Friday, May 4, 2012

Viva La Mode Personelle


It's time. I'm gonna post right now, mostly because it's about 11:30 PM on a thursday night and it's the first day of summer for little old me. Yeah, that's right, I finished all my exams! BORN FREE, AS FREE AS THE WIND BLOWS...

Anyways, I've been thinking a lot about personal style, and as I was wondering how to get out these thoughts that my friends are so sick of me blabbering about, I slapped my palm to my forehead. I have a blog. ABOUT PERSONAL STYLE. Duh, Sarah, duh!

So! My thoughts about personal style, and then a little moodboard-type-deal, even though I don't typically do those (truth be told, I felt bad for not posting an outfit... but I couldn't be bothered to set up a tripod).

First off: the ALMIGHTY PERSONAL STYLE. Gee, I love America. Well... America and any other country that lets you wear whatever you darn well please whenever you want to wear it. People are only really kept in by social boundaries when it comes to dressing, if you think about it. I mean, obviously you HAVE to be dressed in public, but that's the only way the man can keep us down! WEAR CLOTHES OR ELSE!

So if we have to wear these clothes, why don't we make them say something about ourselves? I have only recently (within the last year or so) really, really gotten into personal style. Before this, I went through various phases...

Elementary school me: 
-Cloth shorts (think Soffes)
-T-shirts with monkeys on them
-Light-up sneakers
-That is all.

Middle school me:
-Uniforms during weekdays (wish I would have kept those skirts!!!)
-Oversized band T-shirts
-Skinny jeans (I remember, my first pair of skinny jeans was like my firstborn child)
-Vans slip-ons/ Converse low-tops

High school (9th-11th grade):
-9th grade: A more streamlined version of middle school ^^^
-10th grade: ANYTHING TO ACCENTUATE THE BOOBS
-11th grade: Floral/indie grunge

This year (12th grade):
-WHATEVER I DARN WELL PLEASE!

Do you see the change here?
I do, and I wish it had come sooner.


After being in the bloggin' world for a little while now, and observing these young and sprightly fashionable youngsters, it makes me kind of wistful for the past. I wish my parents would have given me the freedom of choosing exactly what I wanted to wear when I was really young.

I think it really makes a difference to let a kid figure out the consequences of wearing certain things and being able to choose for themselves in a relatively harmless way. If your eight-year-old wants to wear his pajamas to school... let him. Maybe that's a way of parenting that's considered "extremely liberal" but I think the power of free expression through clothing is SO much more valuable than a lot of people realize.

That's why I'm against uniforms. Perhaps, I pensively think to myself, perhaps I would have developed my own sense of myself far earlier if I didn't have 3 years of uniforms holding me down. I can't make that judgement for everyone who has ever attended private school, but in my opinion, uniforms made me lazy about dressing otherwise (I had about four "weekend outfits").

I believe that every person, even though they may not have enough money or time or what-have you... every person can develop a personal style and flair to whatever they're wearing, be it a prom dress or a pair of sweats. That's the beauty of it, you know? Wearing sweats isn't a fashion sin. It's a choice people make to wear those things, and they CHOOSE to not dress up. It's surprising to me that ripped shorts and sweaters and dirty boots are fashionable yet comfortable fleece pants are not. 

On that note, I am beginning to hate fashion magazines.

There.

I've said it.

I have been reading a few lately, what with my newfound free time, and I really dislike how they all seem to give "fashion rules" or "fashion do's and don'ts". Nothing boils my blood quicker than a snotty fashion editor trying to tell people they're dressing incorrectly.

If you don't get my point by now, just pay a visit to Hel-Looks.com. You'll see what I mean. Street-style websites like those make me love clothes and understand that it doesn't have to be an upturned nose, a high-school hierarchy. Clothing is a simple, necessary, and continuous form of art.

(By the way, if you want to read a good article on this very idea, written by a contributor of Vogue, click here)

So now that some of the ideas that have been festering in my brain have now been aired out... a moodboard!













(by the way, all of these pictures were saved in a folder on my desktop, regrettably without sources. If they're your pictures I'll be happy to cite 'em or remove 'em.)

So there's my weird and scattered P.O.V.






18 comments:

  1. "I think the power of free expression through clothing is SO much more valuable than a lot of people realize"...I couldn't have said it better my dear ! But sometimes it's very hard to develop a personal style, because of the huge amounts of shops that are shaped to be suited for exactly one kind of clothing line. Like cropped tops- the ones that are shorter from the front, they are everywhere! And everybody are wearing them...so in a way it's not a personal style, it's just style.. :D That's why I love second hand shops, cause of the cheap ass clothes that have been thrown away, since 1990, but are so damn gorgeous and personal:D About fashion magazines, I hate them since I can remember :D In my country fashion magazines come down to boring articles about skin care and fuckton of clothes that are too expensive to be even looked at :D Damn, that's a long post, sorry about that, but I really enjoyed yours :)

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  2. This is a Random comment but little kid in leopard coat is soooo adorable!!

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    1. It's Courtney Love's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain when she was little! In my opinion, it makes the picture about 242245632x more adorable.

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  3. nice blog :P Maybe we can follow eatch other? :D if you can

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  4. I heart your blog so much. Probably my favorite blog, because not only is your style great, everything you write is funny and smart and cool. Like literally, I was just thinking about this today when I got shut down about my shorts by a secretary.
    And I totally know what you mean about being all wistful. I mean, my little sister, who just turned fourteen, wears the coolest stuff! And when I was her age, I was still just shrugging out of my aeropostale phase (also treasuring my first life-changing skinny jeans, like you). But I guess she is the way she is because she has me to look at as an example that one can indeed where whatever the hell one wants.
    Great post, great post.

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    1. Ahhh the old aeropostale phase. I most definitely had one of those, probably due to the fact that their mascot was a cartoon monkey. I made a bet with a boy in fourth grade that I would only wear shirts with monkeys on them every day of the fifth grade. Guess who won? Yeah. It was me.

      (Also you're just too sweet!)

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  5. Awesome post :) I definitely agree about uniform holding people back btw. In Australia every single school has uniform, public or private. Only a few DON'T have uniform, schools without uniform are very very rare here. I always wondered why sooo many american bloggers seemed to have decent/amazing style by the time they're 14 - 15. I only started discovering style at about 15 and it didn't really become refined until I was 17 - 18. I think it's because I wore my uniform every single day, I was kind of a loser, so I basically stayed at home on the weekends. I had absolutely no reason to dress myself. I remember when I was 16, I only had two skirts, three dresses, a few tops and two jackets. At the same time, I'm actually kind of glad I had a uniform. It made my life in school a lot easier, not having to worry about what to wear every single day.

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  6. Thoughtfull post... but I personally disagree with you on the school uniform front, I've worn a school uniform every school day since I was 4 and I don't think they REALLY inhibit you that much. I mean,sometimes its just easier to wake up in the morning and not have to think about waht you're going to wear. I guessit makes it less like a chore to put outfits together whens its exclusively a WEEKEND thing.Also i think it makes you more inventive and resourcefull trying to find a way to express you're individuallity even though there's a strict dress code...just my opinion :)
    Though i did'nt think this at the time,but I'm pretty lucky that my parents never told me what to wear and taught me not to let other people make me feel awkward about what I chose to wear, they also let me go through a couple "phases" of preeeetty dodgy outfit choices...But it was all a learning experience which im thankfull for today!
    On fashion magazines: which ones are you reading? i feeel the exact same way as you about the fashion "lifestyle" type mags(vogue, grazia, cosmo etc), maybe you should give the more "artsy" (wonderland, an0ther, dazed and confused etc) ones a go, they might give you a different perspective!

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    1. Yeah I feel ya, and obviously I can't make a generalization about everyone's experience, but I don't think uniforms ever worked for me. It made dressing boring, kinda like brushing my teeth. I also have this weird rebellious complex, I really hate when people try to limit how I can express myself. So I get all angsty and irritated when someone tells me to tuck in my shirt or to wear different socks. Really good points though! :)

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    2. mmmm...I totally get you on the tucking in your shirt/stupid sock restrictions there's a rule at my current school that you're not allowed to have less than 5 stripes on your tie otherwise its too short! RIDICULOUS!!But I guess I've never been to a school without uniform so I cant really make the comparison! If I could dress like you for school I totally would though, your outfit posts are like, THE BEST. :)

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  7. I agree with loads of this. I will come back and read it when I feel more coherent, because, yes, this.

    Also congrats on finishing finals. I finish so soon (hence incoherence) but not soon enough. ^^

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  8. i completely agree with all of this. my style has mainly developed from years of experimentation and wearing granny dresses and tiaras- which is now cool, but it wasnt in 2004. and your mood board is perfect.

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  9. I wore a uniform all throughout high school and I liked it. I think it evened things out, and I'm way better off for that. But outside of school it also took me till grade 12 to really embrace my own style and just wear w/e I want. In university I wear w/e I want and I could care less what other's think.

    Anyways, congrats on being done high school!

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  10. Wicked cool blog. Check mine out. I'd love it if you would follow me :)

    xx gabi

    Sequinsandspikes.blogspot.com

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  11. is that frances bean? cute. xx

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  12. Hey! Just wanted to say that I love your blog and pretty much everything that you post, but I'm such a lazy person that I'm only commenting right now :P

    Also I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one obsessed with childhood cats!

    xxxx

    Nina Charlie

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  13. Ah I just cannot explain to you how much I adore each and every one of your posts. Don't always comment because I'm usually busy, but seriously you're fabulous. Would you mind me putting you on my blogroll? x


    http://shelovesmixtapes.blogspot.com

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