In defense of ugly clothes

I like wearing ugly clothes. Ugly, comfy, a little bit offensive. If I could wear a ratty T-shirt from the ’90s, I would (but my mom converted most of my old clothes to rags when I wasn’t looking).

A friend once told me, “It’s kind of your job to dress up.” Which was a nice way of telling me I looked like some schmo off the street.

“It’s my job to write about these things, not necessarily to subscribe to them,” I responded. Because if I want to walk around wearing an awful shirt inscribed with BUM Equipment, goddamnit, who’s gonna stop me?

Well, my mother did.

The same woman who looks at my tousled hair (left unbrushed on purpose) and says, “You look like a fishmonger’s wife.”

(First of all, why do I have to be the wife? And I’m sure the fishmonger has better things to do than brush his hair 100 times while humming to a Natasha Bedingfield track.)

Better than a Bond girl: Helena Bonham-Carter could’ve gone this route (above), but went the other way instead (below).

There’s something attractive in the ugly, the vulgar. I feel most myself in a sack dress that holds no shape, with no redeeming aesthetic quality. Take back the bandage dress, the bunion and backpain-inducing high high heel, the requires-anything-like-Spanx garb.

If anything, there’s joy in the forgetting. In the opting out of the constant churning of trends. In the decadence of not giving a shit. In choosing to wear something that would’ve been chucked out the instant someone from a makeover show glimpsed its polyester sheen.

“I’m a great believer in vulgarity,” Diana Vreeland is oft quoted as saying, “if it’s got vitality.”

As an aphorism, it’s a catchy one. And it hasn’t lost steam since Vreeland first presaged the boldness that was the ’80s: all Cyndi Lauper colors and Beastie Boys noise (R.I.P., MCA).

To prove it, there’s plenty vulgar on the runways today — those Versace-inspired prints that are gaudy in the best way, those oversized gold accessories that channel both your parents’ Rolex era and ’90s rap stars.

No scrubs: Girls’ Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham, the showrunner and lead actress, and Zosia Mamet on the hunt for decent dudes. “I don’t want a boyfriend,” Hannah finally declares to her sometime F-buddy. “I just want someone wants to hang with out all the time and think I’m the best person in the world and wants to have sex with only me.” Hannah is possibly the folk hero of the millenials.

Recently, Muccia Prada, who built her career on ugly-chic apparel, was feted at the Met Costume Institute Gala. “If I have done anything, it is to make ugly appealing,” she is quoted as saying, according to The New York Times.

“A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika,” Vreeland elaborates. “We all need a splash of bad taste — it’s hearty, it’s healthy, it’s physical. I think we could use more of it.”

This is different from the misguided. There’s a badly-fit dress designed to glam up the red carpet and then there’s just bad — so bad it’s good. Those fond of diaper-like, poufy gowns (which Celine Lopez likes to call “fighting the hot”) are guilty of the first. Helena Bonham-Carter is a fine example of the second. No doubt the Brit actress is beautiful, but most important she’s interesting. No bland Marchesa gowns for her.

In Girls, the polarizing much-talked-and-blogged-about HBO show following a new band of 20-something New Yorkers facing a bleak romantic life and even bleaker prospects, the only element seemingly in touch with that other HBO-NY show about four women is the sense of entitlement shared by four privileged white girls. But, otherwise the fashion has proved to be less of a fantasy, more of a shop-at-Filene’s-and-DSW reality. That is to say: Lena Dunham is a bit of a frowzy dresser. And it’s kind of refreshing. The frumpy ensembles, the less-than-perfect makeup. Yet she looks perfectly fine despite it.

Dunham is not afraid to reveal her doughy thighs, messy hair, concealer-free skin. In one review I remember reading, the critic claimed she “wielded her body like a weapon.” Yet, there was pride there. In the baggy tights, the thrift store garb.

It’s the antithesis to the glossy perfection of Sex and the City, with its labels and delusions in real estate — a complete chimera. Instead of embracing its shiny aesthetic, Girls has gone in another direction entirely (though some can argue that an anti-aesthetic is still an aesthetic). Few would call it aspirational.

While reviewing Dunham’s first major film effort, Tiny Furniture, Manola Dhargis referred to her un-made-up appearance as an argument for its post-SATC relevance: “In her rejection of visual pleasure (the unlovely, unadorned, badly lighted digital images add to the anti-aesthetic) you can see a feminist argument about narrative cinema in bold action.”

In the third episode of her HBO series, Dunham appears in leather and fishnets, her eyes lined in enough liner to give New Jersey girls a run for their money. “You look like you’re going to throw a hex on some popular girls,” her friend’s boyfriend snarkily observes, which is a reference all kids who grew up in the ’90s will recognize as The Craft. (God, I miss Fairuza Balk.)

Her friend remarks, “You look scary!”

Dunham strolls in and replies, “Scarily hot slash amazing?”

All you need is confidence, kids, to work an ugly outfit.

I came across a lengthy interview with John Waters, the auteur responsible for Cry-Baby, A Dirty Shame and, most notably, Hairspray, and who happens to be one of my favorite people of all time, who said: “If you buy the ugliest sweater and it’s funny, I think that’s fine. You still look hot in it. You don’t wear it to look ugly. You wear it because you’re so hot an ugly sweater can’t make you look bad, and that’s a great look.”

I wore a batik dress in a loud fluorescent green print to a shoot recently. While people ooohed and aaaahed over someone’s Marni x H&M dress, my outfit went largely ignored.

No wonder, it was a 20-dollar dress my sister purchased for me from an African street hawker in the Village who utilizes waxed prints from rice sacks.

“Well, this dress is Marni not by H&M,” I declared, like an asshole, to no one in particular.

“Really?” someone replied, impressed.

“Not really,” I said. “But it’s awesome anyway.”