Where as a year ago, two years ago, four years ago, I had a vague notion of what my style was, and was able to dress in a way that communicated it maybe one or two days a week (without wearing any particular garment more than maybe twice in a week), I now feel like nearly every day of the week, I'm firing on all cylinders and am happy with my choice of jackets, shirt, trousers, colors, textures, shoes, etc.
SF is famous for causing new members to come along, get extremely excited about their newfound knowledge of quality, fit and brands, then blow a bunch of money on successive purchases via B&S or eBay. Often, those purchases are high quality, but they ultimately become neglected in their closet (because nothing else they own goes with it) or they attempt to wear it with completely incoherent other pieces (the concept explained by Vox in an attempt to educate so many of such forum "n00bs").
In contrast with that experience, my experience has been one of necessarily slow wardrobe expansion. I found styleforum while in college, and was married about a year later. We've been poor most of our marriage (relatively speaking), making the acquisition of exciting new pieces of clothing difficult.
This used to frustrate me. Sometimes I even think to myself, "if I were single, I'd have one helluva wardrobe!"
But within the past few months, as my wardrobe has begun to expand ever so slowly with carefully considered additions one at a time, I've begun to feel like I've finally been able to dress every day in a way that reflects my style—that deep, inwardmost aspect of who we are that we can either effectively or ineffectively communicate via our dress. Further, I feel like by being forced to carefully decide each piece at a time, the way I dress, act, style my hair, etc. have all in effect distilled my style down to an ever more concentrated form. A negative way of looking at this might be to look at me now and say I've become a caricature of myself. My glasses are even more a style statement than the ones I wore a year ago; my choice of color coordination even more a representation of what I feel comfortable in than what I wore a year ago; etc.
But It's an extremely satisfying feeling. I feel more "who I am" than ever before, and I am extremely pleased to say that it's rare that I have an off day, either sartorially or in regards to how I behave, treat other people, and feel about myself. This distillation of who I am has not only helped me put together fits every morning that satisfy me creatively and sartorially, but also make me be a better, more accurate representation of who I am, which is manifest in how I treat others, how I feel, how straight I stand, etc.
Discuss
SF is famous for causing new members to come along, get extremely excited about their newfound knowledge of quality, fit and brands, then blow a bunch of money on successive purchases via B&S or eBay. Often, those purchases are high quality, but they ultimately become neglected in their closet (because nothing else they own goes with it) or they attempt to wear it with completely incoherent other pieces (the concept explained by Vox in an attempt to educate so many of such forum "n00bs").
In contrast with that experience, my experience has been one of necessarily slow wardrobe expansion. I found styleforum while in college, and was married about a year later. We've been poor most of our marriage (relatively speaking), making the acquisition of exciting new pieces of clothing difficult.
This used to frustrate me. Sometimes I even think to myself, "if I were single, I'd have one helluva wardrobe!"
But within the past few months, as my wardrobe has begun to expand ever so slowly with carefully considered additions one at a time, I've begun to feel like I've finally been able to dress every day in a way that reflects my style—that deep, inwardmost aspect of who we are that we can either effectively or ineffectively communicate via our dress. Further, I feel like by being forced to carefully decide each piece at a time, the way I dress, act, style my hair, etc. have all in effect distilled my style down to an ever more concentrated form. A negative way of looking at this might be to look at me now and say I've become a caricature of myself. My glasses are even more a style statement than the ones I wore a year ago; my choice of color coordination even more a representation of what I feel comfortable in than what I wore a year ago; etc.
But It's an extremely satisfying feeling. I feel more "who I am" than ever before, and I am extremely pleased to say that it's rare that I have an off day, either sartorially or in regards to how I behave, treat other people, and feel about myself. This distillation of who I am has not only helped me put together fits every morning that satisfy me creatively and sartorially, but also make me be a better, more accurate representation of who I am, which is manifest in how I treat others, how I feel, how straight I stand, etc.
Discuss
