If you have no interest in style or beauty why post?

[TheDead]

I ask this in all seriousness and not to start an argument but it occurred to me that pretty every post at the moment on S&B has several posters essentially saying 'who cares...wear what you like'.

And we all know that's true and actually exactly what does happen but I think S&B IS a place to talk about....well...style & beauty related things!

I don't see the point in opening a thread about 'what should I wear to x, y or z' to post 'no-one cares, wear what you like'

It's just not in the spirit!

I want to chat to fellow posters about all manner of trivial S&B things without being made feel I'm being trivial! My life is stressful & this is an escape at times.

Does anyone else feel the same or am I just feeling cranky?

Again I don't get it @LemonJuiceFromConcentrate I wear what I love & I feel reasonably individual my choices & I don't buy a new outfit every week in primark etc however I certainly do update my 'look' & I.am.now wearing v different things than I did my 40s. So from that point of view I do follow 'trends'

Yes. I agree some of it is well meaning - and I should hold up my hands and say I've posted along the lines of 'wear what you like' myself today. But this idea that there's a total disconnect between style and fashion, and that the former is superior to the latter is, in my humble opinion, absolute cobblers.

Personally I find trends fascinating. That doesn't mean I follow them all but mulling over where they're coming from and what they say about us and the times we're living in - I always find that interesting.

As far as I'm concerned, fashion is the vanguard and generally isn't all that bothered with wearability, ideas and aesthetics weigh heavier. It's exclusive by design and that turns people off while attracting a small set of others.

Style isn't that different, slightly more wearable, it just goes at a slower speed although devotees will swear up and down its a constant.

There's good and bad things in both, what I loathe is the constant competition between both as if you have to be on one side. You don't have to wear fashion to admire and/or discuss it. Ultimately it informs style so it's weird to pretend it doesn't exist and should have no influence.

And while we're here complaining, the constant age related threads are doing my head in. I guess it's the time of year and/or maybe COL crisis, but going through a quick glance of the thread titles on this board, everyone seems to be on a downwards slump.

Yes, I agree. Wear what you like isnusually a response to someone asking if they're too old/fat/unfashionable. It doesn't mean someone has no interest in style.

I dislike the way most women, who are interested in clothes and beauty, look the same. Few people have any actual style, they're either not interested at all or follow fashion regardless.

Fashion trends encourage pointless consumption.

The textile industry has a higher carbon footprint globally than aviation and shipping combined. Not to mention the amount of water and pesticides that crops such as cotton use. If people need an occasional reminder to avoid pointless consumption, that’s all good.

Because people think they’re being cutting and aloof and so much cooler than everyone else because they ‘don’t care what anyone thinks’. Like the nail threads where they post faux confused ‘What are Christmas nails?’

Why do you care what's on trend?

I'm interested in fashion and also in social history. I want to know what's on trend just out of curiosity. I might wear it or I might not, depending on whether I like it. I'm also interested in how fashion comes and goes. Mom jeans are "in" now and for years no one would be caught dead in them. The whys and wherefores of that interest me. I'm still not going to wear them, but I am interested in what others think about the trend.

This!

It's the wanting to look like everyone else that I think is utterly, utterly tedious.

The trainer thread has someone saying they're more likely to buy a particular brand because they've seen lots of people wearing them. An adult.

That's different to actually following it.

And that it's "Style and Beauty" - not "what some random on the internet has declared is dated"

I'm passionate about clothes and style - what is "on trend" isn't of interest.

I spent the afternoon in town today looking at people's feet just to see if I could make head or tail of what a "stylish trainer" looks like (see trainer thread")

Answer "No".

The most stylish person I saw in my view was a woman of about 30 wearing a dark green boiled wool/ felted coat, straight, single breasted, mid calf, small flower print skirt or dress about 2 inches longer, Doc Martens Chelsea boots, a very nice scarf and a beautiful grey boxy YSL shoulder bag.

As a pp said, some of this may be people using different words to mean pretty much the same thing.

It only nips at me when you get a thread full of posters saying confidently 'X is on trend,' followed by others replying, 'No it's not, Y is what's actually on trend. X is in fact very last year.' All of that seems designed to undermine people's own sense of what they actually love and respond to in terms of colour, shape, materials, detail etc. Which is a shame, imo.

I'm not even saying fashion isn't important. I know it filters down and has an impact on the choices I make, I've seen The Devil Wears Prada like everyone else

But you don't have to earn a place on the S&B boards by taking a trend-led approach. You can post there and still be a firm believer in wearing what you genuinely like.

Sorry, but what are "Christmas Nails"?

For me trainers are the epitome of not stylish no matter how "on trend" a particular brand might be.

you don't have to earn a place on the S&B boards by taking a trend-led approach. You can post there and still be a firm believer in wearing what you genuinely like.

Don't most people, whether they're in category 'fashionable' or category 'stylish', wear things they genuinely like? I don't know anyone who thinks 'bloody hate this but it's in fashion so on it goes, over the old meat sack'.

I swear some people have a vision of anyone who takes an interest in trends as looking like Bubble from Ab Fab.

I see a simple distinction between fashionable and stylish.

Fashionable means wearing things which are ‘on trend’, or at least predominant currently, regardless of whether it actually suits your body shape etc.

Stylish is wearing clothes you know look good on you, you enjoy wearing, and do the most to fit and flatter your body.

I like to be stylish rather than fashionable. As a short, well-upholstered woman in middle age, I look like a sack of potatoes in any of the past couple of years’ floofy, floral midi dresses. I feel I look stylish in sleeker styles, in fabrics of good quality, which make the most of my good legs and hourglass shape, and I look and feel better in those dresses, which suit me better. I carry myself well if I am dressed in a way that suits me, and that projects greater confidence.

I have to say that, if you made me choose whether to hang out with one gang or the other, I'd go with the fashion lot, and that's not because I'm particularly fashionable - I don't even own any trainers - but because i find at least they normally have a bit of awareness that it's all basically a bit silly and not peer reviewed science.

I'm afraid I'd choose the others. The particularly silly but oh so authoritative posts about "pumps and flowery dresses are so dated" were well, just silly (and according to Vogue amongst others, wrong)

I don't know anyone who thinks 'bloody hate this but it's in fashion so on it goes, over the old meat sack'.

Neither do I, and that’s not what I was saying. I do, though, see plenty of people posting who don’t feel confident that a decision based on just ‘what they like’ would look good or be stylish.

I guess it's the downside of being part of a bigger site as opposed to a closed group that non-interested parties don't stumble into. My heart always sinks a bit when I see a S&B thread in active as I know it will attract those "not in the spirit" comments. But more generally, I also find it odd when people post things on chat threads like "why are you asking a bunch of strangers on the Internet" or "Who is X celebrity, I have never heard of them".

Ok let's go there.
The 'D' word.
Why do some people who insist they don't care about fashion, get so annoyed when other people try and talk about it?
From where I'm sitting, it feels equivalent to me getting annoyed because some people like talking about growing their own vegetables.
And please let's not pretend that no-one gets annoyed.

And now I have to go out but I'll be back

For me trainers are the epitome of not stylish no matter how "on trend" a particular brand might be.

Ditto midi-length floral dresses with ruffles and furbelows. In my opinion. But then again, I am interested in why so many women want to look like an extra from Little House on the Prairie. And as this trend wanes, what is taking its place.

Some of the replies on this thread were interesting: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4722858-to-think-that-caring-about-what-is-fashionable-is-childish

E.g. there's really no such thing as "original" fashion.

I think trends are interesting and fun in their own right as a social phenomenon.

I also think that this discussion is moot, as very few people who aren't teenagers 100% follow trends blindly – unless your definition of "trend" is so loose that it includes just dressing like a normal person, in twenty-first century garments.

Imo people who repeatedly bore on about how they're so above fashion, trends etc are tiresome, boring, and lack self-confidence. Just let your style speak for itself if it's so original. Especially in big cities, there are lots of people with their own wonderful unique style, whether maximalist or minimalist. They're partaking in fashion and trends – creating their own interpretation of it.

I was on a thread discussing the decline in quality at Boden recently and someone came on with an unprovoked aggressive comment along the lines of us all being awful people with our petty first world problems. Glad to see HQ deleted it though. I am not sure what happened when it dawned on that poster that the entire board is "first world problems"!

By "this discussion is moot", I meant a discussion on people caring about fashion vs wearing what they like – neither are mutually exclusive. And as the bounds of fashion expand (eg women wearing trousers rather than skirts started out as a trend!), more people are able to wear what they like.

Didn't mean OP's post, which I totally agree with

@Floisme what's the D word? (Fully expect I'm going to feel stupid when someone tells me)