Stuff and Moonshine

Earlier today I saw and shared on Facebook an interview with William Gibson on the subject of clothing. Gibson was interesting as usual and I recommend you give the whole thing a read, but one bit that stuck with me was a reference to one of his protagonists, a woman "allergic to fashion" who consequently wears only sleek, timeless garments in a limited colour range. This reminded me of the style sheet Darwyn Cooke did for his version of Selina Kyle, a wardrobe of sexy-but-classy-and-practical looks inspired by Katherine Hepburn. Then I started wondering why "practical" had to mean "everything in neutral colours and styled like menswear."

Thing is, I don't believe that's the only way to dress practically. I have a related rant about how back when dresses were everyday wear for most women, they were designed in a range of formality, including day-dresses with the kind of pockets everyone complains that women's trousers don't have, but that now dress design is pretty much restricted to "formal" and/or "sexy."

I mean, the colour of a garment makes a difference if your aim is camouflage; it might make a difference in terms of showing dirt (though a busy print usually hides stains better than a solid in any colour) but a bright or pastel garment is not inherently less tough or warm than a khaki one. So the look is about practicality, but it's also about performing practicality -- it's saying "look how smart and no-nonsense I am in these drab colours and no ornamentation." It's like the flip side of the girls' toys aisle where everything is pink: for this type of heroine, *nothing* can be pink, or even colourful, or flashy.