He Spoke, She Spoke, Bespoke: Bucking the Trend

Clogs circa 1890.

I think one of the most important elements of personal style is the ability to say 'no.' Nowadays it's easier than ever for brands and retailers to bombard us with images of a trend. Before long, as magazine editors, fashion gurus, and tween bloggers and their peanut galleries proclaim its coolness, we find ourselves unable to tell the difference between what we like and what we're told to like.

Let's take, for instance, the clog. Time was, the only people who would have been caught dead in these clunkers were 18th century Dutch milkmaids and your sexually-liberated, chain-smoking spinster aunt who never got over the 70s. But ever since Kaiser Karl marched Freja, Abbey Lee and Lara Stone around that giant Chanel barn in the grand palais, every designer worth his/her salt has released a pair of clogs for the spring.

Miuccia Prada added satin, heels and storybook prints to clogs at Miu Miu, while Marc Jacobs slapped some awkward lambswool beards on pukey green bootie-clogs at Louis Vuitton. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for designers finding creative ways to interpret trends; my issue is with the thousands of impressionable women who jump on these trends without thinking. My hunch is that very few people actually find these monstrosities attractive or comfortable (wooden soles are loud, heavy and irreparable once they get chipped and gouged as they inevitably will.)

I loved that Garance completely disavowed them (of course, most of her followers followed her). I would love to see more men and women of style offering opinions instead of blind acceptance. But hey, if you think long and hard and decide that you still like the look, check out these marginally less offensive interpretations by Acne and Georgina Goodman.