Thursday, February 20, 2014

Lovely Second Skins

Hello Hello lovelies. What better thing there is to do than curl in an oversized tee shirt up with Queen music playing and the comforting glow of a laptop on your face and blog? That's right. Nothing. Except the same thing with pizza. Or doughnuts. Ugh food. 

Anyways. Tonight I will be writing about clothes. Yep, the seemingly arbitrary pieces of cloth we cover our naked selves with. I have only recently come into my style (which we'll get into), but I know some girls know theirs from a young age. I was never exactly the fashion guru... and I wore clothes I would never wear now up until pretty much 7th grade. I was never big on dresses or skirts, perhaps because I didn't think they flattered my body. I had, and still do, lean towards a less feminine style of dress. But let's take a step back before we look at my style of dress. 
I have expressed that I feel that now, in highschool,is a vital time for us young whippersnappers to find ourselves, and yes, clothes are a pert of that. Adults make fun of teens for going through "Phases" where we wear dark eye makeup, or flowers in our hair, or band tee shirts or whatev. But how else are we supposed to find what clicks if we don't try out everything? Mmhm. Exactly. So yes, we might do a bit of
But finding what feel most comfortable and natural for us is super cool. Not all teenagers just dress to fit in. Though fitting in inevitably a big part of clothing styling and decision-making, i find that in the end you always settle with what is truly you. God, this sounds sooo cliche. I'm trying not to, I swear. 

But now let's talk about my path through the wonderful process of finding my style. I didn't really pay much attention to the clothes I wore throughout early elementary. Does anyone, really? But when I reached 5th or 6th grade, all the girls around me began talking about "fashion" and "trends" and I was still wearing the same, unisex clothes that didn't really have anything special about them and certainly weren't "Fashionable". What I am thankful for though, is that at the school I was at my lack of fashion sense didn't loose me any friends, nor did it make people dislike me. But I remember my first attempt to buy clothes to fit in very, very clearly. The biggest thing at that time was skinny jeans. Oh how all the girls loved skinny jeans. I remember I had these awful boot cut jeans that just weren't doing it for me so I asked my dad to take me out to buy skinny jeans. We went to a department store and I picked out two to try on. It was a revolutionary moment, and I'll share something embarrassing with you because hey, it's in the past. When I was in the dressing room in the skinny jeans, I was so excited that I posed in the mirror for like 15 minutes straight. And that's not even the worst part. There was this girl who went to my school at that time who was maybe a year or two older. I won't name her, but she was "cool" to me. She wore makeup and talked about her ex boyfriends and wore skinny jeans. And she was popular and kinda the bad girl type because she knew bad words and didn't care about school and painted her nails black and all those stereotypical signs or rebellion. So when I was trying on those jeans, I felt like her. I imagined myself as her, and I was so happy that I was finally going to be as cool as she was. Long story short, getting the skinny jeans didn't really change my life in the drastic ways I expected. But, it was what spurred me to discover my own style and try new clothing. So it's a good example of trying new styles for the purposes of fitting in and in the process finding things out about your own personal style. Also, an example of how girls sometimes feel the need to be someone else to be happy. I'm happy I'm not her now though. Life lessons, kids.
From then on my style improved, and when I discovered Chuck Taylors that really helped too. In middle school I wore button down shirts or tee shirts and looked very tomboy. And in 8th grade I really improved and was wearing overall clothes that I would say fit my style. But currently I think I am the happiest I've ever been in regards to clothing. I still wear, and love, my skinny jeans and converse. And now I've added the wonders of American Apparel to my closet and my absolute favorite- tie dye. I love tie dye way too much. It's an unhealthy addiction. I will literally tie dye any article of clothing and wear it. That's another thing I think is awesome. Homemade style choices. Go to a goodwill or thrift shop and find unique things that you can make your own. And making clothes is so satisfying because it is the best possible way to express yourself. Maybe I'll post about my homemade tie dye collection. We'll see.
So the point of this all is that style is a journey. 
So take inspiration from celebrities, movie characters, book characters, singers, writers, fashion bloggers, Youtubers, Tavi Gevinson, Beyonce, your mom, yourself.
 Take your time, try things, love it, hate it, throw it out, sew it, tie dye it, crop it, cut it, whatever. And if you think that clothing isn't a way you express yourself, then this whole post was a waste of your time. Sorry for not being sorry <3. But yeah. Don't be afraid to express yourself. [INSERT MORE SUPER LAME CLICHES HERE]
Anyways. YAY FOR TIE DYE
Goodbye for now
Say no to Patriarchy
express yourself
Ummm...
Kisses and many feminist vibes,
-Panteha



1 comment: