Dear Fashion Industry,
Do you hate women? I don’t mean to be rude because I know that many of you are women and even the ones who aren’t, probably like women at least a little bit if you have dedicated your career to dressing us. So, yes, hatred does seem a strong word to use in this context.
However, I can think of no other reason why you would inflict the cruel abomination that is cut-outs on an innocent population of women who just want to give you our money. For clothes. Without bits of them missing.
You see, I like clothes a lot. I buy clothes a lot. I try on clothes a lot. I walk around shops looking at clothes a lot.
And my overwhelming impression of those of you who work in the fashion industry after doing this over the last few months is that none of you have ever met a woman. Because if you had, you would know that we rarely wake up in the morning, thinking about what we’re going to wear and wonder, “Oooh! Which part of my torso would I like to hang out in the breeze today? Should it be my upper back? How about the fleshy bit just above my hips but only on one side? What about the front of my stomach or wait, I know! My sides, just where my bra is!”
Fashion Industry, this does not happen.
Women, as a rule, buy clothes because we do not wish to expose our bodies in the manner of 23-year-olds on the Vanity Fair red carpet. Thankfully, for the vast majority of us, exposing our bodies does not lead to more work in Hollywood, or more sales of our albums. We don’t have albums. Or Hollywoods. What we do have is bodies that must perform everyday tasks like going to work, picking up children from birthday parties, buying toilet paper and walking dogs. And these bodies generally use clothes to cover ourselves – not to play pick-a-body-part-peek-a-boo with the world.
Sometimes, our bodies need to go out and be social or even get dressed up for special events and that’s when we can wear things that are a little more exciting than what we wear in a normal day. But rarely are those special occasions ones in which we have a pressing need for ventilation in the form of gaping gaps above our waists.
That’s what deodorant is for.
What’s baffling to us, as women, is that you seem to think cut-outs are in any way (a) flattering and (b) something the vast majority of women would want. It’s like you took humiliation and tried to make it fashionable. And then expected us to pay money for the privilege of feeling like a human keyhole.
I will accept that some women may wish to have open windows in their clothes because it makes them feel or look sexy. This is wonderful for them and I applaud their vibes.
However, 99 per cent of us do not share said vibes and I anecdotally know this to be true because every time I mention it on social media, the comments explode with angry women who have had an exposed gut full of fashion trying to sell them on the worst trend you’ve ever invented and that’s saying a lot for us Gen X-ers who remember when you tried to sell us the idea of heroin-chic or that time you made us wear peasant dresses over pants or cargo pants with stilettos.
Haven’t we suffered enough?
I am a 51-year-old woman who is more confident than anyone I know when it comes to what I wear. Right before sitting down to write you this letter, I was online buying a floor-length fluorescent pink tulle ball gown for no occasion whatsoever. Just because it’s mad and fabulous and looking at it gave me joy. I might even wear it to work.
Listen to Mamamia’s podcast all about fashion, What are you Wearing? Post continues below.
Cut outs though, can suck a d**k.
I don’t want them. I don’t like them. And yet, everywhere I look, the clothes you are trying to sell me are defined by them. In my retail travels, I have observed this cut out pandemic does not discriminate. It has spread like a spicy cough and infected every label at every price point for reasons no grown woman can explain.
So on behalf of Australian women and anyone who likes wearing women’s clothes, I beg you. Cut out the cut outs. We deserve better.
Feature Image: Supplied/Mamamia