Is Changing Your Style is More of a Slow Evolution or a Mad Dash?
We change our clothes a lot. Change for the season, change for a reason, or overhaul the whole ding dong thing. Life happens. Or at the very least, laundry happens. Personal hygiene aside, I got to thinking, are we changing for change sake or are we more deliberate with our changes than it seems from the outside looking in?
I pride myself on knowing what I like and what I don’t. Leggings? No physical activity, no thanks. Shorts, I’ll pass on those too. Hair scrunchies outside of the home? Hey you got me there but it was just once. Nope, it was twice but I’ll try not to let it happen again.
Hard passes aside, over the past decade or so, I can more clearly articulate not only what I don’t like something – too casual, not my jam, or I was around for the first scrunchie showing decades ago and it makes me feel silly - why that is. No matter my taste, one thing is staying constant: it’s changing.
As a former young person, I got used to hearing I-told-you-so proclamations like, your teens are a mess – just try and get through it; your twenties are to make a bunch of mistakes to find out who you are; and your thirties you will gain more confidence; and then the forties most of your useless fucks are lost, you focus more on what matters, and many blow up their miserable life to get back to whatever they feel they’ve lost of themselves. Beyond forty? Well I hope it’s better than Hollywood’s current hiring practices. I should be a Hallmark greeting card writer, no?
So far the proclamations have all come true. I haven’t got to my fabulous forties and beyond just yet, but I’m ready to clean out my darkest corners of my closet and make room for me to crawl inside as a standard precaution.
Personal apocalypse notions aside, I have noticed that there are people a few types of people out there: those who cling to a style they romanticise; others who are quick to change; those who couldn’t care less; and then the slow burners who are evolving at their own pace and going their own way. Let’s break this down.
Style Romantics
We all know this person. She/ he/ they are wearing clothes that they’ve had for years that are no longer, shall we say, working. My grade six teacher is this person. Same colour blocked power suits of the early 80s worn well into the late 90s and bravely towards her retirement. Need more clues? Perhaps they are wearing clothes that are too loose, too tight, too ten years ago, or back of the closet finds that aren’t worth celebrating their revival. It’s a bit like, “Yes Jeremy, you did play for such and such team twelve years ago and yes you went to provincials and won the B side, but maybe the holy bunny hug that notes all of this has served its purpose? Could we put him away now?”
Trend Quickies
You know this person too. Always chasing the trends and never taking a minute to decide if they actually like it. They can be often found last minute or impulse shopping - “I need a dress for this party at Jeremy’s” - but rarely making long term purchases. You can usually tell this person by photos from five, ten, fifteen years ago. If you can pin point the year based on the silhouettes of clothing, hair style, and makeup for each of these five year jumps, hello Trend Quickie. I’m talking Ugg boots, shoulder cut outs, boot cut jeans, and probably the clunky sneaker that’s making its current, slow death.
Don’t Care
No explanation needed, yes?
Slow Evolutionists
These are the fashion folks who dance to the beat to their own drum, beautifully. They care – of course they do – but they don’t fall for everything that’s thrown at them. Instead, they create and carve their own style space. Making their own way through all the options. Likely as time rolls on, their style gets better and better. More “them” somehow. They are the unicorn in the style world.
How does one be more of a style evolutionist than a trend chaseing quickie (because we’re clear that no one wants to be left decades behind nor you can’t make someone care about clothes out of thin air)? Easiest route, hire someone who will guide you through it. More challenging route is making sure everything you have or obtain in the future does three things:
1. Fits you – size, life stage, budget, and how you spend your time.
2. Flatters you – shape, colour, reflects your personality and personal values.
3. Makes you feel good – this is the wiggle in your walk, the sparkle in your eye, or more simply put, you don’t want to take the thing off.
Dead wrong? Too honest? Tell me
