Screamer of the Week: The Scrambled Signal Shirt

Hieu Tran is an occasional contributing writer to Ten Pretty Girls, freelancing and living in San Francisco. Anyone with eyes can see that there is something seriously wrong with today's Screamer, but Hieu explains to us with scientific precision exactly what that is.

***

Yes, pictures do speak a thousand words. So that should save me a lot of work writing about this exemplary screamer of the week. But it doesn’t hurt to add a few more words either when it comes to this men’s polo shirt.

I am no fashion designer, I will readily admit, but my right to hurl vitriol at this piece comes from the same right that a movie-goer has to verbally pound Uwe Boll even though that movie-goer has never directed a movie. Simply put, it’s not whether we’ve accomplished a feat that gives us our right to criticize someone else’s attempt at the feat, but whether we’ve seen better. And upon seeing this shirt, oh yes, we have seen better.

One has to wonder what the designers were thinking when they laid down the color pattern. Froot Loops? Eternal virgin? Men’s polo shirt for the blind? What adjectives were running through their minds? Handsome? Refined? Classy? Fun? Babe magnet? Cute? Hot? Acceptable?

Is it even acceptable? How can one even attempt to ascribe any positive descriptions to that shirt without laughing? Sort of like corporate espionage and sabotage, someone from an enemy company had slunk into The American Living’s design department and had managed to achieve the equivalent of uploading a devastating virus into their mainframe.

But let’s look at this from an aesthetic point of view, because it’s one thing to scream at men’s polo shirts based on a visceral reaction, but it’s much more sophisticated of us to scream from an analytical perspective. Simply put, our eyes are not trained to look at this shirt. It’s kind of like how when an analog TV set would scramble its signal, and we get that wobbly, dizzying, pan-colored smear on the screen. Has anyone ever seen that and whispered softly and contently to oneself, “This is a good channel”? No. Chances are we would try to change the channel.

Our eyes, inundated today with violent movies, extreme porn, and strange YouTube videos, are as capable of looking at this shirt as they are at staring into the sun for five straight hours. Too many stripes fill out the pattern block. If they had designed a block of green, blue, and red, then repeated that block, then we could nod and say, “Okay, I can see how that works. My eyes are not burning, and this shirt is acceptable.”

But we can see that on this shirt, the collar starts off with blue, followed by orange, then green, etc. In order to know when the pattern repeats, we must find the next time blue is followed by orange, followed by green, etc. That would be somewhere about the stomach area. So, in between the collar and the stomach area of this shirt, we have strange, unseductive chaos stabbing seven colors into our eyes. We cannot sense any order on that shirt, so we feel disturbed.

Of course, this shirt is not without its merits. It has two sleeves, ribbed cuffs, an embroidered chest logo; it is made of soft cotton and has side vents. In its most basic function as a men’s polo shirt, to clothe the human torso, it does its job sufficiently. The only drawback is that looking at it makes us want to change the channel.

Patchwork Into Craftwork

Hieu Tran is an occasional contributing writer to Ten Pretty Girls, freelancing and living in San Francisco. Today he explains repurposed clothes, a trend first brought into the high fashion world by Imitation of Christ and continued today by designers like Garimpo+Fuxique that's likely to become more popular as we sink deeper into a depression. Here's Hieu's take on how the regular guy or girl can do it at home:

Sewing is my embarrassing feat. A guy like myself has as good of a chance at launching a space shuttle into orbit as he does stitching anything together properly with needle and thread. This is not from lack of trying. I’ve picked up the tools of the sewing trade before—oh yes—to darn that sock that was holding together by only three molecules after years of wear and tear, and, in my able hands, it miraculously became a sweater with three arms. Houdini, eat your heart out. You don’t even want to know what I did with my warhorse underwear. Think tinseled purse.

But with the stock market now dropping faster than Bill Clinton’s pants, and with our environment critically plundered, I’ve just realized that my seamster ability is no longer a topic of ridicule but a skill that may one day propel me into becoming a brilliant fashionisto. That’s right, my consistently multi-colored patchwork outcomes are the future of fashion. Possibly.

Repurposed clothing, the name for my ingenious mistakes, has been around for as long as I know. Coming from a fairly frugal family, my great-grandmother used to be able to turn a t-shirt into a pouch or an old sweater into a wool hat if she were ever so inclined. And even the smaller projects were just as good. She could sew different buttons onto a shirt and redesign the sleeves, and the whole thing would take on a different look. I’m not as gifted to be able to make an article of clothing fit with a planned vision as she did, but if I can turn a sock into a sweater with three arms, that’s a new sweater all the same, right?

But seriously, there are great benefits from repurposing clothes. Firstly, we are helping the environment by reducing the need to collect raw materials to make new clothes. Secondly, we are reducing the amount of trash we’re throwing out, since we wouldn’t be throwing out our old clothes. Thirdly, we can create clothes to our own design. And fourthly, and most importantly, we’re saving ourselves a whole pile of shiny pennies—pennies that were once nothing more than sacrificial offerings for the wish fountain god, but in this economy, are looking a bit more valuable every day.

As for getting the materials needed to repurpose your next fashion masterpiece, if you don’t have the patterns you need for the upcoming marvel on the drawing board in your head, you may shop around on a budget. You could shop those serendipitous garage sales, or go to thrift stores, or even get together with friends and trade fabric. It’ll be like a Christmas gift exchange, but instead of passing around a vintage fruitcake, you can get rid of any garments you don’t want. And you won’t even have to feel embarrassed when you show off your previous taste in clothing, because everyone else there will feel just as embarrassed about the items they’re trying to get rid of.

There are many examples of repurposed clothing out there for us to look at. Many people are proud to show off their latest and crazy inventions. They range from poor (my tinseled purse) to good to outstanding. It all comes down to your eye for fashion and your skill with the needle. With a little practice, I might be able to get close to the good range in quality. But, what I’ve already achieved is being smart. At this time, and possibly far into the future, repurposing your clothes is no longer a necessity due to empty wallets or a bizarre personal statement from artsy people. It is a practical measure we can take to help ourselves and, in some small way, the world.

And even though I didn’t really turn my old sock into a three-armed sweater or my warhorse underwear into a tinseled purse, I know that even with my current sewing skills, I could patch up something not too laughable, perhaps with a bit of expert hand-holding the first couple of tries. But this is coming from a guy who could barely sew the straps back onto his backpack as a kid. Sewing on a few new buttons, as my great-grandmother did, shouldn’t be too hard. I’m sure I could turn an ugly sweater into a more tolerable scarf if I wanted to. The great thing about repurposing clothing, especially for a guy like myself, is that it’s not too difficult. And if I mess up, no big loss, since I was going to get rid of the article of clothing anyway.

Yes, repurposing clothing rewards even my sewing skills. For all my seemingly disastrous attempts at repairing my clothes, for all the mutant garments that have spawned from my hands, for all the bells and whistles that I am capable of stringing onto my jeans, my ability to sew has become my genius. It should be yours, too.

Nancy's Whereabouts In 2008

Hieu Tran is an occasional contributing writer to Ten Pretty Girls, freelancing and living in San Francisco.

You may have noticed that Nancy Lichtenstein has been MIA of late. Readers who are used to a more frequent stream of articles from her may have pondered her absence, perhaps speculating the reasons for it. Did she have an accident? Did she find something better to do? Did she run out of ideas?

Rest assured, Nancy is doing just fine. She did not have an accident. She did not find something better, because there is nothing better. And she did not run out of ideas, since writers don’t actually come up with ideas; they merely watch the world around them then lie about it.

The reason for Nancy’s absence this year is fairly simple: this year has been very involving. The world is changing fast, and not just the fashion world. From the controversial Beijing Games to the first African American president-elect, Nancy has been getting involved in an attempt to bring just a bit more to her articles in the future.

Here is a snippet of her 2008 travelogue:

January 9--India’s Tata Motors releases the Tata Nano, the world’s most inexpensive car. Nancy negotiates the starting price of the car to $2,000, making it a standard accessory for every Hermes "Birkin" handbag.

February 4--Nancy prevents scandal at the Super Bowl. The New England Patriots are kept from illegally taping a New York Giants practice. Unable to cheat, the Patriots lose the Super Bowl and their perfect season. Humanitarians around the world rejoice over the outcome and over the fact that another Super Bowl has passed without a “wardrobe malfunction.”

May 30--The “Sex and the City” movie releases. Nancy would like to think that the Carrie Bradshaw character is based on her and not Candace Bushnell.

July 4--To celebrate the nation’s birth, Nancy takes out a second mortgage on her home and sells a Prada bag in order to pay for a tank of gas at $4.59 a gallon so that she could drive to the New Jersey shores to see fireworks.

July 18--Comic book fans rave over Nancy’s Kevlar-suited stunt work in “The Dark Knight” as she begins her campaign to sink “Titanic” as box-office king. Kevlar, by the way, is the new leather.

August 8 – 24--The Olympics is held in Beijing. Nancy, having trained in LA for months, takes home silver in the low-profile but dangerous breathing event. Four other contestants suffer critical injuries in the competition. On a side note, gas masks and surgical masks become items of high fashion all over China.

August 29--John McCain chooses former beauty pageant contestant from Alaska, Sarah Palin, as running mate over Nancy, making Palin the first vice presidential candidate to be able to shoot wolves from a helicopter and model swimsuits.

September 15--The economy tanks. Nancy has nothing to do with this.

October 4--Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama confirms charges that he’s “palling around with Nancy Lichtenstein.” Obama cites that Nancy has good fashion sense.

November 4--Nancy, peeved at being passed over as GOP running mate, single-handedly elects Barack Obama as the first African American US president in the form of a landslide. Obama cites that Nancy has good political sense to go with her good fashion sense.

December 14--Nancy throws her Gucci shoes at President Bush at a press conference in Baghdad.

Whew! So, as you can see, Nancy has been all over the place. Understandably, she hasn’t had time to write about everything just yet. But the year will be turning over soon, and next year promises to be a good one for the world at large and for, of course, the frocks, scarves and shoes that make the world go ‘round.