but BBs.
This is not only tiresome for the girls themselves, but for those who love them. See, the rule with a BB seems to be that everyone else can see he’s a cad, but you cannot.
And there’s no point being smug if you’ve never fallen prey to one, because Bad Boyfriend syndrome doesn’t just happen in human form. For example, I prefer to think I capped my BB count at one because I learnt my lesson so well, I never made those mistakes again.
But that is the very smugness I just warned you about – and it begs a tough-love retort. Something like: “If you’re so good at learning life’s lessons, how do you explain fashion?”
Ah. Yes. There’s a lot of the BB about fashion. Just when you think things are going great, “farshun” will throw a party at which every hot young thing in the neighbourhood is present, but to which you are not invited. This is known as The Crop Top or Denim Cut-offs. Wherever your physical insecurities lie, fashion will sniff them out and expose them. Which, ironically, means you need to cover them up.
It may be your soft underbelly; your thin lips; your overplucked eyebrows that never grew back; your short legs. The fact is, like an unfaithful lover, fashion will always duck and weave and chase the new, leaving you stuck at home sobbing over a glass of whiskey only slightly smaller than the muu-muu you’re wearing, thinking, “What did I do wrong? Why did he stop loving me?”
And yet, sometimes the amazing happens. Occasionally, a fashion trend is so delightful and looks so good on everyone that it is irresistible.
For instance, in 2017, it seems as though not a single woman in Australia owns a top that covers her shoulders. Even if it’s not the full “I’m a milkmaid, come to the tavern later to watch me pour jugs of mead in a comely fashion for sweating sailors, who I will then carouse with to a rollicking tune” off-the-shoulder number, it will be the more sophisticated “cold-shoulder” cut-out, with a tantalising flash of skin.
And what a gift that has been. See, EVERYBODY has shoulders. And EVERYBODY’S shoulders look sweet peeping out from a dress or top. And it makes EVERYBODY feel good to be able to play the game of fashion together and to feel a little bit racy and, as my mum says, “with it”.
Which is why it’s going to come to a sudden, screeching, painful end.
Much as summer has drawn to a close, and autumn is moving in, the shoulder season is over. Our BB wants to move on. He is bored with our scapulas, our clavicles, our rotator cuffs. He wants to see other body parts. Who knows what horror that may entail? A neck-to-knee catsuit with the knees cut out? Arseless chaps?
See, that’s why we love him. He’s so unpredictable and dangerous and wild. He makes us feel alive. And who knows? One day, eventually, surely, he’ll want to settle down.
Kate co-hosts Hughesy & Kate, 4–6pm weekdays, on the KIIS FM Network.
Originally published as Kate Langbroek: Why must fashion act like a Bad Boyfriend?
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