Prada

I finally got to see The Devil Wears Prada last week. I’ve been wanting to see the movie ever since I first heard about it. I am fascinated by fashion. Not in particular with high fashion or expensive designers, but more with the ways that fabrics and colors and bodies can be combined together in aesthetically pleasing configurations. So I watched the movie hoping for an engaging story and lots of pretty clothes to look at. I wasn’t disappointed. It was an enjoyable film.

A major theme of the movie is how the non-fashion conscious Anne Hathaway character learns to wear and love fashion. This event is triggered in part by a speech given by the Meryl Streep character, Miranda. Miranda pontificates how fashions first appear on runways during fashion week and then are picked up by expensive designers who are in turn emulated by mass market clothiers. Thus, according to Miranda, the clothing to be found on the rack at Walmart is a direct result of what is seen on the runways in Paris. It is an interesting spiel which nicely justifies the need for high fashion. I’m not sure that I believe it. I’m not sure that Walmart clothing is very influenced by high fashion. I’m sure there is a little fashion influence, but mostly Walmart clothes are designed around what sells. What sells this season is determined by consumers who probably have paid no attention to fashion week. Instead the consumers pay attention to what their friends and neighbors and nearby strangers are wearing. On the other hand, consumers also pay attention to what people on TV are wearing and people on TV are dressed by professionals who probably DO pay attention to Fashion Week in Paris. So maybe there is a bigger connection than I thought.

I’m still inclined to believe that high fashion is to mass produced clothing as high art is to commercial art. High art exists to challenge us. Commercial art exists to please us. We need to have both. I love both literature and mass market sci fi novels. I love the fine arts studied in school and the pictures on the covers of books. I love the beautiful and strange concoctions worn by models on runways and the comfortable clothes found at local discount stores.

High fashion comes with a high price tag. While I love to look at the clothes, I cannot in good conscience spend that much money on them. In fact I can hardly bring myself to buy clothes at Walmart prices. Most of my clothes are either given to me or come from a local thrift store. Fortunately for me other people are quite willing to spend huge amounts of money on beautiful clothes which they hardly wear and then donate to thrift stores. I can then buy those clothes at a minuscule fraction of their original price. Although truth be told the original price of an item isn’t really the selling point for me. I buy clothes because I like them not because they have a certain label or because I’m getting 99% off retail.

This brings me back to Prada, because today I was in a thrift store looking at bags. I wanted a bag large enough to carry full size notebooks, but I didn’t want something that screamed “computer bag.” I definitely didn’t want something that had a computer corporation logo on it. I saw a likely looking bag and grabbed it. It was slim, attractive, exactly what I needed. Then I looked closer and saw “Prada” stamped into the leather on the front. It may be a knock off. I have no clue how to tell if it is. I do know that authentic Prada bags sell for around $300 on the year that they’re released. I never in my life expected to own a Prada bag. I never cared much either, but now I own one. I paid $1.50 for it. Now my only worry is that someone will see me carrying the bag and think that I’m the kind of person who would spend the money on the full retail price of the bag. Fortunately most of the crowd I hang out with probably won’t even notice or care beyond noting that I have a nice-looking, useful bag for my stuff.