Fashion Through Cinema, Old Lady Style.

Today i was standing in my local newsagents, with the rain outside once again drowning Britain as we know it, just staring at shelf titled ‘Magazines and Newspapers’. Every cover I spy and every headline I read is plastered with Rob’s face or Kristen’s figure, headlines crying out about the new ‘Gothic Glamour’. And standing here aimlessly flicking through Look, I realise the world has gone insane, totally and thoroughly Twilight insane.
I must admit from the moment I saw it, read it, like any other girl I was like a fly caught in a web. An embarrassing, expanding, lust filled web of infatuation. My breath harbouring in my chest for every second I saw him walk on to the screen, to gently stroke her face and spine-chillingly whisper, ‘I love you’. Yet, each time I find myself asking, what is it about vampires that is so outrageously sexy and romantic? Possibly it’s the unknown, the peril, and the mysterious that makes them remarkably beautiful. I didn’t know then, and I certainly still don’t know now; but at that first release of Twilight, the first glimpse of Robert Pattison’s pure snow skin and liquid golden eye’s I became obsessed. Draw in like an umbrella to rain. I had a fiery, burning passion for a film? I had to be kidding myself! I’m the usually the Grinch of the cinema, ready to destroy the sheer thought of a movie night at the slightest mention. Then came Taylor Lautner and I literally dived from my chair, rugby tackled the coffee table, head-butted the vase, and found myself staring face to face with the most stunning man, well boy, after all he is 17, and I was officially in love; in love with Twilight and a 17 year old, devoted to Team Jacob.

With this thought in tow, I stand back, arms crossed and watch, mystified, as thousands of women amble by shielding their Daily Mail from the rain like I would my Marc Jacobs, I realise they all too take a sneaky peek at the talent displayed on the shelf. I actually think in my mental calculation the pages smothered by Twilight are getting more wandering eyes than the top shelf is from the dirty men buying their daily dosage of alcohol and cigarettes. I smile to myself as two ladies, around 70, wobbling slightly on their walking sticks join me at the shelf. I glance down in embarrassment as I realise I am ogling over a half-naked Jacob Black, and try to conjure up a plan to act causal. “Oh my Doris,” I eavesdrop, “Look at this! I remember when Frank used to look like this you know. Back in day, he was quite a stud, especially when he did the saucy strip tease of an evening!” She begins cackling and I bite down on my lip, trying to suppress any squeal of laughter, while attempting to avoid any red lipstick on the teeth disaster. It’s something quite bizarre that even the elderly are mesmerised, intrigued by this cinema phenomenon. The unusual is standing right before me; two pensioners crooning over pictures of the latest teenage craze, picturing their memories. Isn’t it odd, that normality tells us that pensioners despise the young generation and are so naïve as to any development of cinema and technology? Yet here they are now, proving that Twilight has even gripped the elderly between its pointed teeth, making the world truly fanatical.
The un-named lady in the green BHS parker continues; I know this because her label is trying to say hello to me through her grey matted curls. At least it’s only him that’s spotted me. “Look at this girl’s makeup. So much eyeliner, did we wear that much when we were this age?” She asks Doris who just simply shakes her head, completely uninterested. I daringly snap a glance of the picture she was reminiscing too, noticing immediately it was Kristin/Bella; what a surprise, I find myself thinking. Every image and every headline is appealing to everyone, completely destroying any target audience, everything a publication works for with one monstrous blow. At least, I don’t think Vogue ever intended for retired ladies sporting the latest M&S look to be flicking through their pages.

Suddenly comprehending the situation I understood, everything is for Twilight. Again, I was staring at the splashes on every publication, How to get Gothic, Fashion Alert: Black Lace, Black is Back. Was a film really beginning to shape our catwalks? Trying to shake the thought out of mind, thinking only of the absurdness and utter vulgarity of the idea I realise it is true. Fashion has come to a point where designer’s creations and supposed originality has faltered away and collections come from the launch of films and people’s new obsessions. It shocks me to think possibly for once, people have shaped the identity of the catwalk, instead of the catwalk shaping us but I just can’t accept that the creations should originate from a box office.

Frantically scrambling through page after page I notice nothing but velvet, blacks, smouldering eyes and sexy red lips; all vampire traits, confirmation of my fears. Fashion this season was based on a vampire, on a film that appears to have taken over the world and humanity as we know it, leaking into the fashion houses like a virus. Halting, I slam my hand into the page, slightly bewildered at my own reaction. Unsure as to what magazine I am even grasping, all I can do is gawk with eye popping stares as I take in the rows and rows of Twilight t-shirts brandishing slogans of I Love Edward and various other hideous designs. My teeth grimace, similar to that of a vampire most probably, as I think of the embarrassment I feel for these magazines, having so little to publish other than t-shirts made on the internet! Barely noticing the ladies that hit number one for my conversation of the day, still ogling at Jacob, I flew past them in a whirl of outrage, disgusted what I have just witnessed, even more disgusted than the thought of the un-named lady watching her nightly strip-tease. This planet had warped into a globe of insanity for Twilight, not just the fashion and beauty but the people; old ladies even captured by the magic.
Fashion and cinema have gone mental!