One of the blogs I follow is called Advanced Style. Ari Seth Cohen photographs and writes about stylish older men and women and he discusses Style broadly - it's not just what you wear, but how you live and how you think. There are tons of interesting interviews that you can watch on his blog, and he has a book coming out soon. One of my favorite comments is from Lynn Dell, a 78-year-old boutique owner in New York:
[Photos Ari Seth Cohen/Text Maayan Zilberman]
If you have 3 extra minutes today, watch the video of Lynn in this post.
I've been thinking about style the past couple days because a good friend pointed out that she's gotten a better sense of my aesthetic from reading my blog, and that it's different than what she expected. She summed it up this way: "It's edgier than I thought it was (your aesthetic) ... you like flowers but they're made of metal and coordinate well with tattoos." And it was helpful to hear her say it, because while I've gotten better instinctively at recognizing what I like, I didn't have a definition for it.
The the edgy/sweet, sugar/salt combination is what I like for myself, what I feel most happy in, what makes me feel me when I'm wearing it. Does it matter? I used to think it didn't - that it was frivolous or shallow to try to dress well, to think about style. But sometime in the last decade I changed my mind. I think that bringing creative elements to each day matters. I think that what we wear affects how we feel, how we carry ourselves, how people see us. I think it is one of the ways that you live more fully, because it fills out who you are. And I know I'm less likely to think about what I'm wearing and worry about what people think of me if I'm wearing something I love.
So here are some things that I love. If I'm wearing one of these pairs of shoes, I feel great almost no matter what else I have on. Why? Because these shoes are me:
And I want to do this in my sewing/consulting work - help people create something that they love because it is uniquely personal. And what an adventure to try to figure this out!
Fashion says, "Me, too," and Style says, "Only me."
And Lynn has plenty of Style:
[Photos Ari Seth Cohen/Text Maayan Zilberman]If you have 3 extra minutes today, watch the video of Lynn in this post.
I've been thinking about style the past couple days because a good friend pointed out that she's gotten a better sense of my aesthetic from reading my blog, and that it's different than what she expected. She summed it up this way: "It's edgier than I thought it was (your aesthetic) ... you like flowers but they're made of metal and coordinate well with tattoos." And it was helpful to hear her say it, because while I've gotten better instinctively at recognizing what I like, I didn't have a definition for it.
The the edgy/sweet, sugar/salt combination is what I like for myself, what I feel most happy in, what makes me feel me when I'm wearing it. Does it matter? I used to think it didn't - that it was frivolous or shallow to try to dress well, to think about style. But sometime in the last decade I changed my mind. I think that bringing creative elements to each day matters. I think that what we wear affects how we feel, how we carry ourselves, how people see us. I think it is one of the ways that you live more fully, because it fills out who you are. And I know I'm less likely to think about what I'm wearing and worry about what people think of me if I'm wearing something I love.
So here are some things that I love. If I'm wearing one of these pairs of shoes, I feel great almost no matter what else I have on. Why? Because these shoes are me:
 |
| My husband gave me the pink/brown cowboy boot, I wore the red Fluevog heels to my wedding, and I found the furry kitten heels in a Boden sale. |
And I want to do this in my sewing/consulting work - help people create something that they love because it is uniquely personal. And what an adventure to try to figure this out!
Hola. I totally get what you mean when you say you feel "you" in those shoes. As I've gotten older, I feel like I look more like "me". Maybe I've figured out what I feel comfortable/look good in. Like the blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Germania!
ReplyDeleteI read an essay about Jane Austen while I was in college that said her characters didn't so much change as become more themselves - a kind of whittling down to their essence. I like this idea.