The Dislikes…

(Beautiful illustration of Amy Prince and myself by Aurore de la Morinerie, which was drawn at the conference in San Francisco)

Somebody asked a very valid yet puzzling question the other day, which I had to take a few days to ponder in order to answer in a sensible way…"Is there anything you DON’T like", in reference to my apparent love of everything and my *ahem* schizophrenic fashion tastes that seems to span every genre possible. 

I had to think hard because as I’ve said before, even seemingly ugly things can be taken out of context to make it work for you.  There aren’t that many brands/labels I well and truly hate which is very different from brands/labels I wouldn’t buy.  E.g. if I was given a top from Evans, I’m not going to turn my nose up at it but equally I’m not going to be spending money there either. 

Let’s take what I personally WOULDN’T wear out of the equation as for the life of me, I can’t put my finger on specifically what I wouldn’t wear without seeing it and messing around with it and integrating it into my wardrobe. Like I said, even something like Juicy Couture will throw out something nice and hell, I’ll even have a go altering their velour trackie bottoms into something semi-wearable.

So I guess I’d rather refer to a question that was posed at the presentation that I did with Amy Prince, editor of Surface Magazine at San Francisco where a student asked what I looked for in a designer’s work that would deem it Style Bubble-worthy.  Is there something that will trigger me to dump a lookbook into the trash folder pronto? 

To simplify it, if I can see something of the personality of the designer in the clothes, even if it’s an ickle glimpse, something that suggests to me a feeling like that person might be a friend that I might get along with in real life or at least have a tea and some biscuits together, then I’m basically onboard.  I don’t mean to say they’re baring their whole body and soul to me through one singular email but just that in one stroke of a style choice, it spoke to me immediately.  E.g. Making dolman sleeves grossly exaggerated as opposed to wee and only a little bit puffy gets the thumbs up from me because in my warped head, the person designing HUGE puffy dolman sleeves might also like to jump in rain puddles like I do.  Yes, that is exceedingly effed up that I think in such a way.  Blame the brain working at a ferociously exaggerated pace.

There are other clues though.  Lookbook images for instance are rather telling; choice of model, make-up, setting, photography… which sounds awful as the clothes are supposed to be the main focus but equally those aforementioned choices say much about the designer’s taste and how he/she wants to portray his/her work.   

A jersey top designed purely because ‘It was cute!’ just doesn’t really say much.  That they also choose to illustrate the top with a celeb example e.g. "Rachel Bilson was seen wearing this at 10.45am at Blah Blah Plaza" also doesn’t bode well for the longevity of the email in my inbox. 

Then there’s the cheese factor.  How many times have I used the word cliche on the blog?  Countless because I simultaneously love using the word but hate what the word denotes.  I got embarrassed just by watching young Hannah Martin on the soap Neighbours say something stupid.  Ergo, I cringe quite easily and so my cheese level tolerance (both in physical cheese and aesthetic cheese) is very very low.  Therefore a dude with his shirt unbuttoned one too many buttons in a lookbook and a smirky smile will make me wince, unless someone was going for that i-D ironic thing and even then it’s questionable.

On that note, I guess this post ends on with an unknown conclusion as to what it is that Susie Bubble DOESN’T like.  I’ll only know cheese if I see cheese.  So I guess there is no finite list of rules that I go by but at the end of the day, the consensus is that I GENERALLY like most things and I welcome thee with open arms.  Especially if you like puddles.