Today I felt a shift in the air that spoke to my “#OOTD.” Coming from a background in theatre and costuming, I pull into my everyday taking bits and pieces from different places and times to create one specific image from a collage of clothing. Somedays I’ll feel like an all-black ensemble with skinnies and sunglasses, others as pastel as it comes; it’s about what speaks to me and how I want that to speak to others.
With my theatre background and an advertising major at CCS, I constantly think of communication and how things translate from mind to visual and back, constantly aware of the different forms of languages we as humans use to speak to one another. And fashion is most definitely a language in itself with constant cues to be picked up on. After all, it takes six short seconds to form an opinion.
Coco Chanel was quoted to say “Fashion is always of the time in which you live.” Though, yes, fashion reflects the world and views of the times it was worn, it borrows and takes from times before.
Lately (and by lately I mean this whole calendar year) I’ve noticed a distinct turn towards the 1970s. Partially in retaliation of 2014’s extreme NormCore minimalist, but also, and perhaps more potently, a nod towards the culture of the 1970s––sudden surge of public interest towards natural living, crystals, a new wave of feminism (see: rompers, menswear for women) and a general culture shift and way of looking at the world. The off-the-shoulder dresses, ruffles, wide-brimmed hats, belled sleeves and bell-bottom pants, are communicating a culture, not just a trend––and the look is everywhere from Saint Laurent and Alberta Ferretti to Urban Outfitters.
For me, my ensemble is communicating all this. Though buyable in stores, for me, the pieces in this outfit have been in my wardrobe. I’m communicating with the graphic on my shirt, the added height of my shoes and even with my vintage velveteen bell-bottoms (courtesy of costuming). Call it a retaliation to the world of fast fashion, but I believe in “reduce, reuse and recycle” in applying to my wardrobe, and regret none of it.
Speaking of come-backs, living in the Metro-Detroit area for the majority of my life, the conglomeration of old and new there has and continues to inspire my sartorial choices. A little known secret––living around here lends to an abundance of high-quality thrifting.
Though fashion is reflector of its time, history always repeats itself. And the times, they are a changin’.
Or maybe that’s just the autumn breeze I feel in the air.
