Ugly Urban Outfitters Items of the Past Month: Slouch City

Don't these images just scream "Fun! Liveliness! Zest! Well-fitting clothing!"? Let me tell you, they both make me want to celebrate life in a major way. Anyway, I think the model on the left is high on something. The more I look at models, the more this seems apparent. Her horribly bony shoulders are modeling the Truly Madly Deeply Mixed Striped Dolman Top, which is just another one of those things that is a copy of something from the late 80's you could find at a thrift store. The horrible color combination, drop shoulders (shudder) and geometric stripe pattern are what really make it totally '89. There's also a teal/putty/fuchsia one if you're so inclined, or just want to see some really emaciated wrists.

On the right is the Shell Kimono Tee, with the hugest screen print known to man on the front. It looks really strange to have a huge, sloppy screen print on a huge, sloppy t-shirt- you just don't know what to focus on. That shell is so big that it's encroaching upon the voluminous folds of the neckline. What exactly would make someone want this? Whatever is supposed to be happening here, it's not working. The top doesn't need a screen print; it has enough going on.

As many of my friends and colleagues know, in 1986 or something an amazing book called Dressing Sexy (ohmygod, if you have not read it, you have to buy it right now. This will be the greatest $1.50 you will have ever spent.) was published. This helpful guide, complete with photos of heavily made-up models with huge hair, encourages women, in a very Backlash-y fashion, to cool it with all those respectable tweed suits that make men respect you and helped you ease into a male-dominated workplace in the 70's, and start up with the suede tank tops, unbuttoned jewel-tone silk blouses, bed-head hair (it makes men think of sex!), and harem pants, in order to land yourself a Burt Reynolds type and a nice big flashy rock on your finger. The cover shows a woman wearing heavily pleated mauve leather trousers.

As for oh-so flattering Lux Knit Ankle Harem Pants (which are polyester, ewwww), I know Barbara Bergdorf would have approved, especially if they meant to be paired with a shoulder-padded mauve blouse cut to the navel. Which they probably are.

And last but not least, the Lux Paperbag Pant! This kind of reminds me of how, in the 80's, Japanese designers like Yohji Yamamoto rejected the structured glitz and gaudy, Dynasty-esque glamour of the decade, instead designing the dark, avante-garde, slouchy and asymmetrical. And maybe I would have been attracted to this had I been trying to avoid wearing a teal blazer in 1986, but today we have learned that these kind of clothes make your ass look saggy and that the cast of Dynasty actually looked pretty fierce.