clapping hands for momma!!!

I really like what Echo said about the various definitions of runway: "For some it's about how they feel, for others it is about taking care in the details of a look, and for others it is a literal interpretation."

There are many times when I dress for 'functional' and 'looks vaguely nice' which means I'm working within my intuitive comfort zone of harmonious colors and shapes for myself and my intended audience. The thing is, these are goals that can be achieved many different ways, and (luckily) don't usually require a huge amount of brain engagement or energy which often is needed elsewhere. I'm grateful that this an option and a default.

Then there are times I have the bandwidth of time and energy, if not necessarily a higher budget, to try harder. When I see visual expression as an art form and a place for play and experimentation and learning. Where regardless of my own tastes (which change, and grow, and adapt), the looks that puzzle or awe, or make me smile, or challenge me, all have something I can learn from if I give it a chance and train my eye to appreciate the context. When I try new things sometimes I fail, sometimes I look ridiculous, and then I laugh, and it's no big deal.

I don't think economic reality or the wealth divide can or should be glossed over. The power of corporations and the influence of branding as advertising is worth acknowledging and considering, especially as one 'signs on' to the brand by displaying it prominently. But we declare allegiances all the time with our clothes, whether they have logos or not.

In all of the arts you need patrons to economically support the ability of artists and designers to create. Only a tiny percentage of people might be able to or want to own a runway look, but they help make it possible for many thousands of people to see it. To consume it with their eyes, to reinterpret it, to knock it off, to wear a color or shape from it, to simply enjoy the visual feast. To challenge it and subvert it (I love Adbusters 'culturejamming' spoof beauty and fashion ads, for example. I think exposing injustices pushes an industry forward). A literal interpretation is only a very small subset of this effect.

Ovation for rabbit.

Personally, as a low energy person who uses up her stamina on not going broke or totally blob-shaped, I don't do any version of runway most days. When I do, I have fun with it. And yes I do admit to ambivalence in my own relationship with the fashion INDUSTRY... Which is why I adore Angie for her reminder that fun is the paramount touchstone. Not fun? No need to engage! Not even if it means frumpdom! Life is too short etc

Wait, the runway isn't ordinary?? My mom used to tell me school was not a fashion show; I figured this as concrete proof that She Had No Idea.

I definitely don't think we all need to walk around dressed like So-and-so Famous Designer's idea of The New Fashionable Woman. I do want to always walk around dressed as myself - and since I am a complicated and unique snowflake influenced by a myriad of fantastical stimuli, achieving this end takes effort. I prefer to put my work in on the front end - I generally don't want to slave over a hot closet all morning - but I do believe the effort is worth it.

OK. I will admit I found the runway stuff incredibly weird and silly and OTT before YLF. I remember flipping through Vogue fall 2011 issue and thinking, who the heck wears this stuff? S&M bondage apparel in public? And now I'm looking through the Chanel grocery runway show pics and thinking, I'd wear that one, and that one, and that one...I guess I've changed a little, hm?

Anyways, when I first joined YLF I struggled with a lot of guilt and worrying whether I was being vain by being interested in fashion. Lots of threads started on variations of that topic. Now I don't care, everyone around me knows I'm a fashionista. And once when I first joined, someone said I looked like I walked out of Vogue (I was wearing Chie Mihara sandals and a plaid skirt from H&M). And I love doing hypermatchy, which Angie has said before is very "catwalk". I don't have much time to follow the fashion shows, but I do appreciate the summaries that Angie does. I like doing runway in my own way. I love having a distinctive style that people see an outfit and say "That's so GP!" Just like I recognize the style of a lot of other members here. Life is too short not to have some fun!

Runway for me at work. Nearly invisible on weekends. I want weekends to be runway, but for some reason it just doesn't work out that way. Lazy?

Again what a healthy dialog. I was worried for a moment. Thanks to everyone for participating where ever you find your self to be.

I thought about this some more overnight, and my final answer is: Yes. Yes, my daily life is most certainly a runway show! Thank you for asking! (Note that I almost never wear a designer garment, and I never wear a high-end designer garment. It's all in the attitude!)

And rae, LOL about your mom!

You have got it MaryK, runway is not about high end or low end. It's about the feeling in spite of what you wearing. I have no designer duds in my closet but taking a quote from the Nutty Professor:

"Remember Sherman, remember, no matter what you Got To Strut"

Also having a knee jerk reaction to runway as not applicable to life is not truly understand it.
There is trickle down fashion in runway where the designer says this is my vision and such. Which seems to be what most people think. But there is also and this is becoming hugely more so as of late, trickle up. Where the designer is inspired by street trends. Seminal example is Marc Jacobs grunge collection for Perry Ellis back in the 90's. At the time it was hugely decried by a lot of fashion people saying it wasn't fashion. I found interesting at the time, because living in the NW at the time, that is how me and my friends dress.
Then there is this runway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cou04-vOZx8
This dress probably never made it to production, but isn't it just amazing, this vision that Alexander McQueen created. I truly believed he was an artist, it's just that his medium was clothes.

"Remember Sherman, remember, no matter what you Got To Strut"

Good grief. When get my dream Woman Cave I am totally having this embroidered on a pillow!!

To answer your question quickly: my life in my head is a runway, but my ordinary life is often just ordinary.

This thread has really sparked something in my that I just want to get out. I am occasionally conflicted about my love of Fashion. I admire the creativity of it, I love the runway shows, I love to look at the crazy art that the women strut down the runways wearing, I love the mags, I love the Style section of the NYTimes, I adore Bill Cunningham and wish he'd let me live with him in his little NYC hovel, I love YLF and all the discussions here .... but I also hate the whole idea that we should wear something a certain way because it is "trending" or should not because it is "so last year." I really, really struggle with this. When Angie says something is in, and suddenly everyone is wearing it in their WIWs, I must confess that sometimes it makes me feel a little crazy. Is this fashion? Where we all do the same thing because someone says it's cool? I realize I am being provocative here ... and I really apologize if I am offending anyone.

I don't think there is an answer to my inner conflict. I realize fashion trends come and go, and styles have a lifecycle, and when we learn about new styles we want to try them. I get that. But you know, when I raised my girls I often said, don't do what everyone else is doing -- don't care about what everyone else is doing! Do and wear what makes you happy. It's really not about what is cool; it's about what works for you.

Sometimes, occasionally, this seems at odds with a love of fashion, which can feel like it is about what everyone else is doing.

I struggle with that a little bit, too. It seems like we are always chasing the latest trends and the goalposts are constantly moving!

For me, though, it's really not about what everybody else, or the cool kids, are wearing It's more like I want to be on top of the latest, newest thing (provided I like it) just because I feel like it's a fun end in itself. I honestly don't think (much) about whether anybody on the street is going to look at me and say "Blech. She's still wearing her round-toed pumps when everybody knows it's the pointy-toed pumps that are trending." But I do totally get a kick out of wearing my pointy-toed pumps and knowing that I am participating in the newest (well, newest at my very plebian retail level) shoe shape. And not because I think anybody will notice, because I mostly don't think anybody will. It's just my own little hobby and honest to goodness, it has very little to do with what anybody else thinks. Although yeah, it's fun to be part of the club but I guess I see that as a little different from the kind of peer pressure you're talking about.

Does that make any sense? Maybe I'm deluding myself but that's how I roll, anyway.

viva, I have to agree I remember watching the WIZ with Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. There is a dance scene where the the Wiz is changing the color like the pantone color chart. All the people of the Emerald City start to dance and there clothing changes to what the Wiz tells them the new color is. "Green you got to be seen in green" The Wiz says the color is now red "Red I rather have Red instead" , "I would not be seen in green"

Get my meaning. Everything has it place and I have my on perspective on fashion but it the end it is a lovely hobby that I turned into a part time business. So I think people just want to be comfortable and well put together.

People used to ask me all the time where I was going lol. I said I was going to get my life. Now they don't even bother to ask because this is just me. I'm living life.

I hear you both -- Ladywone and Maryk. I actually came back to "edit" my comment -- meaning, to edit it down to nothing -- and then I saw that you, Ladywone had already read it. And then quickly Maryk had responded. And I was like, darn! Guess I am going to have to live with that rant!

You're both right, of course. We're adults, we're each doing our own thing, and it's a creative and fun outlet we are choosing to participate in. (That is to say, we're not 13-year-old girls giving over our selves at a time when we are completely vulnerable.)

So I am just going to lighten up and enjoy the ride, and just have fun, and live life.

I had to think about this thread because I was not sure where I stood. I have decided my life is a runway. Sometimes I walk down it dressed the best. Other times I answer the front door in my robe, my version of Victoria Secret. For us older folk, trying out these new trends in an appropriate way keeps us young at heart. That is where Angie's posts and WIW threads help. It gives us the opportunity to try new things and get good feedback because in reality, family feedback is not always the best.

Hi, I just wanted to chime in again on this interesting thread. To me what is great about this forum is precisely the fact that some people are "runway folks", such as true fashion-lovers that are up on trends and the first to try things ... while other people are "everyday" folks", such as those trying to figure out how to navigate fashion in the easiest, most down-to-earth way they can ... and probably many, if not most, are somewhere along the spectrum that joins the two.

It's exactly that diversity that makes this forum both inspiring and relate-able (is that a word??) which is no small feat. IMHO anyway!

i aspire to the runway, but for now, i'm living/dressing more like a catalog.

kkards, I think you summed it up for me! I was thinking I leaned toward runway, but really it's more catalog. I dress as though I will be photographed at any point...most days. I don't have anything runway-worthy as it's being described here.

yes, i play it safe to often. i'm working on it. for me runway implies a level of risk taking that i just haven't achieved yet.

Runway-all the way-too (at least in my head!:-)! (My mother used to tell me as a young child I was literary tireing them doing fashion shows at home every weekend, LOL-and I am pretty sure never saw one in person untill I was a teenager, or so...:-))

I personaly believe the way you present yourself in life is same as shouting out loud who you actually are, only that way is more subtle and needs putting in much more effort:-).

I always loved clothes-and sewing- as a hobby, but over 40 and experiencing some other obstacles that life put me through I felt like having to find a way to compensate for not losing my inner/outer sane and equilibrum.

I felt that due to my HOH condition my communication ability is suffering so I switched to more powerfull metacomunication instead. I try to dress in a matter to mantain the attention and the respect I have to have at work as an executive and in my private life as a wife and a mother. I have a DD(16,5) which has to see it's not all lost after 40 or when getting some problems. I want to show her that self respect (done by each on it's own way of course-perhaps mine is dressing neat) is a good way to achive kind of an equilibrum no matter what throws life to you or against!

I also find fashion, clothes and this site my fun and creative outlet-even if nobody is noticing IRL. It is like having a hobby or so and it actually gives me some great me time and more positive perceptions of my own imperfect body. It simply empowers me with the ability to see the beauty in all things surroundig me to say, when nothing else, than even in such an ordinary thing like a colorfull scarf seen on a stranger:-).

I love the idea of daily runway. Dressing can be a creative expression. It usually is for me. Why not enjoy it on yourself and others.

Oh, I'm a clown. I'm wearing my clown clothes right now. There is a great deal of pointlessness to what I wear and, as far as I'm concerned, that's just a fact.

Thing is, runway is everyday in the megalopolis. That's the problem. I may be a bit more clowny than others, but I'm not the only clown by far. Costume is... costume is the National Costume of California. Hehe.

p.s. & ETA: I propound that Fashion is the first multi-player, virtual-reality game ever.

Rachylou, ain't that the truth!

I'm glad you didn't edit your comment, Viva. I feel that way a little too. I opt out of plenty of trends. I want that to be a conscious decision on my part.

My life is a runway. Life sucked before I treated it like runway.

I don't own a single designer piece of clothing .... Not even premium denim. Period

My life is a highway, and I wanna ride it all night long.

When I worked I certainly felt runway and loved putting together outfits that really made me look and feel professional. I find it harder to dress down and dress casually. Am I overdressed or underdressed? I get so stressed just trying to put something together to go to the store. I also find that I am layering more (just get too warm sometimes as my menopausal friends will attest to), so finding pieces that will work with my entire wardrobe is a chore.

But I do find comfort in my warm wooly brown pilled sweater and my oversized fuzzy slippers and a hot cup of tea with my doggy snuggling up against me....

You all are wonderful, perceptive, descriptive, thoughtful and I love reading everyone's thoughts on this topic. This remindes me of why I stopped lurking and joined. We all have a voice and we all are here for a certain reason and I'm loving it.

I wish my life were more of a runway! I still shop thinking I have a runway to dress for. My LD Tuttle pale, delicate leather booties case in point. Not practical for ranch living with mud, dust, and lots of animals. A few years ago I wrote a thread about this: I shop and allocate a disproportionate amount of my clothing budget to clothes that I wear a few hours each week. Or for the odd trips I take to the city which might total 24 days a year.

My real-life fashion needs require a mix of elevated lounge and cowboy styles. Slim slouchy jeans (whether slouchy skinnies or skinny boyfriends = same thing), short, low heeled leather boots, tees and sweaters. No Carhardt jackets though, maybe I should add? So, even though that's very practical and I don't WIW it, I do* try* and that makes it a little bit runway, no?