Mixed Messages: Say What You're Thinking with Your Clothes by Lynn Yaeger - VOGUE FASHION

Mixed Messages: Say What You're Thinking with Your Clothes

by Lynn Yaeger

VOGUE FASHION

This week, our expert shopper finds several pieces, from sweaters to shoes, covered in writing.  

Despite the famous admonition from Fran Lebowitz—“If people don’t want to listen to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?”—lots of designers are asking you sit down and have a serious chat with your outfit. Today may be Halloween (notice that when it lands on a Thursday it seems to last forever?), but the fashion mood is far more Barbara Kruger than Freddy Krueger. (The former, in case you skipped art history class, is a conceptual artist best known for plastering mottos like  “I shop therefore I am” and “We don’t need another hero” on her works.)

In any case, messages and inscriptions—some frankly nonsensical, some provocative, some oddly moving—decorate everything from minis to moccasins this fall. And this development isn’t ebbing anytime soon: Alexander Wang employed it with irony on his spring 2014 runway, offering shirts that warned “Parental Advisory Explicit Content”; bright frocks at Christian Dior were emblazoned with “Alice Garden” and other mysterious phrases. But why wait until spring? Right now a company called Wildfox Couture is sprinkling shirts with economical phrases like “Oo\La\La” and laundry lists including  “Morning Sunshine, Crisp, white sheets, Run on the beach, Tropical Rainstorm, Pina Colada.” (I prefer to be supine and sipping a Scotch, but there isn’t a shirt for that.)

Over at Joe Fresh, a holiday-ready black-sequined miniskirt for $49 has a deep border that reads “The End” over and over in the sort of Gothic script employed for the front-page banner of The New York Times. H&M, hardly the folks to sit out a trend, presents a pale lace tee for $17.95 with the words “Young Thing” arrayed in a circle. (This is perhaps best worn by someone who is at least of age.) There are also a number of garments splattered with elongated letters that don’t even form words, which I guess makes them more salable in the 53 countries where this cheerful behemoth has outlets. The result, though arguably faintly inane, is nevertheless quite pleasant and shows up on superlean pants, sweaters, and shirts, all for around $29.95.

The approach at Zara, a more sophisticated venue perhaps, is downright soulful: Here is a striped black and white pullover with a front panel bearing the legend “Life Is Inexplicitly Beautiful and Hopelessly Dark.” (This might provoke just the right sort of conversation in a bar.) You could add, assuming you want to spend nearly $300, Stubbs & Wootton’s velvet slippers that say “CLE” on one foot and “VER” on the other. (Is this too much to pay for shoes? Well, probably yes, except that, admit it, all the footwear you like seems to cost three times as much.)

Lastly, the adorable Olympia Le-Tan, she of the heartbreakingly expensive clutches made to resemble book covers (right now on thecorner.com you can find Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum rendered in cloth for $1,988), also has a tee that, in an apparent nod to The Sound of Music, reads “Schnitzel with Noodles.” It may not evoke high-minded literary reveries, but then again, it is only $135, and it might become one of your favorite things.

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