Kari Minor, Official Self-Appointed Fashion Police

It was recently suggested to me that I should plan “fake damage on jeans” as the topic for my next rant. Obviously this was a brilliant suggestion from a brilliant observer of the human species in the clothing rack jungle, but I did feel that perhaps my level of rage on the subject was not sufficient to fill more than a couple of sentences. (And to be quite honest, while I think fake holes and fraying is stupid in principle, I love the fact that you can instantly feel comfortable in a pair of new jeans. Still, the Gap used to be able to accomplish this feat without taking lessons in merchandise handling from the “Fragile” material handlers at Fed-Ex – i.e. Dragging Items Behind a Truck Without a Trailer 101, and Dropping Items First in Puddles & Then Down Multiple Flights of Concrete Stairs 202.) Though I was not satisfied with the jeans agenda by itself, I have since discovered some even more disturbing fashion trends to turn my wrath against. Today’s post begins a rant serial of currently unspecified length (this gets me off the hook if I only end up writing two volumes before I lose interest):

Exhibit A
Accidentally-on-purpose misbuttoning of cardigan sweaters on in-store and magazine mannequins. This is ridiculous. The first time I saw it, I thought “How nice! This store must have adopted an equal opportunity policy for blind window dressers.” But then, I kept seeing this disturbing trend popping up everywhere from Macy’s Junior Dept. to BCBG. Apparently, nothings says “I slept in a ditch last night after smoking too much crack with former child stars” like buttoning your top button in the third button hole.

What disturbs me most about this is that on days when I button my cardigan in the morning without the aid of caffeine, I may end up walking around like that the entire day because no one will bother to tell me, figuring it’s a fashion statement. I’m just waiting for spinach-in-the-teeth to make a splash on a runway near you.