Fuck Me, It's Dwayne Dibley!

Mrs Bison spent about four hours yesterday taking Bison Daughter shopping, on account of the fact that she's grown out of everything. In the good old days we'd buy clothes in advance - whatever was on sale at the end of the season we'd buy it in a larger size for next season, and that way we'd stay ahead of the game. (To be fair, when I say "we", I obviously don't mean me.) However that doesn't work now because the girl has discovered "fashion". That means a shirt with no logo from Target is "unfashionable" but the same shirt with "Hollister" plastered all over it is "way cool". Never mind that they're all made in China and would fall apart if she didn't grow out of them so quickly, the branded stuff is much better.

There's a balance here - I'm not going to force my kid to be the only one with no logo gear, but I'm also not giving in to this "everyone else has it so I have to" bullshit. A few branded items amongst the other stuff go a long way.

The marketing of branded clothing to kids is an irritating way to suck more money out of our pockets but at least the clothes still look like clothes. The other night I had the misfortune to experience America's Next Top Model on TV. Have you ever seen such a load of complete bollocks in your life?

The whole fashion industry seems to be populated by freaks, degenerates and weirdos, the kind of bizarre, self-obsessed nonces that you'd cross the street to avoid in real life. Just look at what goes up and down catwalks in the major fashion shows - no-one in their right mind would ever conceive of actually wearing any of that crap, and anyone who'd pay what it sells for clearly has more money than sense, by a phenomenally wide margin.

I don't want to sound like an expert on America's Next Top Model, but it falls into the standard reality-show format, where a cast of wannabes are put through a series of tests and gradually eliminated by a panel of judges. One of the judges is a "bloke" (I use the term in its broadest possible sense) by the name of Miss J.Alexander. What struck me when I saw him on the show was that he was dressed in the kind of gear that would make anyone look like a complete pillock. The whole fashion industry is an "Emperor's New Clothes" experience; if some "high fashion" name started prancing around in a bin bag and wellies suddenly everyone else would want to. Who could believe that flared jeans came back, for fuck's sake?

But as soon as I saw J.Alexander, the famous fashion figure and catwalk coach, the first thing I thought was "It's Dwayne Dibley!" Yes, the ultimate fashion-failure character from Red Dwarf. He was the spitting image! I know everyone from the UK will know who he is, but here's a link to Dwayne Dibley for those who don't. And if you haven't watched Red Dwarf before I can only suggest that you've clearly been wasting your life to date.

At the top of the page are four pictures - two are fashion failure Dwayne Dibley and two are fashion guru J.Alexander. Can you tell them apart?

So forgive me if I'm somewhat reluctant to ponce about in whatever the fashion industry tells me is now "in". Remember, just because it's fashionable doesn't mean you don't look like a twat.


Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison