Accessorize, Accessorize

Accessories are always the side dish, the salad(to those who take salad as the side dish, at least. Namely, me) to main plate of fashion. The majority of us use accessories as almost a seasoning to add to our outfits, with a scarf here, a wrapped bracelet there, etc, whatever. You can walk out the house with no accessories. But walking out with nothing on but accessories, on the other hand, is a completely different story, ma brothahs and sistahs. Fashion without accessories? I can live with that. Accessories without fashion? What even. But it's slowly happening.

Thanks to deader-than-dead economy, shop-til-you-drop is really no longer an option. Like it's ever really an option for the majority of us, pssh. No matter how rich or how poor you are, you have to be careful in how much you're spending. Though the fashion industry might not be happy and cheery and all happy-dancing, they're having the time of their lives in terms of accessories. In fact, 75% of the revenue at Michael Kors came from accessories. At least, according to this New York Times article(yes I read the New York Times). If that's just for Michael Kors, the king of lifestyle branding, can you just imagine how bad this is for other smaller labels that don't specialize(or at least, put time into) accessories? And why is this happening?

Okay, imagine this. You're some rich socialite with a chihuahua and you're doing your monthly shopping spree at Saks Fifth Avenue. Or Barneys. Take your pick. It used to be weekly, but you had to cut back because you could no longer afford that luxury. Just that thought brought a tear to your eye, which you wiped away with a slightly-chipped Essie-painted nail. Your personal shopper Paola(or Eva, whatevah) holds up a Balenciaga bag in her left hand and a Christopher Kane dress in the other, telling you that they are both "must-haves" this fall. You put your finger onto your lip, thinking. Wear that dress once and it goes to the back of your closet. That bag? At least you can carry it a couple of times before retiring it. Bingo.

The logic of the moment is simple: it's much more worth it to invest into accessories, something that you can wear several times, than a piece of designer clothing that you probably won't wear more than once. At least, that's the logic for people who's regularly buying designer clothing/accessories/etc. To be honest, I'm not all too worry unless "accessories week" or something starts popping up. Fashion is not just going to die. Sales might drop for a bit, or a lot, and some brands might go out of business, but that's as worse as it gets. Designers are not simply going to wake up one morning and stop designing clothes. You see, the thing is that accessories can't exist without clothes. They are inspired by it. Just let the accessories department have their fun until the recession is over.