Food as Fashion

How funny is that now everytime we look at fashion, it is somehow connected with food.  And even funnier to see that now the habit of people eating are not merely to fulfill their stomach with something to make them stay alive and well but rather to feed them something “in style”. Eating habits changed as well as the fast spreading of global food to different continents. Don’t we realized how trendy eating sushi was 5 years ago and how now it becomes a habit and a way of life.  Not to mention the fact that now sushi is a fad, raw fish is praised as a "high-protein, low-fat" source, ignoring the high rates of stomach cancer in Japan. Or for the case of that silly colorful cupcakes, which you didn’t even like before it was considered trendy and fashion to go to a cupcake café and to purchase a box contained of 12 beautiful creations of compressed calories. As with all fashion industries, food fashion thrives on change; it demands it. The vast industry can only survive if people’s tastes are constantly induced to change.

The era of food-snob admiring the idea of fancy food which are arranged in the most mesmerizing way and if you’re lucky, tastes really like heaven. What you eat on your plate have become a form of self-expression much like a dazzling pair of Christian Louboutins, or a vintage YSL handbag. Just as the label "fashionista" bearing up an entire lifestyle, so, too, does the term "food-snob."

Is food just another accessory? Food and fashion was long ago a relationship fraught with difficulty. But now look at the number of cafes owned by a fashion label, say Gucci, Bvlgari, Chanel, etc. Oh and the chocolate line of Armani, Armani Dolce? And speaking of food trends, my favorite example is The Berkeley London designer afternoon tea, Prêt-à-Portea, which is inspired by the themes and colours of the fashion world. The menu is transformed every six months to follow the changing seasons in fashion. Here you can actually taste what “Miu Miu vanilla bikini biscuit with navy icing and signature white bow” tastes like.

Berkeley's Pret a Portea

This re-fashioning of food is an interesting and exciting phenomenon. Also we realized a great number of curious cooks and adventurous eaters embrace the culinary arts, as well a super fast growing number of culinary blogs and books. This food trend can also be frightening to imagine what will come up in our plates in the next year. A miniature of Lady Gaga wearing that meat dress as an exchange of my lamb chop? But a good thing we can hold on to, same case in fashion, classics religion will never dies. That a great food can be not complicated or expensive, a great simple food savored together with family and friends in celebration of good times. Like the classic little black dress, that particular kind of food will never go out of style.