It Tastes Kinda Like Sad

your feathers veer into the eyes I saw decline from within;
swiftly sweeping impressions into my vision.
they cloud where I once saw your imperfections.
I yearn for the errors I drew with penetrating sight
before I tripped on my own discreet frailty, blind.

DEAR GOD, COVER YOUR EYES, THINK OF THE CHILDREN

The fundamental principle of feminism revolves around the concept that just because a body was designed to perform a certain procreative function, biological elements need not dictate intellectual and social functions, capabilities and rights. Feminists--and all persons interested in civil equality and intellectuality--fight the impression that people are generally controlled by and limited to their biological lot. It is the viewpoint we are all entitled to the same civil rights and liberties and can be literal intellectual equals regardless of gender.

We frequently find fashion and feminism clashing ideologically. We glance greenly at one another from centers seemingly unrelated but constantly intertwining. The fashion industry is generally considered a "bit" shallow and known commonly as morally garish given the sexual and physical exploitation of females.

Suddenly--semi-enlightened to the inner apparatus of feminism--I found these ideals clashing with my former interests. I was suddenly left stewing purplish with rage and discarded even the "unconventionally" fashioned clothes I cared to wear. 

The the bedrock of fashion rests in manipulating veritable slews of "regular" girls in "need" of catwalk-ready bodies to compete with their unconventionally thin counterparts; doppelgangers busily altering a jillion girls' concepts of regularity. The manner of operating "fashionably" seemed wrong suddenly--a perfunctory vanity. 

However, It seems similarly anti-female, patriarchal society aside, to suggest that in order to be a true feminist we need to entirely abandon vanity and its' varietals. Here, one suspects, lies the base of the anti-fashion prejudice we veer towards when we allow nary a saged soul to instill we as females can actually enjoy and find pleasure in the superficial guiltlessly. We have this in-built concept of the fashion industry as exploitative of females; an irredeemable commercial enterprise that questions our worth unless we are conforming to an all-that-is-man standard of what is engaging and appealing. 

Women spending their own money and doing something just for themselves? DEAR GOD, COVER YOUR EYES, THINK OF THE CHILDREEEEN.  A man surprised is half beaten, but a woman surprised is delighted thusly? 

BLOODY HELL. FEETCH MEEE MY PEEEARLS, I FEEL EMPOWERED. These comically patterned bustiers. They distract me from my mortality. 

There is more to fashion than cocaine-riddled, fur-clad, sunglasses-sheathed obsessive freaks and starving Latvian teenagers who speak minimal English, if you will. Fashion is actually more than a culturally suspect pursuit of impossible standards and the bastard child of capitalism. It is a Yves Saint Laurent camel coat with a nutria-fur sombrero in 1962 on an unexampled woman : Sheer artistry.

Fashion and Feminism are not mutually exclusive.

***Written for Scarlette Magazine. Ohio State University's first and only fashion magazine, created and run entirely by students.***