The Post I've Been Dying to Write

As you all know, I am a critic of everything fashion-related. What people are wearing, how they're wearing it, and what they're wearing it with. That is why I've decided to dedicate an entire blog post to what I've observed in my almost two (!!!) months here in Lima.

Now let me start off with a disclaimer: there are some very well-dressed, "in-style" Peruvians, but the operative word here is "some." The clothes here aren't super expensive (depending on where you shop), and one can buy Hollister, Armani Exchange, and other expensive brands that are found in the US for dirt-cheap prices. That being said, there are still a plethora of notable fashion no-nos to point out.

First, the freshmen on campus. Oh how it is to be young. Generally, students who start college after high school enter at the age of 16-17. This is fine with me (except for the occasional jail-baits) because they keep me fun and youthful, but a lot of them are still at the age where they don't know who they are and, as such, dress how many students did when I was in middle school. Remember those goth kids? The baggy black cargo pants with the heavy eye liner and the chains? The pants that have silver zippers that turn into shorts? Those studded bracelets? Yeah, that's all still "in" here. My oddly-specific description above is based off of my memory of a 17 year old freshman girl at the cafeteria. (I literally stopped eating when I saw what she was wearing and said "what the $#@( is that?!)

Second, my professors. I will start with the three professors I have that are men because they all tend to dress the same: ill-fitting jeans or dress pants topped with a baggy collared shirt of some sort. Nothing really special. As for my female professor (and many women I've seen here in general), the standard outfit is a pair of baggy slacks with an ill-fitting (i.e. too tight) shirt of some sort. Friday (yesterday) is the perfect example of this. My literature professor is not fat by any sense of the term, but the way she dressed herself added at least 40 pounds to her body. The baggy pants combined with the tight shirt, which kept exposing the not-so-toned parts of her body made it a spectacle to behold as this 5'2'' woman taught us about the works of Peruvian author José María Arguedas. (And yes, I did pay attention to more than just her clothes).

A note about these small shirts (and this post in general): I've been informed by friends I've made here that it's especially difficult to dress bigger women in Peru because of the lack of plus-size stores. That is, companies mass-produce clothing in smaller sizes to conform to some standard of beauty that all women should apparently be held to. Please understand that this post is merely descriptive of what people are wearing (with a little advice thrown in). Also note that I'm not saying people have to be skinny, rather that they need to understand how to dress their bodies.

Fortunately, the style issue tends to be less of an issue when people dress up to go out on the weekends, though there are still many flagrant fashion errors. What I do love, however, is that the women here almost all wear high heels and, more importantly, can WALK in them. There is no greater turn on than a woman who can stomp down Lima's uneven sidewalks in a pair of 4-inch stiletto heels without missing a beat. Love it.

Last thing, random thought: Halls, the popular cough drops we use in the United States, are popular here as well...but as candy. The favorites are the "extra strong" variety. Call me old-fashioned, but I'm going to stick to my 6th grade homeroom teacher's advice: if you're eating a cough drop and not coughing, that better be one damn good cough drop.