I've been thinking about how i want to develop my style
I want my clothes to have a sort of deep, earthy feeling
casual and comfortable, colorful
strange
happy
warm
full of character
there are people who can dress in a certain way
that evokes a wave of emotions and memories and images all at once
this feeling, this quality surrounds them in a very natural way
as though the clothes they wear are simply an extension of who they are
nothing more, nothing less
a while ago i saw this boy
i couldn't identify a single label he was wearing
instead i saw and felt a collection of things
like
the wind, old curtains, sand, pearls, kaleidoscopes,
sailboats, treasure chests.....
it was very special
very inspiring
i appreciate people bringing something beautiful to the streets
my wardrobe right now is too coherent
too based on labels
lame
i want to collect different, more anonymous clothes
maybe i need to start going vintage shopping again
i want to dress like a scrapbook
- Yui, a slowboat to mediocrity
isn't the name of her blog entirely delightful in itself? a slow boat is exactly the anodyne i'm on these days..
i was just conversing with an acquaintance from five years ago. and he reminded me of how lurid i used to dress in those dark days.. a flimsy lilac scarf, clearly intended for nothing else but embellishment (like a magpie) one of those vests/waist coats that gay men like to layer over tight tees when they feel the need to be "dressy", spiky hair with side-swept bangs a la chinese boybanders..
i went through a scarf phase around then, when i was seventeen. every day it was skinny jeans and another scarf.. regular as clockwork.
then came the "drapey drapey" phase as Denver likes to call it, as i moved on towards art school.. black on black, twist and turn, clothes were worn upside down, in and out, layer upon layer upon layer, belts worn twisted around the arm, the throat, like i was Xena the warrior princess, shirts as pants, squeezing my calves into sleeves meant for arms, skirts as billowing capes.. that was certainly the most experimental and "trying" of my style evolution. it was the crest.. and i prided myself then, on inventing what i thought were new ways to wear old clothes. i argued for new silhouettes, new shapes, new proportions, transgressing the boundaries of the normal.
i had a lot of fun out of what was actually an extremely limited wardrobe. and a lot of nights spent devising outfits. and i'd still end up late to work/school the next morning. (i haven't broke that last habbit though, unfortunately.)
come to think of it, my wardrobe remains rather skimpy. in all honesty, i only have five pairs of shoes that i am willing to wear. and out of those five, four gets regular usage. pants, perhaps a dozen usable ones, but only half of that precious dozen makes it out onto the streets on a regular day.
a grand total of three belts, two of which are black so that rules them out automatically and the last one was purloined from my mother's closet. it is really the only one that i require though. dark brown leather, of a decently slim width and the of course, the all-important buckle, which is something that makes or breaks an item of apparel for me (usually) - a softly lambent brass buckle which feels very solid in my hands. i detest buckles which are overtly shiny and of insignificant weight. it immediately casts a cheap pallour over the entire item. the buckle of my mother's belt is of an aged gold; perhaps it was shiny once, but the decades have erased that bane and a subtler hue has glided into its place...
i add to my wardrobe on such a slow basis, it is akin to watching a building go up. i'm not exaggerating here. the rate is that slow.
some clothing categories receive new items in their ranks more regularly than others of course - sweaters, shirts and strangely enough for a country like Singapore, hats. pants are hard, shoes almost impossible, bags i don't feel the need because i'm largely satisfied with the two bag packs i have, along with a handful of totes but that's about it.
i have often wondered what it would be like to be in possession of a wardrobe that can easily be bought. a wardrobe that is renewed, restaffed constantly, needlessly, on a whim.
i think i would be overwhelmed. how could i possibly have a favourite shoe when there would be say, forty seven other favourites? i would feel crowded.
part of what works for me is the intimate knowledge i have of my possessions. i particularly like to wear items that have been gifted to me. it tells me that the gifter knows me well enough, that i occupy a certain place on their list of priorities, that they love me enough to think of me when they chance upon something that might not have been in my path but through them, the item now resides with me.
"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
oh little prince, it is as if i'm encased in a bubble of secrets known only to myself and the gifter unless i choose to share it with someone.
thrifting at second hand shops and gifts allow me to indulge in that bubble, because they have a story attached to them. as much as i love Muji, what could a random shirt tell me about it? yes it is a nice shirt, nice fabric, nice colour, whatever. but it doesn't have a story. i was browsing, i found something i liked, and surprisingly, i had enough money to buy it. that's all there is to it.
of course, it gets stale. on more mornings that i can remember, i have slide open the wardrobe door only to be confronted with the same options over and over. most of the time, i make decisions based on what has NOT be worn too recently and who i'm meeting during the day. has that person/group seen me in those pants i wore like, two days ago? no? good that means i can wear that pair of pants. yet again.
sometimes i love an outfit so much i wish to wear it in the exact same combination. possibly in the same week. but maybe with a different pair of socks (that's the most prosperous department of my wardrobe i suppose, even outstripping the hats. when you're feeling blue and broke, a purchase as tiny as a new pair of socks cheers me up immensely. they're relatively inexpensive, they can't be sourced from second hand shops/flea markets and they're SOCKS. i wish more people would gift me with brilliant socks!)
i always think that its far more skillful to wear the same item repeatedly (and i do mean repeatedly) but styled such that it goes with previously unthinkable combinations, rather than to simply have so many options you could appear in an entirely different look every day. to tease the mileage to its maximum. and if you think hard enough, that's never really a maximum to an item's mileage. unless, like me, you wear a shoe with such frequency till the sole erodes and drops off. until then, one can do nothing but bid adieu to what was a much-loved possession.
now that i'm in my early twenties, black simply holds no sway over me anymore. the last time i voluntarily wore black, it was for a wedding. perhaps it is with the liberation of the mind that one feels the richness and vivacity of colour. colour is inherently enmeshed with life, i think. there is infinite potential to be explored with colour, which generally mirrors my attitude towards life. i would like to think that i am, on the whole, an optimistic person. though should a stranger chance upon my blog, they'd never know it. they'd think i bath in melancholy daily. it IS a particularly melancholic period in my life, stretching over three years now, but i know, somehow, that it will pass in time.
i've been planning to write more about dressing and the person.. and this is a start i suppose. a bit narcissistic to be writing about my personal mantras and rules but i've never gave form to them before. its all in the head when one dresses... but i want to start to document it.
anyway, i keep coming back to these two ladies captured by Hanneli these days:
each so perfect... the first girl with her ethereal locks, the faded flowers, her expression; conjures images of a romantic sprite dancing through fields of flowers, she would love Monet, she would belong in a Monet. and the second girl, i am impossibly envious of the colours she's put together. the perfect dusty rose, is it not? i am but completely enthralled. i want to wear them and luxuriate in what must surely be so comfortable.
No comments:
Post a Comment