In last week’s post about my fall fashion plan, there was a resale Rag & Bone blazer on my list of things I intended to buy. I loved the blazer for its cool seaming, the bright orange splash of the under-collar that flashes when I wear collars my preferable way —with them popped —and how the plaid makes it a versatile separate. At the time of my post, it was ordered and on its way.
Since then, I received my jacket and it’s fabulous, fits me like a glove, and didn’t need a bit of tailoring, which rarely happens. I got to wear it immediately which was nice considering we had our first crisp NYC day last week. As I was slipping it over my simple look of a basic white v-neck tee, slim straight jeans, and my M.Gemi Cerchio sneakers to head out for some morning doctors’ appointments last week, my husband, Frank, remarked on my jacket. I told him it was from Rag & Bone, resale.
“Rag & Bone, what a gruesome name for a fashion company,” he said.
“I love it,” I remarked, as I was putting one arm into a sleeve. “So badass.”
“Yeah, sure, but the name, Rag and Bone…it’s just so, how did they even come up with that?” Frank replied.
Finishing putting on my blazer, while looking at myself in the mirror, and noticing how I immediately felt like I could take over the world, I replied with a theory I concocted in my head seconds before and said as I was adjusting my look, “you know, I think, the reason women might have a different reaction to a name like Rag & Bone might be because women have always been fed a singular narrative of fashion as a prim, demoiselle, girly thing. It’s almost as if, in order to find some sort of balance from something so delicate and fragile, the pendulum had to be swung out really far in the opposite direction.

At the moment, it was just a theory, and not a really formed one, but whatever it was, when I put on my blazer, I felt it, like armor; strong, on point and definitely confident. And I certainly didn’t think my story had anything to do with how Rag & Bone got its name, which, if you’re curious, was chosen by American designers of the brand, David Neville and Marcus Wainwright, and in reference to people in British history called Rag & Bone men who would walk slowly on the roads with carts or bags over their shoulders to collect scraps, like rags, bones, lumber, metal, etc to sell in order to eke out a living. As an homage to their pioneering ingenuity and conservation, Rag & Bone derived their name from this legendary practice.
Yet, with my new theory, as with a bone, I was left chewing on it for the rest of the morning. Could it be that some women are drawn to really strong or edgy silhouettes or brands in fashion to balance out all the years of how overly feminine fashion narrowly pigeonholed us to look like delicate, voiceless second-class citizens?
My first stop that morning would be to my appointment to see my sports medicine doctor who has been treating a shoulder issue I have. Upon receiving a compliment on my blazer from the young receptionist, I decided to float my theory past her. Before we could really discuss it, for like the first time in my life, my doctor took me before my butt could even meet the seat in the waiting room, and probably for the first time in my life, I was sort of bummed about it.
Yet my theory, still in its incubation period, must have had some sort of resonance with the receptionist because after my appointment and while making my follow-up one, she seemed interested in continuing the discussion.
“You know, I thought about what you were saying before…” and with that, our conversation unfolded. I don’t remember it exactly but I remember the context. Basically, we spoke about how the industry can sometimes marginally treat women by reducing them to a very slim narrative. We even went so far as to discuss how in its past attempts to be inclusive in advertising, such as by featuring women of color, women who are differently abled, or even how fashion makes efforts to include women with distinguishable features —like with alopecia or vitiligo, for example — even these scenarios can occasionally give off a performative or self-serving energy. Even if we can’t identify what feels off, we know something feels icky.
Walking away from that conversation seemed to break my thoughts open even wider and I spent the next few days continuing to think about this. I’m still collecting my thoughts and my guess is that it’s all too big for one blog post, but as my thoughts expanded, I kept thinking about the concept of the narrative of fashion and who exactly controls it.
FASHION ADVERTISES TO US, WE ADVERTISE TO THE WORLD
We all know the power of packaging and advertising. We’ll choose something in a store simply by packaging alone. Being a visual person, I wholeheartedly and often willingly choose to be taken in by good package design. We also gravitate towards visual elements to find our people or affinity groups or our place in the world.
From a personal communication standpoint, it is our non-verbal communication, or our image and body language, that is our strongest form of communication. It is stronger than the words or the tone that we use when we speak (55% for non-verbal communication, 38% for tone, and only 7% for the words we use). This means our non-verbal communication is essentially our own form of packaging and advertising. Basically, how we respond to product packaging and advertising and how we package and advertise ourselves are both equally critical for how we make our way in the world.
So on the one hand, you have the advertising and packaging that draws you in, connects you to something, or gets you to buy a product, concept, or idea, and on the other, you have the packaging and advertising of yourself. And in the case of buying from fashion brands, you are being drawn in by the brands’s packaging and marketing so you can package and advertise your own brand. In this case, you’re not simply choosing spaghetti sauce brands or the detergent you use, you are choosing clothing brands based on how you imagine yourself as a woman in the world and how you want to show up to others. When you slip into clothing, you know that feeling of stepping into your power the moment you put something on. You know that experience of putting on what feels like armor and how you suddenly feel invincible, connected, seen, or recognized, and how things can change on a dime when you put the right look on. Even if you have this experience for only fleeting moments in your life, you know how clothing how has changed you, connected you, made you feel bolder or made you feel more alive.
In essence, you have two sides to fashion. You have fashion that uses its narrative to sell clothing to women and then you have the clothing that women use to sell their narratives to the world. And the two, well, they don’t always connect. It’s why fashion can be so marginalizing or why, instead of leaning into how diverse they are, some women question themselves and try to fit themselves into the slim narrative fashion has dictated.
SHOULD FASHION SELL EVERYDAY LIFE? REALLY?
Certainly, one could argue, fashion is about selling a fantasy and escapism. Nobody wants to see the doldrums of everyday life. Fashion is art, Bridgette, this is all getting too heavy. Lighten up. And, sure, sure. Okay, yes, maybe. I have a degree in fashion design, and I respect and appreciate the art and beauty of fashion, and even its aspirational nature of it. At the same time, however, at what point should we expect that the rubber should meet the road? We can ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ and daydream over aspirational photos of how pretty and gorgeous fashion is with tremendous appreciation, but at some point, shouldn’t fashion be meant for everyone’s reality? And, honestly, that’s not even my point.
My point is when I see things like this:
You are Going to Covet These Must-Haves for Your Closet This Season
Trade Your Skinny Jeans for these Unmissable Jeans Styles
Be Body Confident with This Hot Trending Shapewear Brand All the Kardashians are Wearing
These Pants are Better than Anything You Have in Your Closet
It’s Sad, But These Trends are Over
Tell me you haven’t stumbled upon some version of these fashion articles or blog titles at least once. And look, I don’t even have an issue with the fact that these fluff pieces exist with titles that are so vapid and stupid sounding and speak down to women like they are just sitting around with nothing better to do than shop and “covet” shit that is “trending.” The way I see it, it’s like magazines. Sometimes you want to read PEOPLE and US WEEKLY and other times you want to dig into the WSJ or the New York Times, two publications that happen to put out excellent style pieces, for the record. I like dumb movies, reading the occasional crappy novel, and watching too many inane viral videos. Not everything has to be an Algonquin Roundtable debate. However, what bugs me about these articles is, first, how you can’t go more than five minutes online without hitting 50 of them within 30 seconds, and, second, why is this the standard level of conversation about fashion that exists? Is this really the best we can hope for as women who know how strongly fashion can work in our lives?
DICTATING THE FASHION NARRATIVE
And like I said, I don’t think anyone, including myself, is looking to turn fashion into this heady, cerebral space of seriousness, where the topic is discussed like it’s an episode of Meet the Press. However, there is a huge sprawl between an article that is as dry as sawdust and one about The Five Life-Changing Necklace Trends All Women Will Be Buying this Fall because there actually are women who do watch Meet the Press and who also truly appreciate fashion. These women don’t think necklaces have the ability to be life-changing, who are highly educated, have retirement plans, balanced checkbooks, and have a lot more to worry about than which trends to cry about because they’re going away this season.
This woman I am referring to is also not above fashion. In fact, she’s struggling, just like most women out there who can’t find a decent pair of pants or a bra that doesn’t give her a uniboob. She enjoys fashion, quite a bit, actually. But, she’s not an idiot nor does she appreciate being treated like one. She also doesn’t appreciate sifting through insipid garbage articles or listening to another influencer who still has her umbilical cord nub attached and who doesn’t know a buttonhole from her elbow just to get to the root of her fashion conundrums. Give women the benefit of the doubt. They are smarter than the narrative fashion has been selling and fell in love with clothes not because of what was trending but because of a journey they took on their own without needing the narrative dictated to them like they were morons. They know how they feel when they wear things that express their own packaging and branding, that make them feel powerful, strong, and invincible. Women are not counting on fashion to figure out how to make them look like everyone else. Women are counting on fashion to help them more fully realize who they already are.
I definitely think you’re onto something regarding brand names in women’s fashion. Strong names can help empower. Dutch brands certainly seem to attract women these days with names like Mud Jeans, G-Star Raw and Kings of Indigo. (Although the brand Sissy-Boy is still big – but I think Dutch women are used to it now 🙂). As for Rag & Bone, I see it as strong sustainable branding because the rag and bone trade was all about recycling. But I do agree that the name has an edgy feel to it.
I agree too with the general sentiments in this post on the ubiquity of low-quality fashion blogs these days. But the internet is full of junky blogs with rubbish advice and sorry scams: from how to catch and keep a partner, to how to cash in on cryptocurrencies or rejuvenate your body with magic food. The internet can be fun and fantastic but also frivolous or even frightening. Buyer beware!
Ooh great brand mentions! And even Sissy Boy, if you think about it, is still a masculine reference, albeit one that isn’t so edgy.
To you’re point about the articles, no doubt, the internet is rife with click bait, low brow garbage that we all have to sift through, but to my point, it goes beyond that. The articles that play to the lowest common denominator are just the icing on the cake. It’s far more encompassing than that, I think, has much deeper roots that date back all the way back to when women, fashion and shopping were conflated which I wrote about about a year or so ago. There just seems to be a packaged and agreed upon reality of who a woman is in the fashion world, and that woman is really narrow. https://www.bridgetteraes.com/2020/10/07/struggling-with-fashion-why-it-is-perfectly-normal-to-struggle-and-how-women-were-led-to-believe-otherwise/
Your post brings to mind an article I read today about Claire McCardell. She spoke about the relationship we have with the clothes we choose to have in our wardrobe. Not only how they look, but how they feel and even smell (think of the smell of wool). We are the power to wear fashion and not have it wear us regardless of the branding.
YES! I read that article and it was so great. Such an amazing woman.
A love your posts, I read them all, I try to learn and I thank you for this blog. Only strange thing for me, which I don’t really understand is, why are you constantly doing that strange movement with your lips when taking a photo of yourself…? Why? You are a grown woman, you don’t write for teenagers, what I appreciate, so why this? You look great just the way you are, no need to disfigurrate yourself!
Thanks and also :/ I just went back and looked through my photos I’ve posted because I don’t post many to the blog here, so, um, thanks? LOL. I tend not to smile with my mouth open much so maybe that’s it? I just think “disfiguring myself” is putting it a bit extreme, no? I had surgery in my mouth area about 20 years ago where for a period of about 5 months, my bottom was unable to move fully due to the nerve endings being severed. During that time I became hyper-aware of what my mouth could and couldn’t do when I smiled and I think there are still residual effects of that and I might still overcompensate. It’s also why I usually avoid open-mouth smiles because back then it looked really ridiculous. It’s amazing that it’s 20 years later and it’s still ingrained. Anyway, I guess 20 years later I don’t have to think about it anymore. Thanks!
Well, it’s just my opinion, many other people would desagree with me and I am ok with that. And of course, you are your own master, you decide what to do, wear, and what to worry about. I just generaly don’t like when people follow some trend (in fashion, food, etc.), because it’s very unifying. And in my personal opinion very stupid – again, in my personal opinion!
I don’t think anyone has any interest in disagreeing with you and your point is exactly the point of my post, that women are complex and have varying ways of seeing and approaching the world.
Loving this article Bridgette! I’ve always loved fashion, worked in retail more years than I care to count and I’m plus sized. I happened to click on an article today about plus size swimsuit brands. The model that was featured is a plus size model, she’s been in SI as a swimsuit model. She’s gorgeous, the suits looked great on her. The comments from men under the article were sickening. There were a few wonderful comments made but the nasty ones outnumbered them. I feel like what you talk about in this article contributes to the perception that women should only look and dress a certain way and if you’re outside of that “norm” your not worthy. It really starts at the top of these companies, until they change the marketing, the styles they are selling, sustainability all the way down to the sizes they are selling none of it will change. There are tons of brands that I would love to wear but I can’t, they don’t make their clothes in a size I can wear. So I try to find something similar or do without. This is why I’m a clothing hoarder, it takes too much time and effort to find it and if I see something and love it I’m hoping it’s not out of my price range and that it actually fits.
This comment relates more to your Weekly Update Comment about the powerful feeling you have when you put on your R&B blazer–I notice a similar feeling when I get dressed for my exercise classes. If I’m wearing my spandex gear, I feel more energized for the dance or yoga class that I take than I would wearing an oversized tee and sweatpants. And I’ve done that, so I know! Just looking at others in spandex wouldn’t be the same for me. Suppose this is an example of enclothed cognition–definitely a fancy pants term that I love knowing about. Thanks for sharing it!
I love that! And it proves how dependent the wearer is and our experience with we have with the clothing we wear. I absolutely think this is a perfect example of enclothed cognition!
I really enjoyed this longer, very thoughtful article and found so much to think about- its taken a while to get round to posting back. Just a couple of comments- I think I would prefer to use the word stye’ rather than ‘fashion’- but perhaps that’s because I’m older! I’m aware that I am influenced unconsciously by current trends, but am basically looking to see it these trends dovetail into my style rather than just following as one tends to do when younger.
Secondly I was a little saddened that you equated clothing to armour (British spelling!) We shouldn’t need to feel we are all armoured up against the world should we? Our chosen style should express our personality, make us feel confident and as you rightly say send out non verbal messages about who we are. Our clothes should put us on the front foot, not defensive- this who we are- we don’t need armour any more my friends
Hi Susanna, thanks for your comments. Well, I think there are times we need to armor up, right? It’s completely situational and sometimes armor is what’s called for and sometimes it isn’t. Sadly, women still do live in a world where she still has dragons to slay, and when it comes to fashion and how slowly the narrative of who the woman interested in fashion is we need a broader brushstroke. You’re right, we shouldn’t feel like we need to armor up against the world, but it would be naive to think there aren’t times that we will never have to.
To me, style and fashion aren’t two words that can be used as interchangeably as most people think, Style is an expression of who someone is, and fashion is what you use to express it, like a tool. Fashion is just stuff, style is much deeper, personal and profound.
Just my two cents. 😀 Thanks for your comment!!