Evolution of My Style

I can't quite remember what prompted me to think about my personal style. I think I was reading someone's blog. Anyway, I realized that I don't particularly have a style. I spent most of my life not thinking too deeply about what I wore, save for making sure that what I was wearing suited my body.

Like most kids, my mom bought my clothes without my input for quite a few years. Thankfully, she didn't dress me like a lunatic or anything, so I happily went along not really knowing or caring about "fashion," per se. (I still don't get how little kids know about fashion... like that one really young blogger. Isn't she like, 10?)

The first fashion magazine I ever read was Vogue, which I just grabbed to read on a break when I was at the library. That was about the 5th or 6th grade, and I continued to read Vogue for about a year. Still, I didn't think too much about clothing.

I suppose that all changed when I got to high school and I started reading magazines like Seventeen and Teen People. Thankfully, I never got any style ideas from those magazines (though, I have to say that Seventeen is getting better at branching out and being less preppy all the time), but I did find certain items that I wanted to, and eventually did, buy.

Finally, I studied abroad in London in my junior year of college, and that's what I would consider the turning point in my style. With plenty of free time, I could actually plan an outfit, try it on, see what it looked like, etc. Not to mention going to school with a bunch of arty folk, I saw a lot of "interesting" outfits. And by "interesting," I mean some batshit-crazy outfits and some really cool ones. Mostly strange ones, though. There, I stood out because I was dressed relatively "normally." Oh, but the best part about going to school there was that my classes were literally a 1 minute walk away, so I could wear heels. Score!

So what I do know for sure is this: I don't like to dress very femininely, and I have a definite skater-look influence. For instance, I love skater sneakers (Nike SBs, Vans, Supras, etc.), wearing my jeans rolled up to the ankle (which I promise doesn't look strange) , funky hoodies, etc. But I avoid wearing this stuff all together, so I don't look like a caricature. I also have this obsession with suede -- at one time, I had about 10 pairs of suede shoes, 2 suede jackets, suede gloves -- you get the picture. All in all, I think my clothes are mostly basics (either for layering, or with something strange about them so that they're not boring) and boyish/grunge (clunky sneakers and boots, plaid shirts).

In general though, I can't say there's something universal about how I dress from day to day. I started keeping a big "inspiration" picture folder on my computer to see what I like and figure out the similarities. So far, it's going pretty well, and I can definitely see that I like 1. dark colors 2. scarves (already knew that though) 3. miniskirts and opaque tights... Despite that though, I still feel like it's not quite me. So I'll keep looking and I'll keep clicking, and one day, I'll finally figure it out.