It’s hard to gauge how fashionable fashion is. Or for how long it’ll be in fashion – if it even ever makes it.
Predictions are par for the course, and about as accurate as a BOM forecast. Vogue is vague and diluted for ordinary people; and while it was once the bible for the affluent, it has also been known to declare absolute eyesores as outstanding, and shit with chic. Crocs come to mind (the most repellent shoe in the world). While we’re at the bottom of fashion in the footwear department, more barfingly are Birkenstocks, and Ugg boots that are not intended to wear in the privacy of your own home on a comfortingly slothful, chilly day.
Platform thongs were an abomination and an ankle injury about to happen.
The whole idea of wearing thongs is much like condoms: you can feel almost barefoot but the thin rubber protects you from detriment and disaster. They’re meant to be practical, not polished – both figuratively and literally. Fashion’s never ending voracity for “newness” means that when it has eaten all there is to eat, it just regurgitates. Depending on how much the pile can be rearranged and renamed is precisely how the old and ugly is resurfaced and thus resurfaces.
Vogue seems to have lost some of its trendsetter pull with the rise of social media and other means of open slather foghorn opinion. Doesn’t mean it’s dead in the water by any stretch – it just seems to have become more like a magnificent ocean sighting of a whale tail. Which also the name of something it liked so much in the late 1990s, it spouted it again in 2019.
I don’t think the pandemic can be used as an excuse for that.
Personally, it was Dory speaking whale all over again, which always cracks me up. Entire socio-cultural analyses and legal debates have arisen from what amounts to an impermanent tramp stamp, or underthings that are no longer actually worn under things.
This is how bored we’ve become with our own existence, in a world that’s supposed to be so advanced and ergo, evolving. Critical thinking and intellect haven’t been fashionable since the onslaught of the internet. Its rogue vogue are AI slop, and algorithms designed to make us all screen-drunk and stupid.
There’s a huge difference between fashion and style, and it’s often conflated in exactly the same way “acceptable” and “ethical” are. It may be acceptable, for instance, for MPs to rort travel allowance payments in the sense of it being within the (self-imposed) rules, but it’s so far from ethical you can’t even see how to spell that through a gravitational lens.
Style is the indelible, harmonious, timeless signature upon which fashion mindlessly doodles.
What separates style, fashion, and fashionable is Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through The Grapevine against The Knack’s My Sharona and Pinkfong’s Baby Shark.
So don’t be Baby Sharked into thinking that I Heard It Through The Grapevine needs a bit of bling: your beautiful smile doesn’t need any teeth gems.
Marketed as a form of ‘personal expression’ it’s a pretty lame one. Unless looking like you have a bit of edible glitter lunch stuck to your tooth is your idea of letting the world know who you really are. Having a dentist put on a basic crystal is around $250; anything gold about $400. Of course there are DIY kits as available as free Bay City Roller pants in 1977, and like the band, they really can’t be recommended.
None of it can be recommended really.
When ancient civilisations like the Mayans and Aztecs drilled holes in their teeth to inlay gold, turquoise, jade and pyrite for social and spiritual practices, it meant something. There was deep, ritualistic significance attached to it, and you were old if you made it to your 30s. It was painful; it required courage. It was a cultural expression of alignment with a higher power, not a wayward swing with a credit card.
The Swedes refashioned the idea of tooth gems in the 1970s, not long before they thrust Abba upon the world. It’s hard to know which they should apologise for most.
Way back in ’76, Mick Jagger had an emerald put into his upper canine, which was changed to a ruby after too many mentions of spinach. The ruby of course looked like blood to some (what..sparkly?), so he finally settled on a diamond – which he still has. Being Rock ‘n Roll I like it – it’s the kind of stuff you can do when you’re a rock god. He’s a Rolling Stone who’s made the cover of Rolling Stone. Thirty-two times since 1968, to be exact. He’s worth hundreds of millions in whichever currency you’d like to pick. Not to put too fine a point on it, gluing a Swarovski chip or two on the anteriors of your choice isn’t going to get you there.
The availability of online tooth jewellery kits makes it seem so harmless.
Along with all kinds of DIY dental (including teeth whitening) just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Commonly – and starting at around seventy bucks – they’re an option at music festivals, markets, pop-ups, beauty parlours and tattoo studios. Knowledge, competency, and the quality of glues and materials are more than difficult to gauge.
Acid etching is required for the tackiness stick. (Yes. I said that.) It damages tooth enamel, and depending on genetics and the general health of the teeth, can have even more dire consequences: from permanent discolouration to irreparable damage, chipping, and even decay.
The bottom line is that most dentists do not find tooth gems a positive addition to your smile.
Lasting for between three and twelve months, and no matter the size, they can trap food and debris, leading to plaque build-up and decay on the part of the tooth that cannot be properly brushed. Where they’re placed is also important – soft tissue damage, infection and inflammation can result when they’re too close to the gum line, or where inside cheek and lip areas are irritated. The adhesive can erode tooth enamel, and the reason only precious metals and porcelain are used in dental restorations is because there can be allergic reactions to other substances.
Any foreign object increases the risk of lowered oral health.
Having a retainer or night guard does not make you a good tooth gem candidate. Actually, you’re not a candidate at all. Any dental procedure like professional cleaning, fillings, crowns, veneers and of course orthodontics, necessitates removed. And that can be more expensive to take it off than put it on.
Yes, there are clinics that offer tooth gem services. Obviously that’s a better bet than doing it yourself, but just because you wear a seatbelt doesn’t mean you’ll never be in an accident.
A healthy smile that comes from happiness and humour is more than enough.
Spend the money you think you have to fritter on useless swank, on proper dental care instead. Or buying back issues of Rolling Stone with Mick Jagger on the cover. Either one is a smarter investment. If you have a burning need to be able to look in the mirror and see something different, support a cause that represents what’s important to you.
The best way to express your creative self is by using your intelligent self, and not be tempted by the tacky trend of Temu trinket teeth.