Sometimes I wonder which colors really go together. Today, for example, I was wearing brown pants and a black shirt. I’m not sure if that’s permissible by the various iterations of fashion police that troll the streets. I did have someone say something horrible to me when I was on my bike yesterday in a similar outfit (okay, maybe it was the same one, I’m moving and I don’t know where anything is and I’m schlepping stuff hither and yon and hither again). Anyway, I chased down the horrible-talking people on my bike (they were in their car), lowered my glasses and insisted that they repeat their horribleness for me to hear from closer up. They declined, and I felt a giant ball of joy at mucking up their day like they’d mucked up mine. And then I set to schlepping again.
And I still didn’t know what I should wear, or shouldn’t. Why, I wish I were a watermelon, I thought. Then I’d always wear pink and green and no one would ever shout horribleness to me on the street as I was biking past.
A watermelon, you say? Why yes, a watermelon. They have their own fashion you know. You didn’t know? Please regard exhibit A (three years of law school and a fancy diploma in an embossed folder and behind a piece of plastic allow me to say that). (Sandía is the word for watermelon in Spanish).
So think about it. The next time you’re pondering whether you should or shouldn’t wear something, think of the humble watermelon, which is picked from the fields, baptized something ridiculous, laid in a basket and priced a solid 3X what it should be, where it will sit and do nothing at all while you roll your combination cart-basket past and wonder if you’ll still go this same supermarket when you move a few blocks south.
And that is all she wrote for this week. Taking bets on whether or not my internet provider (whose website was down yesterday, oh dear) hooks up my service on time and when they say they will. Kinda betting that’s a no, sadly. Back sometime!
Sometimes makes me smile how people in my country tend to add any word in English (or French in some cases)to add some dramatic effect. Buses are "long space" or "premium", some services are "gold" or "platinum", and a long etcetera.
I remember I had an economics teacher in law school, that often used english terms like "know how", "merchandising", "warrant" and others, despite the fact that he could have explained almost all using terms in Spanish.
So, watermelon "fashion" seems really natural, just beside "Royal Gala", "delicious" apples, "sensational" pears, and my long time favorite "grape" grapes ("uvas grape"), as seen in a well known supermarket here in Temuco.
funny you mention that, because I very specifically remember being so shocked that in chile–black and brown go together.
At the time I left the US, wearing black and brown was a big fashion faux pas …
Even though my mom said people wear black and brown together more often now… I still feel kind of shocked at the men who wear brown jackets with black pants, and kind of cringe at the thought of wearing black shoes with a brown outfit. the mix is very common here
Santiago seems a little more on top of fashion than valparaiso though, so i wouldnt be surprised at stricter standards.
I vividly remember in high school when a very mean girl came up to me and said, "Abby, don't you know you aren't supposed to wear black and brown together? God." This is coming from a high school in Vermont where the vast majority came to school either a)in camo and carhartts b)in pajamas or c) in long flowy skirts and ben and jerry's tee-shirts. So the fact that I had, in fact, put on pants that day (that were not carharrts) was kind of an accomplishment. But anyway, my mom later told me that black and brown together are okay now. But I have to admit that for a long time what that girl said scared me into never wearing that combination.
I have a friend who is leading a one woman crusade against sandía fashion. She gets really angry about the whole concept of renaming a watermelon and charging 3 times the prize, because it has an "advantages of fashion watermelon" (applicable to all kinds of watermelon) sticker on it.