Why Individual Chic?

I suppose a whole blog (not to mention the other thousands out there) dedicated to just style and fashion seems rather trivial; after all, there is global warming out there people! However, to me, it’s not about pretty people wearing pretty clothes; it’s about who I am.

Someone* writing for The Age (www.theage.com.au) newspaper on 3 March 2007 expresses how I feel perfectly. They say:

“The [National Gallery of Victoria's] acting curator of Australian fashion and textiles, Danielle Whitfield, says there is no mystery; "We use fashion either to align ourselves with a particular idea or group, or to do the opposite - to stand away, as an individual." More often than not we do both … Learning how to achieve that perfect, subtle balance between similarity and difference is the first fork into fashion's limitless network of complex meanings … Once this equilibrium is achieved, says Whitfield; "It's an art form in the same way a photograph, or painting is art. And, it's open to the same rules of interpretation and analysis.""

This subtle (and not so subtle ^_^) mixing of cues is what I am trying to achieve. I take a standard pencil skirt, and sew a Chinese silk border on it; I look for black jackets with an unusual texture, shape, detail; I wear my grandmother’s jewellery with Doc Martens and jeans. I express who I am through my clothes, through the way I wear them and the way I put them together as an outfit. When I sew a new dress, or modify a suit, for me it is my creative outlet. It is the way I express myself and I how I present myself to the world. Other people do this in other ways, they paint, they draw, they write, they play an instrument; for me I sew.

I’ve always been an individual, and I choose to dress like one too.

* Author’s name not given in the article, but probably Janice Breen Burns.

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