The History of NEEDING the Clothes Media Keeps Refusing to Give Me: I Have Been Personally Victimized by Excellent Clothes

I Have Several Problems, Apparently This Is One of Them

I’m no Nouveau riche “influencer”, (pause for gasps), so I don’t have any brand sponsorships, but I do have an obsession with fashion… along with several problems. Even though my car just broke down completely, RIP piece of crap Hyundai… you really won’t be missed. However, my true problem today is the fashion that keeps getting shoved in my face by so many different media forms. I’m starting to get really annoyed that people are acting like I’m unreasonable for wanting those clothes. Like, c’mon, just let me at least pretend I can afford it (or at least go to a fancy boutique and act all snobby just to try on those clothes, which I have NEVER DONE… allegedly.

There are outfits that refuse to leave my mind even when it’s not even there. That costume from Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, uh ya, I’m gonna need all of them… the wardrobes from Bad Romance and Blank Space, uh ya, I’ll take MULTIPLE versions of EVERY outfit, thanks… Runway outfits that require an army to move in them, or no army at all? Hell YES… even concert outfits? YES, I NEED those, TOO! Why are you still even questioning me??

And I’m not stupid: I know how unattainable these items are (unless you have $30,000 to request a custom made one, and who DOESN’T have $30k lying around), but it’s still always a huge fucking bummer when I find out it was, in fact, a custom-made for one famous person, lives in an archive I’ll never gain access to (unless I can pull off my Ocean’s 8 plan, which is purely in the idea phase), whatever it is costs more money than I’ll ever see in my entire life, or has been “recreated” for $74 using fabric that appears to have previously been a shower curtain… or fabric imitating what’s supposed to be a shower curtain. However, I will give Etsy credit, because there are storefronts on there that make truly beautiful replicas of these iconic pieces… if you’ve got $850 to spare for a Taylor Swift Eras Tour Reputation set outfit… just the Reputation set…

So, really, I blame the media! They keep fucking me over, and then mocking me:

Sadistic Designer: “Look at this! Isn’t it incredible?”
Me: “YES. GIVE IT TO ME. I LITERALLY NEEEEEED IT!”
Sadistic Designer: “Oh, no. Not like that.”
Me: “EXCUSE ME?”

Frankly, it’s bullshit, and I’m over it. I’ve earned the right to pretend I can buy that outfit… or wear a tutu and bra out because I WANT TO lol…

And I’m not just talking about movies or tv shows. I’m talking about ALL types of media, like the 2011 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, arguably the best year for the Fashion Show. First of all, the entire show was so badass, and every theme was so cool and unique, there were maybe 4 outfits I was meh about (but, let’s be honest, I’d take those, too).

But I’m totally obsessed with the opening set, Ballet, was stunning, and the ballet heels were to die for. The classical ballet looks featuring pastel colors, soft pinks, and, again, the lace-up heels inspired by real pointe shoes – I was immediately like, “okay, I see you.”

The Super Angels Section was especially exciting for a nerd like me (beautiful women in superhero lingerie, wow twist my arm lol). I loved this section because it was so powerful – these powerful women strutting down an extremely long catwalk, an iconic walk.

The Passion Segment was super cool because it incorporated very seductive Latin and Spanish inspired themes, and the wings in this segment were… I have ***NO WORDS! ***

The Aquatic Angels was my favorite segment, MINUS the PINK section… but these outfits and wings are just insane! The iridescent fabric of the wings, the sea-inspired blue palette, and Miranda Kerr’s Shell Outfit with the Million Dollar Bra lives rent free in my mind.

I Put a Spell on You was also an amazing section, with a dark, mysterious feel that seemed lifted straight from a New Orleans cemetery.

But, the Club Pink Segment was truly iconic, in my opinion… Nicki Minaj was the musical guest during this segment, so I think you can picture it: sequins, bright colors, and ridiculously playful designs that I’d 100% wear regardless of the looks I’d get.

Needless to say, I still don’t understand why I can only buy a boring pair of sweatpants, and not wear a disco ball or a tutu and glittery bra around like it’s totally normal… which it is! And, to be honest, it feels a biiiiiiiiiiit sexist, but that’s just one woman’s opinion.

Do I have research supporting that statement? Not currently. Do I stand by it? Obviously… again… again, why are you still asking stupid questions.

And enough of this bullshit recurring thing: fashion LOVES “too much” when it is selling us a fantasy. Then the second you actually want to wear the fantasy, everyone starts asking where you would possibly wear it. Fucking EVERYWHERE!

Bad Romance — I Could Identify Those Shoes from Space

For me, Alexander McQueen’s Plato’s Atlantis work in Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance is one of the crowning glories of McQueen’s career. And I don’t mean in the generic celebrity-wears-designer way, because McQueen was a completely different animal. His clothes could BE the event. The silhouettes, the construction, the Armadillo shoes, the fact that so much of it manages to look beautiful, alien, dangerous, and like it may have evolved completely independently from normal human clothing.

Then you put all of that on Lady Gaga, in Bad Romance, at that point in Gaga’s career? COME ON. Gaga was one of the very few performers who could wear something that extreme without the clothes swallowing her whole. She met them where they were.

And those Armadillo shoes are one of those things where you could show me nothing but the silhouette and I would know what I was looking at. They also look like something my podiatrist would see and immediately begin filing paperwork to prevent me from owning. Still want them. Obviously.

And THAT is where I think there is a difference between a memorable costume and iconic fashion. Some clothing is incredible because it perfectly belongs to the character, performance, scene, whatever. But some clothing gets out. It becomes recognizable independently from the thing you originally saw it in. It becomes THAT THING.

Which is why I put something completely different, Princess Catherine’s wedding gown, in the same category. Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, and visually it could not be further away from Plato’s Atlantis. No alien ocean creatures. No Gaga. No medically inadvisable footwear. But the lace bodice, the waist, the skirt, the silhouette? I would know that dress immediately.

There are famous people wearing beautiful dresses, and then there are dresses that become famous themselves. Unfortunately, I want both.

Blank Space — Apparently I Also Need the Psychotic Rich-Lady Wardrobe

Then there is Blank Space, which creates an entirely different fashion problem for me because the wardrobe is doing half the character work. Taylor is playing this absurd tabloid version of Taylor Swift: rich, gorgeous, impossibly polished, living on an estate, riding horses, changing clothes approximately every eight seconds, and becoming progressively less safe for the man currently dating her.

The mansion, the horses, the gowns, the matching sets, the perfect hair, the perfect lipstick, the entire old-money fantasy. She basically looks like Ralph Lauren created a woman in a laboratory and forgot to install emotional regulation.

I LOVE IT. And the clothes are part of why the entire thing works. Everything looks perfectly controlled while she becomes increasingly… not controlled. Put her in sweatpants for the entire video and it is a VERY different character.

Also, completely unrelated to this very serious analysis, I want multiple outfits. Thanks.

The Eras Tour — Fine. We’ll Make the Fucking Things Ourselves.

The Eras Tour made this problem even worse because it wasn’t just me sitting at home wanting famous-person clothes. Everybody wanted them.

I’m especially obsessed with the white Alberta Ferretti gown from the folklore set because it reached that same point where the clothing itself became visual shorthand. You look at that dress and your brain goes: folklore. You know where you are in the show before anybody tells you.

And the fans started doing the same thing with the entire tour. They recreated stage costumes, rhinestone coated bodysuits, made jackets, made dresses, copied music-video outfits, dressed as albums, songs, lyrics and jokes so specific that another Swiftie could understand immediately while everybody else would need a PowerPoint presentation.

This is also where I have to give Etsy people some REAL credit. Remember that $850 Reputation-set outfit I mentioned earlier? At first, your brain naturally goes, “Eight hundred and FIFTY dollars for WHAT?” Then you actually look at some of these replicas and realize somebody made that. Somebody sourced those materials. Somebody constructed it. Somebody placed every fucking rhinestone. Suddenly, I understand why it costs $850. Still can’t afford it. Still need it. Less than ideal.

But I love that fans basically looked at the whole situation and went, “Fine. You won’t give us the clothes? We’ll make the fucking things ourselves.” Because we don’t just want to look at the world somebody created. We want IN.

The Great Gatsby — I Do Not Want “Gatsby-Inspired.” I Have Eyes.

And then we get to one of my biggest personal fashion grievances: Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 The Great Gatsby.

I LOVE that movie, and I am completely obsessed with the clothes. Catherine Martin, who was both the costume designer and production designer, built this completely ridiculous visual fantasy with Prada/Miu Miu, Tiffany & Co., Brooks Brothers, and enough clothes to make me resent every boring item currently hanging in my own closet.

And yes, I know it isn’t a completely historically accurate recreation of 1922. I know parts of the fashion were deliberately modernized. I know Prada pieces were altered. I know. I do not care. LOOK AT THEM.

We are watching Leonardo DiCaprio throw Gatsby parties while Jay-Z plays. Strict historical realism clearly left the building a WHILE ago. The clothes are part of what makes the entire thing feel like the idea of Gatsby: money, glamour, excess, decadence, beautiful people making incredibly questionable decisions while dressed better than any of us ever will.

And that is why the phrase “Gatsby-inspired” makes me irrationally angry. I don’t want “Gatsby-inspired.” I don’t want “1920s-inspired.” I don’t want “Daisy-inspired.” I SAW THE DRESS. I WANT THAT ONE.

This is where Googling becomes dangerous, because you start out optimistic. Surely somebody has recreated it. Then you find someone who HAS recreated it beautifully, and it is $1,500. Okay. Keep scrolling. $850. Still no. Keep scrolling. $400. Hmm. Keep scrolling.

And now the fabric looks like it came from a shower curtain. We have gone too far.

Because the really good replicas cost money for a reason. The fabric matters. The beading matters. The drape matters. The weight matters. The movement matters. The construction matters. The cheap version has frequently just identified that the original contained beads and gold things. That is not the same dress.

And this is why I have learned to interpret “inspired by” as a threat. Every time somebody decides to make one of these looks “more wearable,” the first things they remove are the weirdness, the volume, the structure, the giant ridiculous detail, the drama. You know. THE PART I LIKED.

“We made it more wearable.”

Excuse me? I AM THE ONE TRYING TO WEAR IT! I’ll decide when we’ve gone too far. The ridiculous part is why I wanted it in the first place. Stop “helping.”

And Then There Are the Times I’m Glad the Clothes Stay on the Red Carpet: The 2026 Met Gala

After spending this entire article bitching about people showing me clothes and then refusing to let me have them, I should probably admit there is one exception.

Every once in a while, I look at the fashion being offered to me and think:

You know what? Keep it. And unfortunately, the 2026 Met Gala gave me that feeling way more often than it should have.

The exhibition was Costume Art. The dress code was Fashion Is Art. I mean, are you fucking kidding me? FASHION IS ART. You could give that assignment to basically every person visiting Fandom Rising without even telling them what the actual theme was and I’m pretty sure they could come up with something more interesting than whatever this is.

Because how do you mess that up? You have the entire history of art. Painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, Surrealism, Renaissance art, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Pop Art, performance art, textile art… fuck it, show up as a cave painting if you can make it work. There were basically NO RULES other than: do something interesting.

And these people have access to the best designers in the world, couture ateliers, custom everything, stylists, archives, ridiculous budgets and probably at least six people whose only job that week is figuring out how to get whatever the hell they’re wearing into a car.

So why did so much of it feel like everyone heard Fashion Is Art and went, “Okay… pretty dress?”

No. Pretty is FINE. There are approximately 400 other red carpets where you can show up and just be pretty. This one literally told you to be ART.

Were there good looks? Of course there were, and honestly, that almost made the whole thing more annoying. Every time somebody actually committed to the assignment, it reminded me what everybody else COULD have been doing.

I kept having the same questions I always have at the Met: What does it mean? What does it reference? Why does it exist? Because you just know somebody is backstage saying, “My look is inspired by art.”

Okay. Which art? From where? From when? “Art” is not a reference. That is an entire category of human creation.

And then the entire event had the political mess surrounding it hanging over everything, which is a whole other way to completely miss the mark. There was all of the backlash surrounding Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and Lauren Sánchez Bezos’s involvement, boycott talk, and then some of the celebrities people actually WAIT to see at the Met weren’t even there.

Zendaya didn’t go. ZENDAYA.

Whether her absence specifically had anything to do with the controversy was never confirmed, so I’m not going to say that it did. But this is one of the people I WAIT to see. I don’t know what she and Law Roach are going to do, but I know I want to see it. When the conversation around your giant fashion event becomes who may or may not be staying away because of the politics surrounding it instead of everybody screaming about the clothes, I think we have lost the fucking plot a little bit.

And THAT may be the ultimate fashion insult. I have spent this whole article begging designers, costume departments, music videos, fashion shows, and random extremely talented Etsy sellers to please just LET ME HAVE THE CLOTHES. I am willing to make terrible choices. I have made that extremely clear.

But the 2026 Met Gala handed me Fashion Is Art — a theme that should have produced an entire red carpet full of outfits I’d be plotting felonies to acquire — and somehow left me thinking:

Actually? Almost ALL OF THOSE can stay right there.

Usually I’m standing outside the metaphorical fashion archive screaming “GIVE IT TO ME.”

Every once in a while, though, I see the outfit, consider the situation carefully, and think:

“You know what? Keep that one.”

Is that… growth? Imma say it is! Go me!

*Kay

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