Salve Omni!
I hope you had a most
excellent weekend, Dear Reader! Mine was
a bit hectic, yet, in a sense, therapeutic.
I am referring to the sacred art of what we females call retail
therapy...yes, I went clothes shopping...haven't done that in a while! For my birthday this year, I received gift
cards to some pretty awesome stores, from some very awesome people. When I learned that some of the stores on my
list were having a this-weekend-only sale, I just couldn't resist!
While walking around the
local shopping mall on Saturday afternoon, I decided to keep my eye out for
cute, geeky apparel that I could add to my wardrobe. With geek culture alive and thriving more
than ever in the modern world, it seems that many popular store chains such as Torrid,
Hot Topic, Forever 21, and Target, offer a small to
fairly-decent selection of geektastic merchandise (in other words, a plethora
of T-shirts), mostly targeted at teenage girls and boys and very young adult
men and, then, women. This is great news
for the modern person - I really wish I had more choices when it came to
geek-inspired clothing back when I was a teenager; but alas, no! I did have a few Dr. Seuss T-shirts (and Cat
in the Hat slippers), Mickey Mouse tees, an Oscar the Grouch sleep
shirt, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs pajamas, and...wait for
it...a Pee-Wee's Playhouse sleep shirt (I am so not making this
up). Back in the day, I found that
availability was sorely lacking in comic book-themed merchandise and apparel -
well at least for girls and women. I
don't think that boys and men had that great of a selection either other than a
few printed T-shirts, but for girls and women, it would be a very rare thing to
find such a treasure!
Now, as confirmed by my
recent shopping trip, you can find a decent selection of comic book-related
clothing and accessories, just about everywhere you look. That is great and all...but the choices are
still greatly limited. You mostly find Marvel
Comics characters, and mostly, you see the same popular ones like Iron
Man, The Avengers (Thor, Captain America, etc), Spider-Man, The Hulk,
and The X-Men (mainly Wolverine), printed over-and-over again. Then, there are the popular DC Comics characters,
such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern. See a pattern here? If not, don't fret...all shall be revealed in
the next paragraph!
Recently, I read an
article announcing that the popular chain, Forever 21, was to debut a Marvel
Comics-inspired clothing collection in their stores for back to
school. What joy! I was ecstatic! I knew that there would be a slim chance that
my curvy, 31 year-old body would fit into most of this chain's cute clothing,
but I felt at ease, knowing that there are now some cute geeky options just for
young women out there. No more having to
scour the men's T-shirt sections for quirky, hard-to find shirts to wear to
comic-cons and Science Fiction cons, etc.
So I grabbed my laptop and went directly to Forever 21's website
to check it out. Big
disappointment! I will say, there was a
surprising assortment of leggings, sweatshirts, tank tops, crop tops,
bodysuits, tees, and even a dress, available; with a vintage print of either
Iron Man, Wolverine, Thor, Spider-Man, and The Hulk. Or, an all-over comic book print that looks
pretty cool. So why am I disappointed? Well it seems that the novelty here is to
take a few well-loved Marvel characters (all male, may I add), and
add them in vintage prints to women's clothing.
It's different, but not a very novel idea. Hey Marvel...isn't X-Men a
part of your franchise!!!??? And doesn't
X-Men have some fabulously awesome female characters that you could
promote? Especially for a fashionable
women's clothing line?
Who wouldn't want to
wear a cute top or accessory with a print of Storm, Rogue, Jean Grey, or even
Mystique on it? I know girls and women
like to give props to their superhero crushes (I know I love me some Iron Man and
Batman), but what about some swag for girl power using the images of super
heroines and female comic book characters?
Other than the occasional Wonder Woman pop-art tee, I've seen very
little on that front. I guess the fate
of women's geek-themed clothing, especially when comic-book related, is subject
to the predominately-male favorites.
With a steady increase in female attendance at comic-cons, perhaps the
marketing department heads of these major comic book giants will look to
encompass the new demographic majority; because women play a large role in geek
culture, too!!!
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