By Chris Cosci

In all stages of life, the way you dress says a lot about who you are - whether you're keeping up with the latest fads in high school or dressing for success in the business world. People rely on fashion designers to help set trends by coming up with new styles, which they show off in fashion shows. Obviously, these shows are not meant for people whose entire wardrobe consists of three pairs of jeans and a collection of t-shirts from the 1980's. That's why they are held in trendy cities, like New York, London and Paris.

Fashion shows are important to society because they serve as proof that some clothing designers should be locked away in padded cells. They never seem to show clothes designed for people who have to be seen in public. Instead, models strut down the catwalk wearing outfits that could only be manifested from the nightmares of Dr. Seuss.

I think that fashion shows should have some basic rules. The first rule should be, design clothes that people would actually wear. However, I'm pretty sure there aren't any rules. If there are rules, they're probably more like this:

1. No article of clothing should be completely intact. Add holes where unnecessary. If part of the outfit looks too smooth, shred it. If all else fails, just remove a sleeve or a pant leg.

2. The model should never have more than 30% of his or her skin covered - even if the outfit is designed for winter.

3. Humans are not the only creatures to see this outfit. Make it attractive to birds by adding lots of feathers.

Basically, it seems that designers just try to come up with the most outrageous outfit possible. Nothing is off limits. Remove pockets from a pair of pants and replace them with blinking sirens. Reverse a dress so that the back is covered but the front is open, making the underwear visible to all. Design an outfit where pants are replaced with two strategically placed hats and, instead of a shirt, there's a scarf wrapped around the chest with a see-through jacket thrown over it. Anything goes in the world of fashion.

These shows aren't about fashion. They're art shows with moving subjects. Nobody looks at these outfits and says, "ooh, that top would look great with my blue shoes." They say, "she looks like she got her blouse caught in a car door, was dragged for three blocks, was attacked by savage dogs, and had seven cans of paint spill on her from some scaffolding - it's brilliant!"

Maybe this really is the future of clothing. Instead of looking neat and pressed, our clothes should make us look like we just survived some minor catastrophe. Got an ink stain on your favorite shirt? Fell down the side of hill, tearing your clothes up while skidding over the rocky terrain? Accidentally set your pants on fire? You've just created a trendy outfit. Now you can walk down the streets of Paris and fit right in with the people who paid thousands of dollars to have their clothes look destroyed.

Maybe we need to set up fashion colonies for designers. There, they can have all the freedom they need to produce outlandish outfits without having to subject other people to their insanity. They can express themselves in a confined setting, and eventually be released back into society, where they can produce and sell more socially acceptable designs. Once this is set up, we can start working on advertising agents.