Fashion is the most powerful art there is. It is movement, design, architecture all in one. It shows the world who we are and who we’d like to be. -Blair Waldorf
Recently, I found myself explaining to a friend of mine the reason why I chose fashion as my career path instead of a more “normal” one like law or business. It started out simply, when he confidently called himself a hispter nerd and I couldnt quite come up with a word to describe myself in that way. “Fashionista” is the one he offered, and I was quick to mention that I’m actually far from that.
While I do love fashion, enjoy being up to date on trends and keeping up with which designer presented what on a certain Fashion Week, I also feel my love for fashion os not as frivolous as others’. To me, fashion is much more than just wearing the “in” clothes and colors, it is much more than being up to date with magazines and runway shows and even much more than creating pieces of clothing out of pretty fabrics. To me, fashion is a tool to put in some kind of order, the mess that is my head.
When I sketch, its like nothing else in the world exists. Its just me, my sketchbook and pencil. I don’t even have to think, it’s like my hand has a life of its own, and it somehow finds a way to put some sense into the chaos of my thoughts. After a few different sketches are done, I usually look at them, and even though I usually start with no particualr idea or inspiration in mind, at least not obviously, my brain somehow finds the way to interpret my feelings into lines and colors. Its one of the most beautiful feelings to look at a sketch that started out as a random doodle, and seeing the exact thing you were looking for magically appear on the paper.
Fashion is the most amazing tool to get to know a person. From the way they think, to the way they feel any given day, or maybe during a certain period of time. Every single detail in a piece of clothing, even the tiniest one, gives away clues of the person who’s wearing that piece. The color, the texture of the fabric, the cut of the piece… Is it tight or is it lose? Is it bright or is it dull? Is the person showing a lot of skin or barely showing any? There’s so many possibilities to an outfit.
Even though we might not be aware of it, clothes communicate thoughts and feelings and states of mind. They are our very first means of communication with out environment. Clothes are the simplest way of telling someone you feel happy, or sad, or pretty or too lazy to get anything other than sweatpants.
The beauty of all this, is not only getting to share my feelings and thoughts as an individual through what I wear, but that by being a designer, I get to share my thoughts and feelings and ideas with so many people. Theres is a certain sense of comfort in seeing someone wear a piece you made. They might not know all the work that went into creating that piece, they might not even know who the designer is, all they know is that they agree with what the designer was feeling. Fashion creates a community of people who think alike; it brings people that could have absoutely nothing in common together.
Fashion, to me, is a way of figuring out who I was, who I am, and who I want to be. It is also an opportunity for me to be part of other people’s discovery process. It is a way for me to learn about how people felt many years ago; it is a tool to really comprehend why people did what they did and thought what they thought. Fashion is a way of communication, not only with each other, but with the past and the future.
For me, fashion is being part of something bigger than me, and bigger than you. Fashion has existed centuries before any of us were born, and it is something that will exist for centuries after our grandkids are gone. That, for me s the real beauty of fashion.
-C.