Faking it
Wearing Skechers Shape-Up shoes will not give you an arse like Kim Kardashian’s. Unless you trick them out with long pipes, on the end of which you glue (and I’m simply typing this as I’m thinking it, flying on the wind of genius) an A4 magnifying sheet that both appears to supersize your buttocks and, as you walk, releases little puffs of pheromones from concealed nozzles around the hip area to stun and seduce passers-by. Skechers (which used Kardashian in its ads) didn’t make this clear enough, apparently, so has agreed to pay $50m to settle a lawsuit brought against it by the Federal Trade Commission.
Last September Reebok had to do the same, offering refunds to those who’d bought its EasyTone shoes, a variation on the toning-shoe genre: FitFlops, MBTs – those fat-soled trainers you see ladies walking home in, nodding to each other in recognition like drivers of the same number bus. The makers all claim that their shoe’s instability forces the leg muscles to work harder, so in the very wearing of them, these Viennetta-like wedges that live under desks, they improve muscle tone, reduce cellulite and make you fit. Except maybe they don’t. Hence the lawsuits.
But part of me feels a bit disappointed that the law has forced “reality” to get involved. Reality has no place in fashion. Reality is the guy that creeps up on you when you’re wearing vertical stripes and whispers: “Oof, sweetheart, no. You believed, didn’t you? You thought they’d make you look taller and thinner.” Oh. “No. Sorry. All the best,” he says, leaving you standing there with the sad knowledge that you look like a squat 80s TV set, strobing. Reality tells you that your favourite jacket is almost identical to the one Margaret Thatcher wore on her exit from Downing Street, or that your top is too titty for work. I wish Reality hadn’t pissed on our magic trainers.
Wearing FitFlops made me feel smugger. They made me look prattish, but they made me feel smugger. I got the feeling of having exercised just from walking to the kitchen. Of course I knew, somewhere deep, that they had very little effect on my fitness, but wearing them I felt healthier. Which is one of the lovely things fashion does. When you wear a certain piece of clothing, it’ll change the way you feel. Giant shoulderpads will not make you powerful – they won’t wheel ahead of you down the corridor righting wrongs, crushing the patriarchy, restructuring the difficult narratives of your childhood – but they might make you feel more powerful. You take up more space with a sharply structured shoulder.
Those little things matter. A long silky dress with draping around the bust will probably make you feel glamorous, even if you’re wearing it at home watching Hollyoaks. It’s uncosy. It’s expensive. You put on an elasticated-waist pyjama trouser and you feel relaxed – you put on an elasticated-waist tracksuit trouser and you feel energetic.
Our clothes stand for things. They’re visual whispers about our aspirations, signs in polyester and lace. We expect little from our clothes but this – to keep us warm and make us feel more like the person we want to be that day. We don’t really expect heavy-rimmed glasses to make us cleverer, or stockings to make us better at sex, or EasyTones to make us fitter. They are clothes, not the internet. But anything that helps our myths – anything that makes our clothes fit not just our bodies but our ambitions, too; that pushes our fantasies further, be it spurious science or a picture of Jayne Mansfield in cashmere – should be welcomed.
Reality, his clammy hands wrenching away the warm lies we tell ourselves, has bloody gone and done it again. Cheers, Reality. Now I’ve got to walk faster.
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