OBSESSION OR JUST DRESS-UP?

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On a recent episode of Anderson, he did a segment on a 23 old woman who is literally obsessed with living a 1950's lifestyle.  She was as uncomfortable with current fashions as her grandmother would have been. 

Sitting prettily on the stage, this woman, let's call her Amy, looked like she was magically transported from a glamorous pin-up poster.  Her boyfriend said that she was the real deal.  In the 2 years that they have dating, he had never seen her out of 1950's clothing.  Her home was like a Smithsonian exhibit as well.  Amy said that from the age of 13, she went into the past and stayed there.  She loved her grandmother's clothes and everything from that era.

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As much as the notion of beaming into the past appeals to me, Amy's mindset seemed a little too obsessive.  I felt she is hiding in plain sight from whatever she might be scared of in present day.  She would rather be in a permanent fantasy stasis than live in the today and now.

As part of the show's program, Amy was sent backstage to be "transformed" into a woman of 2012.  The team dressed her in skinny jeans, cute top, trendy dangly jewellery and reinvented wedge shoes.  Amy re-entered the stage looking very awkward.  Her boyfriend and audience responded very favourably to her make-over.  But Amy was looking uncomfortable in her new skin.  I thought she looked really age appropriate without the pancake face make-up, complicated up do and crinoline dress.  She had been trying too hard.  Amy liked her new look but couldn't wait to reverse the affects of her appearance.  She wasn't comfortable without her mask to hide behind.  Admiration of all things vintage should enhance one's life, not act as a security blanket.

Is Amy living in an unhealthy fantasy land?  Probably.  That funny little expression from Oscar Wilde comes to mind:
"Everything in moderation including moderation."


Carol