2011 in clothes pt. 1

I've been writing giant, unwieldy tracts of text in the drafts section of Blogger this week, mostly about what changed this year for me and clothes and all that. It's far too much to edit and blog in one go, so over the next week or so I'm going to try and put out little extracts one at a time. This is really, really self-indulgent of me, I know, sorry, not sorry, et cetera. This blog has and always will be more of a diary than a portfolio of my written work, so yeah, bear that in mind if you are going to read this.

maison martin margiela s/s 00

A lot can change in twelve months. It's easy to think of yourself and your attitudes and your disposition as relatively fixed by the time you get to 21, but sometimes, without even trying, it changes entirely. My ideas of what I liked to wear and all that were pretty concrete and defined at the start of this year - I liked high-waisted stuff, florals, little dresses, cardigans, heart-print motifs, bows in my hair, shoe-boots and showing off my pins. It's fun having a 'personal style.' It helps you develop a sense of who you are, your physical identity, especially now when we do so much to define who we are on internet 'profiles' and in making ourselves into a story on Twitter and whatnot. Knowing what you like means you know what you are, too.

balenciaga f/w 98/99

What I like seems to have changed this year, though. This isn't surprising - I've lived in three cities this year, read more magazines and blogs than ever, met new people, gone to different shops, learned more about the history of fashion and style, had a bunch of different jobs and experienced big life changes like graduating college and living with a significant other and all that stuff. A lot happened this year, and not all of it is directly relatable to what I wear. But it all counts, because it's all had an impact on me. 'What I am' must not be the same now as 'what I was' 12 months ago.

I've begun to understand minimalism and wabi-sabi and that this year for the first time. I can appreciate Philo's stuff at Céline so, so much more than 18 months ago. It's a personal understanding, now, I think. I know now why women want simple, unfussy leather goods. This is huge. This is like a rite of passage that I think many people have to go on at some point. The realisation that less is more, that you don't have to dress like a cartoon character just because you're under 30, that maybe twee has an upper age limit, that young women can wear camel coats too. I am still and hopefully will always consider myself an adult girl more than a young lady or whatever. I'm not disowning the heart-print motif or the oversized hair bow, but they're fitting differently into my whole aesthetic now.

What's going to change over the next twelve months, I wonder? You can't predict it. It's too personal, too bound up with what you do and where you go, the choices you make and the things you wind up doing. And the people you meet, quite importantly. Your style doesn't exist in a vacuum, like singularly changeable outfits for paper dolls. Think of it instead as a conversation, an interaction, a sequence in flux. And don't try to pin it down.

images via tumblr