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  1. Friday, July 29, 2011

    I had a funny idea the other day while walking down Granville St. Granville is the entertainment district for Vancouver - it's where most of the theatres and nightclubs and bars are. At night, when we leave the dance studio, we get to see the spectacle that is nightlife for young folks. (That'll make you feel old - when you wonder why so many women are walking around on 5" heels with no pants on. Back in my day, we wore pants to clubs.)

    Anyway - it got me thinking - all these ladies look exactly the same, or they're trying VERY hard to all look the same. Tottering on shoes that are so impractical as to be comical, wearing small, tight dresses - same hair, same makeup. The sameness of it all is kind of depressing.

    The funny idea was - since so many people are so influenced by the popular idea of beauty/style, what if we, as a society/species, were unable to communicate preferences on beauty/style? What if there was something in our brain structure that made us literally unable to communicate on the subject? Imagine everyone having to go out into the world wearing/styled just the way they liked, without referring to some pop culture 'norm'? Would we try to detect trends through observation and copy, without communicating, or would we just not think of it as something that mattered? Would the idea of trying to all mimic one idea of the perfect image of beauty be alien and silly to us?

    Clearly I've been watching too much Fringe lately.

    Posted by Lisa at 2:46 PM | |

    2. 2 comments:

    1. Amberism said...
      8:58 AM

      The kids have this human body book and it talks about communication in one section. Apparently we mimic more than just clothes! We mimic mannerism, body language and basically everything of the people we're closest to (namely family and best friends).

      A couple who is famous but whose names I can't remember, raised a young monkey along side their son for several months in the 1930s. What they learned from that is that humans are master immitators, it is how we learn just about everything!

      So, I guess what I'm saying is that we come by the slutty dresses and uncomfortable shoes naturally ;).

      I think your idea is totally awesome, though. How interesting would that be?! I always wished I had the guts to just change "my style" at least, the style people expect from me. Not to trendy, but to something totally NOT (I'm not trendy, either, I'm just jeans-and-a-t-shirt person).

    2. Lisa said...
      11:41 AM

      Interesting!

      But with no central sources to tell us what the norm is, wouldn't it be much harder to determine who/what to copy? If no one could give feedback to anyone else on their style.... would that mean we stop caring about it entirely? Or would it be a matter of everyone deciding to mimic the same person for some reason?

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