Word One: Clothes
I'm beginning with the last word. It's the one I found easiest to write about. Mr Arcadia came home and saw my list of words and said, "3 are normal and that last one...oh my God, you're going to go mental, aren't you...?" I replied, meekly, "I've only written 2 pages so far..."
****
I think clothes might be my hobby.
I think its superficial to judge people only by their clothes, but so often clothes are a good indicator of the person inside them! Yet clothes are dress-ups, they’re camoflage, they’re let’s pretend. Clothes can be aggressive, assertive, authoritative, or seductive, submissive, demure.
Clothes can say, "I care how I look", "I care too much how I look", "I want you to think I don't care how I look", "I don't care how I look", or "I want you to think I'm above caring how I look, but actually I've just given up".
The meaning of clothes changes with context, with our mood. Stay awake! Does that red power suit mean that woman is a superconfident wunderkind? Or does she wear it to give herself confidence? Or is it both?
When clothes serve us best, they encourage us to see what is really there, rather than what we want to see or fear to see.
Clothes keep us warm and dry. They stop us getting sunburnt. They keep our private bits private. They can hide our insecurities from the world - and also highlight them if we become too obsessive about covering a particular area up.
We’ve all worn clothes that weren’t quite right, and when we see ourselves, we think, “That’s not me.” We borrow a personae with an outfit, and other clothes make us more ourselves than we already were. They can make us feel terrible - wrong colour, wrong size, wrong style - and they can make us feel wonderful - right colour, right size, right style. That's why some people hate wearing second-hand or borrowed clothes, and other people love it! And sometimes clothes provide that bit of Cinderella magic, and make us who we should be, but aren’t quite yet (we fear)!
When I act as a shopping fairy, the hard part is not finding clothes to suit the victim subject of my ministrations, the magic is helping them to see in the mirror what I see. They see “I always look good in blue”, where I see “purple makes you look more amazing still”. They see “oh my god, you can see my lumps!” where I see sexy voluptuous goddess curves. They see "this is too nice for me" where I see "you make that dress look good because you are gorgeous".
The right clothes have an alchemical ability to turn lead into gold. Or perhaps just remove the mote from our own eyes...
Clothes are the window-dressing of our personality. They can display or obscure: the choice is ours. If your clothing is always a shutter - what are you hiding from us (and maybe yourself)? If your blinds are always open, don’t be surprised if after a while we walk by without noticing.
It's true that clothes have public, generalised meansing. They say something about how much money we have, maybe what we do if we wear a uniform (formal or informal), and what our ambitions, achievements and social aspirations are. (If you have no social aspirations, go right ahead and wear a safari suit with a long sleeved shirt underneath - and don't bother to comb your hair.)
But clothes have personal and private meanings too. The shirt of a beloved, worn to bed, says “I miss you and want to be near you”. The sweater that was a gift from a dear friend, says, “you are loved”. The dress that says, “I know you can’t keep your hands off of me when I wear this... and nor do I want you to.” A pair of walking boots tells us, “You are strong and capable”. Sexy lingere under a boiler-suit reminds us “I’m a feminine woman even if I’m welding” - or perhaps “I’m an especially feminine woman when I’m welding”. These meanings are whispered to us throughout the day, and have a talismanic power over us.
The public and private aspect of clothing fascinates me.
Textiles and fabrics fascinate me. Beautiful colours fascinate me. How I can craft a particular image of myself through what I choose to wear, fascinates me. How I can change my mood and (sometimes) my life just by changing my clothes, fascinates me.
And what people choose to do with the clothes they wear, and what that says about them, fascinates me.
I think clothes might be my hobby.
****
I think clothes might be my hobby.
I think its superficial to judge people only by their clothes, but so often clothes are a good indicator of the person inside them! Yet clothes are dress-ups, they’re camoflage, they’re let’s pretend. Clothes can be aggressive, assertive, authoritative, or seductive, submissive, demure.
Clothes can say, "I care how I look", "I care too much how I look", "I want you to think I don't care how I look", "I don't care how I look", or "I want you to think I'm above caring how I look, but actually I've just given up".
The meaning of clothes changes with context, with our mood. Stay awake! Does that red power suit mean that woman is a superconfident wunderkind? Or does she wear it to give herself confidence? Or is it both?
When clothes serve us best, they encourage us to see what is really there, rather than what we want to see or fear to see.
Clothes keep us warm and dry. They stop us getting sunburnt. They keep our private bits private. They can hide our insecurities from the world - and also highlight them if we become too obsessive about covering a particular area up.
We’ve all worn clothes that weren’t quite right, and when we see ourselves, we think, “That’s not me.” We borrow a personae with an outfit, and other clothes make us more ourselves than we already were. They can make us feel terrible - wrong colour, wrong size, wrong style - and they can make us feel wonderful - right colour, right size, right style. That's why some people hate wearing second-hand or borrowed clothes, and other people love it! And sometimes clothes provide that bit of Cinderella magic, and make us who we should be, but aren’t quite yet (we fear)!
When I act as a shopping fairy, the hard part is not finding clothes to suit the victim subject of my ministrations, the magic is helping them to see in the mirror what I see. They see “I always look good in blue”, where I see “purple makes you look more amazing still”. They see “oh my god, you can see my lumps!” where I see sexy voluptuous goddess curves. They see "this is too nice for me" where I see "you make that dress look good because you are gorgeous".
The right clothes have an alchemical ability to turn lead into gold. Or perhaps just remove the mote from our own eyes...
Clothes are the window-dressing of our personality. They can display or obscure: the choice is ours. If your clothing is always a shutter - what are you hiding from us (and maybe yourself)? If your blinds are always open, don’t be surprised if after a while we walk by without noticing.
It's true that clothes have public, generalised meansing. They say something about how much money we have, maybe what we do if we wear a uniform (formal or informal), and what our ambitions, achievements and social aspirations are. (If you have no social aspirations, go right ahead and wear a safari suit with a long sleeved shirt underneath - and don't bother to comb your hair.)
But clothes have personal and private meanings too. The shirt of a beloved, worn to bed, says “I miss you and want to be near you”. The sweater that was a gift from a dear friend, says, “you are loved”. The dress that says, “I know you can’t keep your hands off of me when I wear this... and nor do I want you to.” A pair of walking boots tells us, “You are strong and capable”. Sexy lingere under a boiler-suit reminds us “I’m a feminine woman even if I’m welding” - or perhaps “I’m an especially feminine woman when I’m welding”. These meanings are whispered to us throughout the day, and have a talismanic power over us.
The public and private aspect of clothing fascinates me.
Textiles and fabrics fascinate me. Beautiful colours fascinate me. How I can craft a particular image of myself through what I choose to wear, fascinates me. How I can change my mood and (sometimes) my life just by changing my clothes, fascinates me.
And what people choose to do with the clothes they wear, and what that says about them, fascinates me.
I think clothes might be my hobby.