[quote=“kelake”][quote=“tigerman”]
But hell, what do I know? I once went three years without combing my hair. [/quote]
15 years and counting …[/quote]
Awesome!
I don’t comb my hair on weekends, and I only get my hair cut twice a year. So when it gets longer, due to the nature of my work, I am forced to comb it. But I like when I get it cut, for the first couple of weeks I don’t need to comb it.
MOST of the fashionable Taiwanese teenage kids you find in a glitzy area like Hsimen tend to imitate fashion styles from Jap. “Style” mags (such as “Non-no” or “More”).
These mags show step-by-step thousands of new/creative/cool/funky/kinky ways of mixing & matching clothes or creating different hair-dos.
I have witnessed a number of youngsters who dressed like Jap pop dols like Amuro Namie or Korean pop groups like Shinwha, Baby V. O. X.
Seemingly, these junior/senior high school kids look very fashionable,
but personally, I think they are more like fashion-followers, not fashion-leaders…Quite different from real fashionable youngsters in London or Paris who have their own unique styles. 
i’d be apt to think that those personal styles that develop there, and in places like new york as well, develop in a similar fashion here…but it’s hard to discern between copy-cat styles and the distinct, original fashion styles with a limited acquaintanceship with taiwanese and japanese fashion trends.
or, in other words, it’s easy to deny the creativity of the taiwanese/japanese youth without a good understanding of who’s copycatting and who’s starting fashion trends.
[quote]I’d be apt to think that those personal styles that develop there, and in places like new york as well, develop in a similar fashion here…but it’s hard to discern between copy-cat styles and the distinct, original fashion styles with a limited acquaintanceship with Taiwanese and japanese fashion trends.
or, in other words, it’s easy to deny the creativity of the Taiwanese/japanese youth without a good understanding of who’s copycatting and who’s starting fashion trends.[/quote]
I think what you are trying to say is quite a good point to ponder… 
Actually I also think it’s like a “Mobius strip”…to decide who is the creator of a certain look or who imitated it.
Strictly speaking, I think there’s nothing 100 % original…in evey aspect of our lives, including art, music, fashion, architecture…and even in writing academic papers.
It’s just through my observation while traveling in London and Paris. As I am very interested in street fashion, I had chances to talk with some friends who are REALLY stylish - They were not craving for certain fashion trends or certain pop idol looks, but tended to make use of clothes they already have, very good in color coordination - sometimes experimenting with man’s white shirts, hats, etc. and creating chic cross-over looks.
And fashion was just tiny part of their lives.
Of course in Munich, Cologne, London and Paris, main pop trend looks like hip-hop, punk, or gothic look were also popular among teenage kids,
but I also could find diverse original looks (which cannot be categorized) in the streets, which I couldn’t find in Taipei or Seoul.
As for Japan, I found a variety of different looks in Harajuku, Shibuya or in Osaka.
What I was least impressed were the looks borrowed from cartoon (manga) characters - They looked :shock: preposterous…
While chatting with some Jap youngsters, I found how important fashion is for these Jap. kids and many of them are obssessed with how they look to others. (some of them slave themselves in cafes or even sell themselves to buy certain brand clothes!)
I think it’s dangerous to say that Taipei youngsters are not creative…There might be certain individuals who have their own individual styles, but I’ve tried to talk about my general observation.
I admire their courage, though, to wear a cowboy hat with short pants and dyed blonde hair, which used to very popular some time ago, of which the look was created by a Taiwanese singer.
But again, all these are just my impression and has a limitation… 
I’m not trying to be a Mr. Negative, really. But could someone please explain to me what exactly is the purpose of “style” and “fashion”?
I just don’t get it. I’m all about utility and comfort. So beyond being clean and wearing clean clothes, I just can’t figure the fuss about fashion. But I’d be interested, really, in reading any enlightening posts.
[quote=“tigerman”]I’m not trying to be a Mr. Negative, really. But could someone please explain to me what exactly is the purpose of “style” and “fashion”?
I just don’t get it. I’m all about utility and comfort. So beyong being clean and wearing clean clothes, I just can’t figure the fuss about fashion. But I’d be interested, really, in reading any enlightening posts.[/quote]
Don’t you know dahling, you can PRETEND to be someone you’re not when you don that Prada or Gucci or whatever other vulgar name brand you pay too much for and still look like shit in…
Personally, I’m with you. I consider clean lines and quality tailoring to be good fashion sense. But, I was raised as middle class trash, so I don’t have to prove that my wallet is fat by purchasing labels, like some.
Don’t mistake style for fashion. Stylish dressers will always look fashionable, but fashionable dressers will only occasionally look stylish.
As for Tigerman, he sounds exactly like a deadhead fashionista. 
Wow! sandman, I’m impressed by your statement above. But I gotta ask, do read Cosmo and Vogue?
Actually, I’m not really. I mean, I have my share of tie-dyes and Jerry Garcia neckties (which I do like)… but all of these were presents given to me by my Mom and sister (who’s name, incidentally, is Zippy). If I have any fashion sense, it is that of a farmer. As a kid I toiled on a big farm for about 9 years, until I went off to Taiwan. Comfort and utility, combined with an aversion to spending money, result in my wardrobe being comprised primarily of worn, patched blue jeans and work shirts. And I always own a pair of good shit kickers.
I always thought the folks at the Dead shows who “dressed the part” seemed a bit odd, just the same as I regarded the folks who attempt to dress any “part”. Anyway, I saw the Dead at least 100 times and only on a very few occassions did I ever see any of them wearing hippie clothes… and I never saw any of them wearing gauze paisley peasant skirts (as did some of the more goofy Dead Head guys)!
[quote=“sandman”]
Don’t mistake style for fashion. Stylish dressers will always look fashionable, but fashionable dressers will only occasionally look stylish.
[/quote]
Good point for sticking with the classics. You could go out of style in a month or you could still be in style when you’re 100. Hence, Cher looking dated 99% of the time, while Audrey Hepburn could walk down the runways today. She was the most fashionable/stylish movie star who ever lived, IMO.
I think Taiwanese women can be very stylish and funky, but I walk away with two impressions: it looks good on them, but there’s no way in hell I’d wear it, even if I were built like a Taiwanese woman; and it seems so plastic. I find that it totally blends in with the materialistic thing that I see here where people are so concerned about who they are friends with and what brand of items they possess and give that they care little about the substance that makes it up. They make friends with people because of their social status, not because they enjoy their company. They buy things from Shinkong Mitsukoshi, not because they like the items or service there, but because carrying a bag from there brings an air of prestige of being able to shop in a higher-end department store. Even if it’s for a pair of socks. Then they send their kids blankets and lunches in these bags so they get even more face. Just yesterday I got seriously stared down by some people probably because of how I dressed (I also happened to have just come back from the flower market with a tree and pots for planting seeds on a hot weekend afternoon) and I thought to myself, I could either live my life for myself or I can live it to impress people. If you ask me, option b, the life that many middle- and upper-class Taiwanese people chose for themselves, seems like the shallow end of the pool of life…not much to do down there but wade.
As far as the hair color goes, I was meandering through the MRT one day and spotted a golden-haired foreigner. I began thinking to myself, is that a Taiwanese person with fake blonde hair or a foreigner with naturally blonde hair or even a foreigner with fake blonde hair. I came up with the term, “conceivably blonde”…it means there’s a good chance that it’s innate hair color. Of course, in having bright reddish brown hair only since my first year in college, I am hardly one to talk.
Then there’s the girl who lives in the same building as my preschool and manages to always come and go when we’re doing dismissal. She’d be unnoticeable except for the fact that she’s always wearing some skimpy skeazy (Imani-ism for sleazy skank) outfit…like a one-strapped fuchsia half-shirt, daisy dukes, and fringe brown leather witch-toed boots doing the runway walk past a bunch of 3- to 6-year-old children. I think the little girls were scarred for life. Ai-yo.