I really love fashion. Not in a I-love-looking-pretty-all-the-time kind of way. It’s a I-will-review-fashion-week-shows-and-run-commentary-on-new-collections-to-anyone-who-will-listen-to-me kind of way. I view fashion as an art form as much as a commercial endeavor, and I’ve never made a secret of it.
Anyone who follows me on Instagram knows I’m a fiend for weird clothes and wildly impractical shoes. (The only thing stopping me right now is my own budgetary constraints. That’s probably for the best.)
I love sparkles, glitter, glitz, all the over-the-top glamour that fashion can provide. My friends have joked that if someone wanted to kidnap me, all they would need to do is put something sparkly inside an obvious trap, and I’d walk in with no hesitation. (It’s funny precisely because it’s true.)
Fashion is, without a doubt, an extension of oneself — one’s likes, dislikes, preferences, and fantasies. And yet, it also covers another aspect, one far less frequently talked about — our fears. What we fear dictates our fashion to a truly ridiculous extent.
For all my love of weird clothes and shoes, there are some things that I simply won’t wear. Odd little quirks that I can’t really explain for any reason, and a few that I can, but don’t always want to.
For example, I had a friend tell me that a mutual connection of ours was curious as why I pretty much always wear tights with skirts. It was a perfectly innocent question, but the answer was a little complicated. How would I say that I grew up in a household where I pretty much wasn’t allowed to wear shorts or skirts until high school? (And I got major stink eye once I did.) How, because of a deep-rooted cultural aversion to bare legs and revealing clothing in general, I’ve made fashion choices that influence me to this day? Not exactly small talk.
Cultural influences are one thing, but it goes beyond that. Fears also dictate how we’re scared of being perceived. Does that influence one’s fashion choices? 100%. I have backed away from wearing certain things because I was afraid of how I’d be perceived, and I know countless friends who’ve done the same. We all want to be taken seriously — strong, independent, career-driven, what-have-you. What one wears can, unfortunately, add to or detract from that.
Yet, as I’ve gotten older, I think I’ve come to realize that fashion is not fully deserving of the frivolous title it gets, and fear shouldn’t be the operating characteristic at all. Obviously, context needs to be taken into account, but for the most part, one’s fears are usually unwarranted. Fashion should be fun, and an interest in it never minimizes one’s intellect.
More importantly — if recognizing ourselves in fashion is vital, and navigating our fears is also a must, shouldn’t recognizing and indulging in our fantasies be equally important?
If fashion is an extension of oneself — it should be an extension of all of oneself. Everything you’ve always wanted to wear, and even a few things you’d never thought you’d be allowed to try, but want to wear anyway.
So I’d challenge any of my more fashion-conscious readers: wear something wildly, wholly impractical this week. Challenge yourself to move away from what you fear and into something you think is worth trying. Or don’t. But have fun with it, no matter what. Life’s too short to think otherwise.
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