Flares are ridiculous. Pity the desperate designers who bring them back into fashion

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/jan/19/flares-designers-fashion

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So, apparently flares are back this season. Can we now all officially laugh at the fashion industry?

Anonymous, by email

It is true that some designers are trying to convince people to buy flares again, which everyone knows is a sign of imminent apocalypse. But, on the bright side, it means we can all enjoy the sight of fashion magazines contorting themselves into advanced yoga positions as – loyal to their advertisers like a dog is loyal to an immoral master – they attempt to pretend that flares are G-R-E-A-T. Look out for darling phrases like this:

“They’re very slimming!”

“They’re fabulous in a retro way!”

“Haute hippy!”

“Céline made them, ergo they must be good!”

Adorable. I do rather love fashion magazines for the way they simply parrot whatever designers tell them to: “You know those shoes we told you to buy five months ago? We told you they were “essential’ to your life? Well, they are now officially DISGUSTING and you need to buy THESE shoes. They’re essential, you know!” Like I say, I love it, but I’ve never really understood it. I get that fashion magazines need advertisers to survive. But film magazines, say, are allowed to give bad reviews, and the studios will still advertise in them. The only negative words you’ll ever see in a fashion magazine are ones used for styles from (ew!) last season. I just don’t get why fashion brands demand total obeisance from magazines in a way no other industry does, or why fashion magazines give it. My incomprehension might explain why I got banned from at least half a dozen designers’ shows when I used to cover them, but that’s another story.

Anyway, this is not a fashion magazine, so I can say with ringing certainty that flares are disgusting. Ooh, the freedom of expression is a delicious thing, isn’t it people? So tangy, but sweet, too, with a pleasant kick of righteousness. Of course flares are horrible: you know it, I know it and anyone in possession of the power of sight knows it. That the fashion industry is trying to convince people to buy them is not a sign that it is laughable, or even wrong, though. No one ever said that fashion is there to make people look good. This is a surprisingly common misunderstanding, leading to that perennial staple in tabloids, the genre I call “HA HA WHAT?!?!?!” journalism. This is when hacks laugh at how STOO-PID the models look in fashion shows: “God, look at the girl wearing a plank of wood on her head!!!! Does the designer think that looks good??!?!?!??” No, they don’t. They think it looks different. Style is the art of looking good; fashion is the endeavour to look different from everyone else while simultaneously looking exactly the same as anyone who follows fashion. It’s sort of like being in a cult, but with less food. So, going by that rubric, flares are perfectly in tune with fashion’s USP. After all, unless your social group consists of Bee Gees tribute groups, they’ll certainly make you different. Not good, mind – but different.

I think the real question to ask here is what other kinds of trousers a designer should advocate instead of flares. Because, the truth is, it’s very tricky to do anything different with trousers without making them look ridiculous, and designers need to do different things or people will just keep wearing the same stuff they wore last season, and what would be the point of that? You can do LOADS to jazz up a dress and still keep it wearable. Trousers? Not so much. Nothing dates a film more specifically than the kinds of trousers the actors are wearing. Really bad bootcut jeans? The 90s! High-cut jeans that flatter absolutely no one? The 80s! In fact, if you ever want to freak yourself out about your own wardrobe, imagine what your kids and grandkids will wear to early-21st-century-themed costume parties. Two words: skinny jeans. (Two more words: Ugg boots.) “God!” they’ll all cry, looking at one another and crying with laughter, “Look at these stupid tight trousers made out of lycra that give everyone a muffin top! Can you believe our ancestors used to wear them?

Flares are not proof of the inherent ridiculousness of the fashion industry. No, not at all. Rather, they are an expression of despair from designers. “For God’s sake!” those flares are wailing. “What do you WANT from us?! Clothes have existed for multiple millennia – there’s only so much you can do with the damn things. With trousers, there are high waists, low waists, wide-legged, skinny-legged – and we’ve done all that. So, do you have any other suggestions?! If so, feel free to send them to us on a postcard. In the meantime, here are some flares. Knock yourselves out!”

This should be your reaction every time fashion designers make something ridiculous, such as flares: not laughter, not anger – just pity. Pity for these poor souls who know that no one, really, is going to buy a £2,000 onesie, but they make one anyway because, well, they need to pad out their collection, and this will make the front pages, right? Even if it’s just the front page of the Daily Mail, accompanied by an article by Angry Columnist Woman about how bad fashion is terrible for humankind. At least it’s something, right? Right? That sound you hear, it’s the sound of a designer gently weeping into his almond macchiato.

• Post your questions to Hadley Freeman, Ask Hadley, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Email ask.hadley@theguardian.com.