Walmart in Your Neighbor's Closet

Fashion Emergency
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

Despite my OG turned classical turned prophetic sense of style, I am far from the shake your head in horror fashionistas who populate national bookstore chain cafes. They're the ones who, with skim milk and a dusting of cinnamon lattes, flip through Vogue (the American version) with hungry eyes and freshly lacquered acrylic fingernails. The suggestive gum chewing jaw gymnastics, the malapropos short skirts and stilettos, the Marc Jacobs sunglasses as headbands. It's just too much. Entertaining, yes, but it is entertainment made cloy by virtue of excess. It's pretty much the visual equivalent of eating a 14" diameter dark chocolate torte by yourself. In one sitting.

So while I live miles away from the nearest fashionista compound - or co-op - I do have my finger on the pulse of aesthetic everything. And last I checked, fashion's cheek bore a mysterious growth. Naturally, I called for a biopsy. And much to my dismay, the prognosis is bleaker than life in Cairo's City of the Dead. In a word, cartoons. Or cartoon characters. Or cartoon characters on clothing worn by adults.

Can someone please tell me why I keep seeing adults - as in potty trained, with families of their own adults - wearing cartoon character themed clothing? They roam the streets in candyland daydream stupor, wearing their obliviousness and their god awful silk screened sweatshirts and Disney logo'd Swatches. Why? And why must they walk around with that unshakable conviction that strong-arms bank tellers into giving them whatever color lollypop they ask for?

Those lollypops are disgusting. Much like the clothing. Disgusting, so why revert to childhood in adult form? Surely not for the fashion. Or is it? The number of adults I see strutting around as WB and Disney cartoon characters is enough to make you wonder and then vomit. And after rinsing off, you realize that cartoon character sweats have become the Burberry of the working class. And then you vomit some more.