Carrots, Dentists and Fashion Inequality

I’m hoping that, like the newspaper headline ‘Man Bites Dog’, the above title was enough to attract your attention. What I have to relate is a genuine tale of inequality and yet so publicly applauded. Bear with me though while I link them all together.

I am a person who really loves her fresh fruit and vegetables. I’m not claiming that they give me an Aphrodite-like figure but by the same token, they help me to avoid a Pu-Tai-like one as well. I’m rather happy with that because I think it would be somewhat disconcerting having people rub my belly for good luck. However, back to my diet. As part of my quest for healthy eating I really enjoy eating raw carrots. It’s nothing unusual for me to eat three or four a day, along with other fruit like apples and pears. The trouble is that for them to be nicely edible they need to be crisp. From a succedaneous point of view, that also means somewhat hard and crunchy. Generally that does not pose a problem however recently that was not the case.

After happily munching my way through a quite delicious carrot, and swallowing every last bit, I ran my tongue around my teeth to savour the last of the taste. Suddenly my tongue detected the oral equivalent of the Grand Canyon where my upper, left, third molar was supposed to be. In truth careful examination with a dental mirror revealed that it was merely a part of the tooth filling that was missing so I was a bit annoyed at the panic my tongue has caused. Nevertheless, the damage required professional intervention such that a couple of days later I found myself taking a seat in the waiting room of just such a professional.

For some reason I don’t quite understand, the dentist’s staff were not queued up to usher me directly into the surgery, nor it seems was the dentist himself ready to perform his fang farrier role. I was left with no alternate than to entertain myself until they all came to their senses and realised my importance in their order of things. Thus I found myself taking a seat in the aptly-named waiting room and picking up a magazine to flick through. To my delight the top magazine was Vogue so after turning through the first 15-20 pages of advertisements I came to the table of contents and there saw an article on Gender-based Codes of Dress.

I quickly turned to the relevant page and it was there that I was confronted with the injustice of the fashion inequality that I referred to in my opening title. The carrot, the dentist and the inequality, all linked in a mere five paragraphs. The article, as one would expect for Vogue magazine, was aimed at women and portrayed coming fashion trends and styles, as determined by four particular designers. What struck me most though was the fact that the ‘style’ being featured was about clothing for women being based on commonly-worn men’s clothing. Yes, you can see the injustice too, I know. Women are being encouraged to wear clothing that looks like that worn by men and to show off their ‘masculinity’. “What could be better than a bit of bling and a man’s jacket over a short dress?” it asks. A designer freely admits that his “bombers, biker jackets and trenches are all stolen-from-a-boy style.” As my dear friend Dr. Zachary Smith once said “Oh, the pain. The pain…”

The article proclaimed “Trends come and go but the ‘man-style’, androgynous game is here to stay.” The focus of the ‘what-to-wear’ piece was the need for “tomboy vibes”. Oh, so it’s okay for women to dress in ‘man-style’. They will be seen to be fashionistas if they exude those tomboy vibes. Gender bending is de rigueur as long as it’s female to male. Where though does that leave those of us ‘men’ who actually want to dress ‘woman-style’? Can a man dress androgynously and be featured in those magazines lurking in dental surgery waiting rooms? Is it the same for us, that the style is “here to stay”?

I agree that it’s certainly here to stay, as most of us know, but I doubt we’ll see it featured soon on the pages of Vogue. It seems unlikely that in the near future we’ll see images of attractive men blending the latest from Victoria’s Secret with a jacket from Boho Vibes. Are we really likely to be told to “Take your jewellery and handbags with you, and maximise your make up” because women have been told to do the opposite? I won’t be holding my breath waiting for that fashion advice. Still, the end of the article did make one final point so perhaps our couture salvation lies there. Women were advised that “…in typically contradictory fashion, it’s important to keep the look feminine with subtle and soft hair.” Perhaps after all I can wear that lovely Maison Scotch coat, or the Strateas Carlucci shirt and maybe even my Country Road pants, as long as I keep the look masculine with shaggy, boofy hair.

Hmm, maybe it would be better if in future I just avoided carrots.