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“Calling all cars! Calling all cars! We have a report of a fashion violation taking place in Shinchon. Dispatching vehicles!!”

OK. I hate to sound bitchy or rude, but there are some serious fashion crimes being committed here on the streets of Seoul. As much as women in Korea can be quite the fly, funky dressers – largely due to a nearly scientifically-planned dissemination of outfits and packaged looks in magazines and on the Internet every season – there are some people who make some pretty serious mistakes.

Korean women have one major advantage over many women in societies that have more variety in size and shape in the population. If you compare the United States, between caucasian, Asian, black, and Latino women – for example – you get people with feet tending to cluster around size 6-7 to people who tend to be in the 8-9 or even 10-11 range near the top. Most American women’s shoes run to a size 9 or 10 in a normal run of a shoe style.

By contrast, in Korea, most women are well within the 6-8 range, about 225–250mm at the most. Also, Korean women tend to have similar skin tone, height range, and general clothing sizes – although there are obviously major outliers outside of that normal bell curve.

Now – that being said, all fashion trends don’t fit all women. Certain people look good in pumps, black socks, and a girly top. Certain people wear the exact same thing and just look ridiculous. Now, that’s a body shape issue, which the Fashion Police™ tends to leave alone, because we’re not mean Fashion Sense Enlightenment Officers. However, some people just make mistakes that are the results of bad choices have to do with colors, styles, or other attributes that just don’t match or look right.

And sometimes, there’s no explanation for these things – they’re just…wrong.

The young lady under investigation today – and we don’t do this to be bitchy, but rather to make the world a safer, more fashionable place – has made a choice that continues to irk this officer. The mistake is mostly due to blindly following a fashion trend for the sake of doing so, but not really understand why or how it the elements look good – or bad.

OK – so the perpetrator is going for a girly, casual look, what with the T-shirt, vest, and jeans skirt. The black socks are something I once hated – who wants to look like they’re wearing Dad’s dress socks with heels?! – but have come to accept their charm and Britney Spears-ifying power to bring a bit of demureness and affected innocence to girls wearing miniskirts. I can accept that.

What I cannot understand – what vexes me to the core of my being – is why someone would wear light brown, faux-suede pumps with the black socks, blue jeans, and black and white top. Perhaps I am being more of a fashionista that a humble fashion enlightenment officer, but light brown with black socks?! She would have only done worse had she worn white shoes with that.

I admit, she doesn’t look that bad, but because, as I said, I’ve seen worse. But she clearly has the potential to commit real fashion crimes, which is why we’re just going to let her off with a warning this time.

It may be a look too irritatingly commonplace to laud, but the Britney Wear™ sported by most of young women in Korea who choose to sport it is at least conservatively planned – just connect the dots.

You wear black shoes with that sort of stuff. If you wear brightly-colored shoes, I’d go with colored socks, white socks, and then black, in that general order – blood red, patent pumps could make a nice combination, dearies – but the fuzzy brown pumps against sheer black socks - hmmmm.

Her outfit – although not my personal taste – kinda works, but I think the brown shoes throw it off. Think more about where the shoes fit into the picture, dearie, and dress wisely.

Until next time!

EE-AW-EE-AW!