Pruning

To the untrained eye, let's say those of my surly grandfather (no offense, Mario), fashion has gone down the tubes. Were he to peer over my shoulder at Vogue, he'd scratch his wiry chest hair through his tomato-stained tee and say “Remy, what the hell!”

He'd shuffle off to tend to his garden, cursing the day he ever left the cliffs of Calabria for this universe of misshapen shoes and elongated symmetry. I say this with relish: I happen to adore the bulbous cork platforms, intergalactic heels, and fruity sheaths of our current spring. I believe in fashion as escapism, in women (and men) playing gypsy, rebellious cowboy, and nerdy chemist solely through their artifice. Ours is a culture of impervious elegance. It is brazen constructions that torpedo through show rooms and street style blogs and it's these that please me best.

Miuccia Prada, sartorial superstar of Prada and Miu Miu, in an interview with British Vogue, said her greatest contribution to the fashion world was her “ability to make ugly cool.” At current, Miuccia's passions revolve around the elemental: burlap, wool, cotton, retro sweaters, school girl with a twist of organic color and polyester blend. Mario is poking his head in from the rosemary patch, shears melting into his hands. “Whaddaya care about that, Remy?” he says before spitting into the grass. But I do care.

Prada has cut a slit into the atmosphere, releasing unruly monsters of material delight: four inch multi-layer cork platforms, faux dyed minks, boxy boat dresses stitched messily. What's thrilling is not the clothes themselves (though I'll happily accept a Miu Miu geisha dress) but the abstract and hedonistically glamorous universe that they inhabit. They are seperate from the everyday, burning like constellations in a dark sky.

Prada is not alone in her quest for The Ugly. Spring collections for Valentino favor studded stilettos while Maison Martin Margiela showcase snake skin booties appropriate for the likes of Indiana Jones or Mike Tyson. And let's not forget the Tibi onesie—a body suit/ mature diaper for the fashion savvy and irresolute bathroom goer.

If I may be so bold, it seems that my generation is informed by sleek nihilism, cynicism, and distaste for classical conceptions of beauty. What we are drawn to is the weird, the futuristic, the ethnic, the bizarre. Ours is a world of nuclear sponge baths, pot-smoking celebrities, and cinder block heels and we've come to like it. Call us weird, call us alien—we'll step, ever so lightly, shoes chaining us to the current.

Just look at popular website “The Man Repeller” with a cult following of 4,102 members. The site records the exploits of a fashion-enthusiast with a penchant for self-deprecation and dissuading dudes. The blogger styles looks inspired by all that is hideous and otherworldly, e.g. “the infant gets abducted by a black crow that was bred in a Parisian atelier.”

We just can't help ourselves.