Almost everyday I get stuck in traffic in Palm Street, Paola. When I was a child no one walked down Palm Street unless they lived there or unless they needed to go to the shoemaker. The shoemaker is still there, but is now buried amid shops selling high-heeled platform shoes for three euros a pair – a cobbler’s nightmare.
Palm Street today is, what’s the word I’m looking for, ah, yes, a hub. Everywhere in Malta is a hub of something or other these days, and Palm Street is the hot spot for… hot clothing.
The typical outfits in Palm Street shop windows are: strapless dresses with a large hole in the tummy area for an exotic view of the belly button and with the skirt length hovering somewhere just under the backside. There are variations, of course: sometimes the dress is not strapless, it has thin spaghetti straps and a cleavage cut which reaches to the belly button and the micro skirt has slits on both sides.
These shops, with phonetic names such as ‘Ex-fecter’ or ‘D-keyotik’ or ‘Najs and Spajs’, are very busy. From my car, I see women of all ages going in and coming out full of shopping bags (yes, the traffic is that bad). And these clothes are not worn only on Saturday evenings, but all the time.
Do you want to, say, nip to St George’s square to admire the spiral Infiorata, quick put on a boob-tube dress and heels.
Of course, I’m happy whenever a business is doing well. But as I sit at my steering wheel, I’m thinking:
1. When you buy the dress, do they tell you that if you sneeze your boob will pop out?
2. When you buy the dress, do they tell you that with each step, the crack of your bum will show?
3. What’s the point of wearing the dress at all?
I’m also thinking. What would Coco Channel say? She who revolutionised women’s clothing and who advocated: ‘Be classy. Anything but trashy’. She liberated women from the constraints of the ‘corseted silhouette’ and introduced the idea of casual chic. What would she say if she had to see women forcing themselves into these constricted shrunk dresses, which are an offence to anyone’s silhouette?
Chanel once said that she was in the business of fashion to fight vulgarity. Well, she’d have a very bloody battle on her hands here, seeing as vulgar dress codes are really taking over; not just in Palm Street, but everywhere in Malta. Forget a pound of flesh. Kardashian-inspired dresses are all about showing 30 kilos of flesh.
What would Coco Chanel say? She who revolutionised women’s clothing and who advocated: ‘Be classy’
“Tsk, tsk”, I hear you say. “You’re being elitist Kristina. You have a class complex and you think that whoever doesn’t dress like you is not able to dress properly.”
Now where did I hear that argument before? It’s utter rubbish.
This is not about fashion (of which I am no expert, I hasten to add). Nor is it about style. This is about decency. I see teenage girls out and about in clothes which can only be described as whorish and I get anxious.
I just want to cover them up and tell them that, surely, their mother did not let them go out like that. But the problem is that sometimes, their mother is next to them, kitted out in similar outfits.
This worries me no end. It’s not because I am prudish – everyone is free to buy and wear what they like at the end of the day, and I love a playful short skirt like any other. But these hooker-clothes are killing any sense of decorum in social interactions.
Somewhere along the line we seem to have been brainwashed into thinking that the way to be sexy is to strip and wear skintight, microscopic dresses. Well no.
For those obsessed with dressing up for men, there’s even a University of Cambridge study that shows how pointless it is to squeeze your cleavage.
Evolutionary biologist David Bainbridge revealed last week that studies show how men value intelligence over breasts, long legs and other supposedly attractive physical features.
“The main thing that men are looking for is intelligence. Surveys have shown time and time again that this is the first thing men look out for.”
He added that brains suggest a woman will be a more responsible mother, a trait that makes women more attractive to men.
There we have it. Perhaps clothes shop owners, when they go and buy their clothes from hookers markets in China, could keep this in mind and perhaps get some inspiration from designers such as Pheobe Philo.
The top British fashion designer is not a big fan of women being sexualised through clothes, and her work shows it.
“I have no problem with a woman wearing anything as long as she has chosen to wear it for herself. But I do think there are too many images of women that are sexualised and too many examples of women dressing for other people and disempowering themselves in the process,” she told the media in a recent interview.
She is spot on. The truth is that anybody can be seductive and sexy and gorgeous and beautiful. The appropriate attire just does the trick.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti