now when we talk abut style, what are we actually talking about? because I fear we have completely lost the plot when it comes to getting dressed. first lets get this out the way…… my credentials, if you will.
now, i should probably clarify that i’m not a fashion expert. i don’t know every designer. i am not the best dressed. i don’t know every collection. i couldn’t tell you what happened on every runway this season. i just like clothes. and i do notice when someone looks like themselves. and i feel like that’s becoming harder and harder to find in people.
i think the most beautiful things about fashion is that it doesn’t have to be for everyone. i actually think that’s the whole point. everyone doesn’t have to like what you’re wearing, they’re not even supposed to understand it when you look like yourself.
we have confused having access to fashion with actually having personal style. because we have never had more inspiration. and everyone is quite literally looking the same.
open any social media app and you’ll find the same formulas being passed around as individuality. the oversized clothes that swallow the body because we’ve collectively decided that being swallowed by your clothes is effortless. the perfectly neutral wardrobe. the carefully curated minimalism. the old money thing. the whimsy thing. the colors and textures and patterns stacked on top of one another because maximalism is having a moment now.
and none of these things are inherently bad. that’s not really my point. my problem is what happens when an aesthetic becomes a uniform for everyone?
i don’t think style is supposed to be universally appealing. i think style is supposed to be personal. and personal means there should be things about the way you dress that other people don’t understand. there should be things that don’t photograph perfectly for a pinterest board. there should be silhouettes that don’t flatter the algorithm. there should be colors you wear because they look incredible against your skin, even if its not the “color of the summer”.
there should be clothes that make sense because of your body. because of your hair. because of your proportions ad your measurements. because of your personality. because of the way you walk into a room. because of the lifestyle you live daily. because of the energy you carry. because of who you are when nobody is looking.
i think we’ve gotten so used to fashion being consumed visually that we’ve forgotten it’s supposed to be experienced physically.
your body is not a mannequin, your wardrobe isn’t a mood board, and your style shouldn’t be a collection of things you found appealing on twelve different women who don’t look anything like you.
i don’t think people are dressing badly. i just think they’re dressing for likes, views, and popularity. you can wear the most expensive clothes in the world and still look like you got dressed by an algorithm. you can have impeccable taste and still have no style. because taste can be learned. they are people buying an outfit straight off a mannequin or even from another person and wearing it the exact same way.
style has to be lived. style is knowing that something is beautiful and still knowing it’s not for you. style is being able to look at another person and think, i would never wear that, while simultaneously understanding that it looks good on them. because it belongs to them. thats the whole point of it.
i don’t need to want your outfit for me to appreciate that it looks like you. that’s when fashion becomes interesting. when you can look at someone and there is no question that the clothes are an extension of the person wearing them.
because they’re not following the rules of an aesthetic, they’ve figured out their own rules.
we are losing the willingness to be specific. the willingness to have preferences that aren’t universally agreeable. yall have made style so accessible that its not even personal anymore. you can figure out exactly what to buy to look like a certain kind of woman now.
there are formulas for being cool. formulas for being feminine. formulas for looking expensive. formulas for looking effortless. formulas for looking like you didn’t try while obviously trying very hard. and i understand why we love them. there is comfort in knowing what works. i guess.
there is comfort in being told that if you buy these five things, wear your hair this way, and keep your colors neutral, you’ll look chic. but chic isn’t the same thing as interesting. and interesting isn’t the same thing as beautiful. cause chic is neutrals but its also timeless pieces and high quality fabrics. your h&m oversized tee and gap jeans don’t qualify to what real chic is.
i want to see people who got it wrong again. people who are experimenting with their clothes. the woman who has a very specific obsession with vintage brooches. or the man who wears the same dramatic coat every winter. the woman whose hair doesn’t “go” with the outfit according to some invisible rule. i want to see people make choices. because choice is where style lives. and maybe this is where fashion and desire meet for me.
i don’t want to dress to be universally desirable. i don’t want to make myself visually digestible to the largest possible audience. i don’t want to look good to everyone. i want to look like myself to the person who knows me.
there is so much intimacy about being recognizable. not recognizable because you’re wearing the thing everyone is wearing, recognizable because someone can see your your shoes walking across a room and know it’s you.
that’s desire.
fashion can be an invitation into yourself. and i think that’s why i get annoyed when we reduce it to trends. and to take a step further to be reduced to people telling us how to build a capsule wardrobe or what to wear this season.
because fashion is one of the few places where we can communicate something about ourselves before without even opening our mouths. and i don’t think we should be so afraid of being disliked that we dress ourselves into neutrality. because the most stylish person in the room is never the person wearing the most fashionable thing. it’s actually the person who looks completely, unmistakably, undeniably like themselves.
and isn’t that what we’re really trying to say when we say we have style?
not i know how to dress.
but:
you can tell who i am by the way i do it.
this is why there are certain people whose style i can’t stop paying attention to. not necessarily because i want to dress like them. sometimes i don’t. but because when i look at them, i can feel the person underneath the clothes.
there wardrobes feel completely uninterested in asking for permission. they aren’t dressing to fit neatly into an aesthetic. they’re dressing from instinct. from taste. from personality. from whatever strange little thing inside of them that tells them to reach for it. and i love that. and often times they’re the ones who are actually setting the trends before they become a trend…
because when i talk about personal style, i’m not talking about some perfect wardrobe or a person who gets dressed correctly every single day. i’m talking about the people who have figured out how to make their clothes feel like an extension of who they are.
here are a few people I know and never get bored when i see them on my tl. not only are they into fashion but they have STYLE
i need us as collective to return back to ourselves. its so easy to be and look like everyone else, especially when everyone wants be recognized or famous of some sort but we quite literally were created unlike others. fashion isn’t a popularity contest, so i will always admire people who do it for them and its visibly shown. and that’s really the highest compliment i think i can give someone who has style.
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