Fashion is Passion
When I was young and poor, fashion was a labyrinthine code somehow kept secret from me but divulged to all the other girls at school. I felt if I just worked hard at it, I could match up my goodwill shirts and skirts and arrive at Fashionable. I read "Color Me Beautiful" and the fashion articles in the paper and really TRIED. And yeah... no dice. You can see photos of me in high school with too-big glasses and shirts that match the skirt in color, but neither is fashionable. In fact, wearing a button-down shirt with a long skirt wasn't fashionable to begin with.
Much later - oh, college, I guess - I realized the simple truth: Fashion itself was just: NEW. That's it. If you have the money to buy new clothes, you buy sets of clothes designed to go together and you are in fashion. My peers didn't have any secret cabal of this-goes-with-that. They just bought stuff new. And new is always in fashion.
Now, I think, I've finally moved beyond that understanding and back to being able to create a fashion statement of my own out of eclectic source material, old and new. But it requires both free time to ponder this shirt-that-skirt, and the money and resources to store up a big freakin' wardrobe.
I have a big freakin' wardrobe.
You also have to be willing to be a little daring. 99% of new fashion attempts look stupid and are dropped. That one percent that don't are what catches on and you find your friends copying. It's worth getting a few snide remarks for your purple pants if you also see your co-workers buying belts like that one you wore a few weeks ago.
See what I mean?
Anyway, apropos of nothing. I'm just thinking about fashion, lately, and how I went from fearing and misunderstanding it to playing in it like a kid in mud. :D
Much later - oh, college, I guess - I realized the simple truth: Fashion itself was just: NEW. That's it. If you have the money to buy new clothes, you buy sets of clothes designed to go together and you are in fashion. My peers didn't have any secret cabal of this-goes-with-that. They just bought stuff new. And new is always in fashion.
Now, I think, I've finally moved beyond that understanding and back to being able to create a fashion statement of my own out of eclectic source material, old and new. But it requires both free time to ponder this shirt-that-skirt, and the money and resources to store up a big freakin' wardrobe.
I have a big freakin' wardrobe.
You also have to be willing to be a little daring. 99% of new fashion attempts look stupid and are dropped. That one percent that don't are what catches on and you find your friends copying. It's worth getting a few snide remarks for your purple pants if you also see your co-workers buying belts like that one you wore a few weeks ago.
See what I mean?
Anyway, apropos of nothing. I'm just thinking about fashion, lately, and how I went from fearing and misunderstanding it to playing in it like a kid in mud. :D