Just a lazy Sunday...and Lady Gaga

Just a lazy Sunday, it's raining and cold out and in true lazy Sunday fashion I've been relaxing and reading one of many magazines...stumbled on this months Elle Canada, which i miss placed a few weeks ago - that or I've been in  some post Olympic coma, or possibly an obsessive Gossip Girl craze only able to concentraite on the devilishly misbehavings of one Chuck Bass that I simply wasn't paying attention, oh well..that was a bit of a tangent...anyways - and flipping through the pages with all the new spring ads, trends, bags and Oscar buzz, there was an article entitled "Goodbye, Gaga".  The article was written about the new movement, rather, shift of focus in fashion to minimalism, and away from the grandure and eccentricities of past seasons.  Now, I'm all for the minimal wave, the simplicity and ease of the garments is beautiful in the same way that true Italian food is the best, simple, pure taste...why cover it up with a whole lot of extra shit?.. but just for the sake of the title I'm going over to the other side for a minute.

"Goodbye, Gaga", now clearly we can only be referring to the extreme stylings of one Lady Gaga?...Extreme, yes!...Unpractical, most definately...but what she has also managed to do is totally and completely change our vision of what fashion is.  Here is an ingenue, she wears her clothes to make a statement that has become larger than she.  In the short year, year and a half that Lady Gaga has been making us stop and command that we take notice, she has influenced trends and propelled fashion to the forefront of her music...Bad Romance anyone? All it takes is a spark and sometimes the world just needs a little insanity, we need to be rocked a little and have our point of view thrust into a completely new direction, to take us out of our comfort zone and explore the possibilities of what having a little bit of an out of the box mentality can do for us.  Musicians have been doing it for decades from Elton John and Madonna to the early years of David Bowie, even the zany worlds of Tim Burton and Marilyn Manson (his music videos I will be the first to admit give me the heeby jeebeez, but for someone to go as balls deep as he does, on an artistic and creative level is, well, Awesome) take us into a wildly alternate worlds, and into the minds of true visionaries.  

The world is made up of opposites and extremes, the ying and yang, both beautiful in their own right, both completely necessary to the other.  Through out history it has always taken someone (and sometimes a few) who stand out from social normalicy, to break away from the status quo, to take the path less chosen, or to simply do what they do only because they want to  and they don't give a crap what anyone has to say for it. 

 So, before the new decade is fully underway and simplicity and minimalism are taking centre stage, pushing the wild and unorthadox into a distant memory of years gone by (I'm sure there will be a good fight, Gaga's new obsession of over the top shoulder pads are truly a force to be reckoned with) here are some artists who have managed to challenge our opinions and command our attention....