The Curse of the Styling ClassBy Lucy Waters

  As misleading as the title may be, this isn’t the tale of the classic American dream- it doesn’t start from humble beginnings and through hard work and determination it doesn’t end in the picture of success, fulfillment, and a younger, blonder wife (well, maybe, but Greta hasn’t called me back…). It isn’t the cookie-cutter dream we were promised —It’s dark and disappointing- the opposite of cookie cutters which are usually shiny and have a jovial shape. Actually, I have never had time for useless house wares like cookie cutters; they clutter kitchens and are far inferior to a good Swiss Army knife. No, this is the story of a more important, more tortured ware-Outerwear (also spelled differently). Specifically, the greatest contribution to the exploration of all the earth’s terrain: The North Face Fleece.      

       The North Face is more than a brand of outerwear and sporting supplies; it is a lifestyle, a standard, and a heritage that I am proud to be a part of. ‘The North Face’ refers to the coldest side of a mountain, the most challenging and dangerous climb. Therefore a North Face product must be equipped to be constantly challenged and constantly in danger (somewhat like the audience of an Ashley Simpson concert). To be a North Face product you must not only be stylish and well fitting, but possess an over all ‘outdoor-sy’ energy. My kind, the North Face outerwear extended family, has worked with all types of athletes from professionals to amateurs, protecting them from the conditions and enabling them to see all of earth’s beauty.  As you can see there is quite a lot of pressure for every garment to carry on the tradition of excellence and sporty-ness, but this pressure is also the honor and aspiration of all who wear The North Face logo. Since the dawn of The North Face, sometime around 1966 according to ancient scrolls (and the North Face website), my kin has devoted their lives to exploration. We have grown as a society from our primitive ancestors (who roamed the lands of San Francisco’s North beach) to a wind resistant web of outdoor equipment, spanning the globe. We have surpassed the lesser breeds (like the joke of a sweater-old navy’s performance fleece) to reign at the top of the moderate-to-high outerwear food chain. And yet with all our success and growth, our kind is in danger. We are in the middle of a sociological crisis that claims countless north face lives each and everyday. You see, the time when our kind ruled the mountain is ending as slowly we are becoming domesticated. We have been relocated from the rugged terrain of earth’s great outdoors to the barren wastelands of academia. It happened to the dinosaurs it will happen to us: we will become the play toys of America’s youth. Momentarily admired for our outrageous strength and size then cast

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aside, only to be remembered by 4 hour long countdowns of useless objects from pop culture on VH1. But if you ask me we have it worse off than the dinosaurs-have you seen how many dinosaur movies there are? I mean there are 3 Jurassic Parks and at least 1700 Land Before Times.Mine is but one story of disillusionment and despair, but I hope that from it you will appreciate the plight of my kin….***            Since I was young I dreamt of the life in the great outdoors, and it had always been my deepest, darkest desire to make it. To work with the great climbers. To be respected and revered for my work. Once upon a time I dreamt I might even be famous for my skills, how naïve and foolish youth makes us…I had an average upbringing, manufactured overseas in Asia, it was a happy time. There, I was meticulously sculpted from raw Polartec® fleece into the well rounded, albeit idealistic, Denali Jacket I was on my way to becoming. All the while I kept my dreams close to me, spending hours envisioning what life would be like once I could escape the safe homogeneity of suburban factory living.Then finally the time in my life came when I would put all my ideals into practice. They made it seem that if you just worked hard enough, doing what was expected, that anything was attainable. So I did. I worked each and everyday to become what I knew I was destined for: greatness. I suppose that is the hardest part about my situation now. I know I should take some responsibility, but it’s not like I’m like the other fleeces who ended up here because they partied too much at the factory and wound up at some dead end discount store in southern Ohio. I was on the Internet! Backcountry.com even! I had the opportunity to go anywhere I wanted! Anywhere! I worked so hard to get the right shipment, the right box. I studied for months for inspection, and I had inspector A4073H who once ripped apart a jacket with his bare hands, just because his stitching was slightly slanted! I am sorry I am getting ahead of myself; it’s just a very sore subject…But that doesn’t matter now, I worked hard and that will never go to waste. I passed inspection and that’s all that matters … now where was I? Oh yes, shipping…When I first saw the label I admit I was surprised. I had imagined The Rockies, or The Alps not Michigan. But I saw that quite a few shipments had ended up there so foolishly I thought maybe there was a topographical anomaly there I hadn’t studied. Perhaps a mountain had sprung up over night like in that movie Volcano with Harrison Ford and Anne Hache. Or perhaps it was a prepping ground, a climber’s society where they could train for extreme exploration. How wrong I was. There was no anomaly, no training center… but rather a large, public University.The journey from Asia to Michigan was strenuous and long (but not too long, about 10-14 business days) and when I arrived I was tired but excited, perhaps the most excited I had ever been. I waited anxiously to meet my partner… my life partner… the one I would experience the entire world with. I wondered, will he be burly, or athletic, will he be strong

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and silent or adventurous and wild, will he be handsome, will he be rich? Then I decided I would appreciate him what ever he was… whatever will be will be-I thought.  I could hear the packaging tape being cut… and suddenly I was blinded by the light as he opened the box. I could feel myself being lifted out but I still couldn’t see anything, until I adjusted to the light… it was beautiful. We connected on a primal level, he stared down at me with his soft blue eyes beneath his shaggy blonde hair and I knew that all my work had finally paid off. We would be inseparable from now on. I had found the other half that I had always heard about in sappy love songs. I wanted to stand with him on a mountain, I wanted to bathe with him in the sea, and I wanted to stay like this forever, —-until the door opened and another young man entered.“Hey Steve, you wanna go get dinner?” the man asked“Yeah, sure” my soul mate answered, and promptly dropped me onto his bed, turned off the light and left.It’s nice to meet you too, Steve I thought to myself as I sat there alone in the dark, hurt and confused. What a fine beginning to a fine life….The following weeks were more of the same: neglect, abuse, disrespect. Once he left me on a chair in the library for two hours, during which time I could have been abducted by any sort of deranged kleptomaniac (one with good taste of course), the only reason I wasn’t taken away was I had learned self defense at home. (I am a black belt in the art of static shock.) Our activities together were also far from fulfilling. I soon found out that the only mountains Steve was interested in exploring were the double D’s on the chick in his psychology class. I was spending my days traveling between lecture halls and keggers, not summits and valleys. I was stagnant and bored. Knowing there was a better life out there that I was missing. I mean you should hear about the life my cousin leads-he’s a model, fantastic seam structure and a zipper pull I would give my underarm zippers for-but he jet sets around the world hanging out with beautiful climbers doing ‘shoots’ all while I’m here trapped underneath Steve’s econ book.I tried to engage him in other aspects of the North Face owners’ lifestyle; I strategically placed the informational pamphlets that had been sent with my shipping, the ones with pictures of climbers and the catch phrase ‘Never Stop Exploring’, but Steve only used them as a coaster for his brewsky when he was watching the game ( a brewsky that he spilled on me I might add, but as I insulate even when wet and as my fabric is treated to transport moisture away from the body for fast evaporation, Steve didn’t even notice. Or maybe he was just too tipsy…) I also tried to entice him with a geoscience book of Steve’s roommate’s, surely he couldn’t resist the gigantic rock formations, but Steve didn’t even notice and he decided to stay with his own reading materials (It is very hard to compete with Maxim; even the Himalayas don’t have busty women and witty articles). At first I saw it as a cultural experience, trying to be tolerant I joined in

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on his lifestyle but there was no reciprocation. It’s not fair really because if our places were switched I would make an effort to do things that he was interested in.  For example, I would absolutely take him to frat parties to check out ‘the Biddies” just as long as the house was a bit farther off campus-like in Nepal. After a time I just gave up, I resigned to the life of the teenage wasteland and tried to pass the time on fruitless occupations. And I was entertained, but not fulfilled. I mean yeah, I used to fool around with that Columbia Jacket that belonged to Steve’s psych chick, and she was fine (insulation that would make your head spin) but there was no meaning there, she just wasn’t the kind of garment I could see my self spending the rest of my life with.I became so frustrated I began to take it out on Steve. Some days I would lie on very important papers or his keys so that he couldn’t find them and be late to class. Little things like that, which helped me in no way, save a momentary dark feeling of revenge against the universe for its wrong doings upon me. But Karma got its way in the end, as it always does, and Steve just doubled my hours and didn’t wash me for continued lengths of time.So there I was: exhausted, filthy, and utterly frustrated. My life was at a low point I could never have foreseen, but at least it couldn’t get any worse. Guess again! One of the fundamental rules of the universe: the minute you say or think that things can’t get worse they do. It was a rainy Wednesday afternoon and Steve and I were ‘studying’ at a local coffee shop, the usual table: in the corner by the window. Steve was eyeing up a spicy brunette standing at the counter while I wistfully stared out the window. The brunette sauntered over and sat down, placing her belongings on the table: a fake designer purse and a folded newspaper. Well, she could read, at least Steve was becoming a little more selective, or maybe she just liked the pictures. And who could blame her. The page was splashed with pictures of snow-capped mountains accompanying an article by some writer reporting on a new fitness fad about extreme sports. And there the reporter was, windblown and sporting a huge grin, along with-NO! No, that’s not possible! The reporter was wearing a Denali, but not just any Denali – it was UPC 72368 00101! I was at the factory with him, I grew up with him and he was the laziest, poorly sewn, sorriest excuse for a North Face I had ever known. The only reason he scraped through inspection was because he was cut from the same fabric as some influential big wig in sampling! That was it! The person I despised most had the life I wanted all while I was here… in the flatlands of the Midwest. I was at the end of my rope, desperate, frustrated, hurt …but most of all I was just so confused. I was a DENALI! The North Face’s best selling jacket.  I COST $165! Did that not count for anything anymore? I was warm, I had a lifetime warranty, and I was even pill resistant! This just wasn’t the way it was supposed to be! Why had this happened to me? Where did I go wrong? What was

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wrong with me?My mind became quiet as I tried to hold myself back from a complete breakdown. Random flashes of my life came into view, like the day I got my embroidery, or the time I had an overnight stay in the post office in Atlanta. And the day I met Steve. My vision of him, how I had promised I would appreciate him no matter what he was like. And then I realized it wasn’t me I had to worry about anymore, it was Steve. I realized he hadn’t asked for this either. We were brought together by fate (and standard UPS shipping, free on orders over $25) we were tied by an instinctual bond that no one could break. I had a responsibility to him, my dreams were inconsequential-it was his that mattered now. It was my duty to provide a brighter future for him, a better life than my own. Suddenly I wanted to shield him from all the evil in the world: the pain, the greed, and the annoying draft in English 225. I sat there watching him pretending to be listening to the brunette, eyes glazed as he nodded rhythmically with the conversation. Sure, times would be hard and different from what I had planned-but no one ever said that life was easy or what we ask for. You can’t choose the one you end up with and perhaps it is better that way, otherwise there would be so many cold college students in the world. You make the best with the time you are given and the rest we leave to fate. So, I suppose the crisis I mentioned before is rather a turning point, not just for me but also for my generation. A time when we look beyond ourselves and do something for the greater good. After all, there is more to the world than climbing walls and icy peaks; there are coffee shops and frat houses and everything in between just waiting to be discovered again and again. Anything is an adventure if only you open your mind. Never Stop Exploring… 

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