Head in the Clouds...
“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” Coco Chanel
I’m not sure when I stumbled upon this fashion lark, but I’m beginning to enjoy it, a lot. Now I don’t mean that I’ve not been aware of fashion, of course I have, but I’ve always felt like an unwelcome stranger looking in at an exclusive crowd; far cooler, much more glamorous and loads more confident than I. That is until I realised that fashion isn’t just about the type or brands of clothes you wear, but that it is an amalgamation of so many things. Your experiences, your taste in music, your culture and beliefs; they all shape fashion. Fashion is a guide to those around us to easily understand a little of whom we are and where our destination is (and these change throughout our lives). Fashion is a platform for creativity and discourse.
“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”
Coco Chanel
Of course there are negative effects of fashion, as there are with many things. Those who hold the reigns to popular fashion tend to literally shape the fashionable body and this is where fashion becomes a problem. If it’s constantly drummed into you, via television, fashion and lifestyle magazines and cultural ideals that a certain shape is beautiful and fashionable, you may believe that that is what you should strive for and if somehow you struggle to adhere to that ideal, the consequences can be fatal.
But what I’ve discovered only in the past year (possibly less) is that fashion does not have to be a device that controls you and moulds you into what society deems beautiful, but you and you and you and I have the power to be what shapes fashion, by not being afraid of it and knowing that you are fashionable too.
“Fashion is born by small facts, trends, or even politics, never by trying to make little pleats and furbelows, by trinkets, by clothes easy to copy, or by the shortening or lengthening of a skirt.” Elsa Schiaparelli
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