Ugly is the New Pretty

The irony of ugly. I knew it well. Back in Mississippi, I once got my hair cut into a style JFP co-workers said looked like I had mange (hint: I had stripes shaved around my head with a rat tail and makeshift-mohawk). My clothes almost never matched. My socks didn't match until this last fall. My earrings still don't.

But in Portland, the irony of being ugly reigns supreme. Last night, I saw a girl actually wearing a top made out of various '80s windbreakers sewn together in one big puff. Topping the outfit off were a pair of plaid hotpants and some tights.

From the back of the concert, I spotted a girl -- overweight in a mis-cut dress made of material that could have been curtains we were embarrassed to have as poor kids in the early '90s. Most of her head was shaved except for one long piece on the side. She danced with authority. Flirted with the people around her. Here, ugly rules, and the curtain dress is racking up sexy points. In an alternate universe (the world's 'normal universe'), she'd be ugly. She wouldn't get dates. She might have a great personality, but would likely secretly lament.

"I don't want to really live in either of those universes," my girlfriend told me this morning, when I recounted my night to her.

"Me either," I said.

I used to hate being hit on in clubs. Why should people tell me I'm cute, compliment some accident mash-up of DNA that is beyond my control? I never worked to be skinny, to form dimples in my cheeks.

That's why I was excited when that show "Ugly Betty" came out (though even it really makes America Ferrarra, who is really beautiful, as ugly as possible) with an ugly heroine and a campaign -- BE UGLY -- to bolster it. Why shouldn't we all eschew DNA and just be sexy together?

But, I have to say, the fashion of ironic ugly is way beyond my comprehension. I suspect they'll look back at pictures of themselves and grimace -- just a little -- the way I do when I peep pictures of my 'mange' 'do. But, I always think, too, I'm glad I did that. Just to see.