April 08, 2005
Hot Pink!
Alright, ladies! It is time to throw out all of your brand-new clothes from last year and buy an entire new wardrobe with the updated shades of pink!!
I try to keep a keen eye on the color of the blood pulsing through popular American culture. I always start out my endeavor with a genuine interest, but an hour or so later, I throw up my hands in the air yelling “Forty-eight hot, new colors??!?! Forty-eight?? Pink? Pink is in?! How can pink be new?!! Bangs are back in style? What do you mean, ‘back?’ I’m not that ADD! I remember last spring! This is a 2004 article that you just reprinted!”
But, wait, no: read the fine print. They are in fact totally new shades of pink, red, orange and green that are in this year. Out with dusty pink, in with flamingo flair. Out with Chartruesse, in with Lime. Out with kissy-poo red, in with burning desire. Out with mocha, in with mocha latte. We change the shades just slightly, so that you have to buy new clothes.
But, heaven forbid that these new clothes would be too different from our old ones. It is almost as predictable as a horoscope: “You will read something today that will tell you what will happen and you’ll feel better with the security this brings you. You like nice things, but you also like some things that are not nice. Your lucky numbers are 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and you might be surprised with how well mustard compliments ketchup. Try it.”
Bang’s have been the hot new thing for five years now and every year the way you wear them shifts a little. Short and straight. Long and straight. Long and side-swoop. It was long hair unevenly cut at the bottom before that…. It was high hair-sprayed bangs before that; it was long, long hair before that, and on and on.
I’m a business woman. I understand how these things happen. I know why they’re telling you that pink is the hot new color. It is because it sold like a wildfire last year, and they don’t want to pull the rug out from under it. (In fact, HFT sells a pink shirt! I shouldn’t be creating so much consumer awareness about this!)
I do think we should value beauty. I think that the raging hurricane of yearly fashion is started by creative people truly trying to go for something new. It is spurred on by good and bad things: practicality (cargo pants!), a genuine desire to enjoy beauty (this eye shadow will really bring out the color in your eye!), lust (I want that!), and low self-esteem (I need to look like that!).
The beauty we see in the current color and fashion forecast is merely a dim reflection, as in a mirror, of true beauty. That is why we spastically cut our bangs and then grow them out, constantly running from end to end of the spectrum: we cannot attain here on earth what we were made for.