Your Style Philosophy

[gerry]

Re: Your Style Philosophy



In terms of formal elements, I think my style would be defined as one that focuses on asymmetrical layering with focus on a contrast of texture and drape as opposed to color. I tend not to think too much about what I wear ? I'm just attracted to pieces that tend to focus on those aspects and end up wearing them together. Luckily, gray matches with gray, and black matches with black.

While I always feel like I'm forced to mix designer pieces with thrifted or DIY pieces, I realize that in an ideal world, I would actually want to make all the clothing I wear myself. I want to love love love everything I wear. Everything I wear is worn for the specific reason that it changes the way I feel about the world. When I pull on my Ann D pants, those two straps across my shins make me feel like I could take anyone who crosses my path. That philosophy may seem a bit too much in tandem with all those failed utopian theories of the day, but I can't help but feel like clothing is an extension of your home ? that clothing provides physical, mental, and emotional protection.

As for designers, I tend to be influenced very much about how I imagine they feel about the clothing they make. Despite the fact that I actually found Dolce and Gabbana's last collection to be quite beautiful and very solid in all the formal elements related to clothing, I would never be able to worship at that temple simply because the clothes don't feel pure to me. It doesn't feel as though they truly love and care for the things they make. As mentioned in my last paragraph, I enjoy making the clothing I wear because it creates an inexorably human feeling to me. I suppose I want all clothes to have that same feeling.

In the end, I think I just want to feel like a runaway princess.

[DHC]

Re: Your Style Philosophy



^ Great post. Great posts! Great thread! Let's keep this at the top for a while yet.

Style is an extension of the the self. This is why style is unique to an individual and fashion can be purchased at your friendly neighborhood boutique. My style is as broad as the collection of my life's memories which make me who I am. I think to say there is a "philosophy" that encompasses my style or to which I hold steadfast would be to limit myself. I find that clothing has a voice. Each piece speaks to me before it can make its way into my closet. Once there, if I like what they have to say on a particular day, on they go. I have to say that my emotional state or outlook of the day plays the greatest role in dictating that day's attire.

If there are any consistencies in the clothing I wear on a daily basis it is this.

I tend to shy away from prints. My mood can change throughout the day and I don't want to commit to something so literal nor do I feel the need for my clothing to speak or convey any kind of message to others on my behalf in such a literal way.

I avoid glitz (ie glittered or rhinestone encrusted anything). Not the kind of attention I wish to attract and don't care to meet those attracted to such devices.

I am not a billboard. I do not wish to be a walking advertisement for any given label, by having it plastered across my back, chest or ass.

I guess Yohji's definition of beauty is an intrinsic view I share. So no clothing that exposes my body to the world around me (ie. mesh shirts, etc.)

I realize how vague this is and for those who find it oversimplified, I apologize. This is just how I'm feeling right now. T-shirt and jeans.

[the breaks]

Re: Your Style Philosophy



[quote user="Faust"]Laika, looks like the members of this forum who have joined in the last 8 months have nothing to say on this matter. Not sure whether to laugh or cry. [72]
[/quote]

I don't post too many WAYWTs and didn't reply earlier because I don't think think my style or my style philosophy are very interesting. 350 days out of a year I'm wearing jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt.

I'm very into rap music and used to dress the part; SBs, baggy Diesels, Sean John / Eckö hoodies and fitted caps. As I grew older I kind of started veering away from that (admittely very juvenile) look. I also started hitting the gym which gave me a little something to show off with more fitted clothing and my current wardrobe reflects that, even more than I'd like!

I still love streetwear and slouch my pants but now I strive for a more mature, understated style. At the end of the day I try to wear an intersection of what's comfortable, what I think I look good in and what my girlfriend thinks I look good in.

[Faust]

Re: Your Style Philosophy

[quote user="casem83"]

I'm also the one who (maybe regrettably) brought up being attractive in clothes. I have a question about this that I hope no one takes offense to. I wrote about attraction, because what I wear is also influenced by what I would find attractive in others, maybe this is self-centered (I would be attracted like me etc. [83] ) but I wonder how straight people approach this? Is it difficult to reconcile making your image reflect an "attractive man" when you are not attracted to men? Or does it never cross you mind? Or do you dress as the male counterpart to what you would find in an attractive women (or man for Laika)? Sorry if this is off topic, but I've always been genuinely curious and since this is a thoughtful group I'm sure I'll get some good answers. I can't understand how people can be homophobic (not that anyone here is) and so seemingly grossed out by body parts they own and (for certain males) worship. [^o)]

[/quote]

I think looking attractive is definitely and obviously a part of dressing. I guess it will depend on what you mean by attractive. There is sexy, in order to attract potential partners, then there is cultural, in order to attract people of a similar mindset (or at least similar aesthetic), and then of course there is the combination of both, which I think is the ultimate. Today for me it's more of a latter, since I am married, and I don't have to look for sexual partners any more. Of course, I still love it, when I catch a girl glancing at me, it's just pleasant, but I also like it when someone who looks like they share something emotional looks at me appreciatively (these are two different looks, btw) no matter what sex - it's just a sense of affinity that I enjoy.

BTW, someone called me a homophobe the other day [72]

[Fuuma]

Re: Your Style Philosophy

Did we have two of these threads? I clearly remind posting something in here and can't find it (or what it was). Re-reading the whole thing was a good thing though, I'll try to contribute later...

[laika]

Re: Your Style Philosophy

^you're thinking of the "where to start..." thread, where you did indeed make a very good post. It's not really about your personal style though...[51]

[mortalveneer]

Re: Your Style Philosophy

[quote user="Faust"]

BTW, someone called me a homophobe the other day [72]

[/quote]

Being a straight male who is passionate about fashion, this is the far end of the spectrum from what I am usually called regarding my sexuality...

[BECOMING-INTENSE]

Re: Your Style Philosophy

[quote user="Faust"][quote user="BECOMING-INTENSE"]

A multiplication of lines in width, this taste for masses and this heavy broadening
of mass, underlining matter: either the frame disappears totally, or else it remains,
but despite the rough sketch, it does not suffice to contain the mass that spills over
and passes up above. The body in extension and prolonged, creased, and closely woven, skintight fabric will still be a watery fold that reveals the body far better than nudity:
the famous "wet folds" flows over Jean Goujon's bas-reliefs to affect the entire volume,
to create the envelope and the inner mold and the spiderweb of the whole body, including the face, as in Sinazzi's and Corradine's late masterpieces, Faith and Modesty. In every instance folds of clothing acquire an autonomy and a fullness that are not simply decorative effects. They convey the intensity of a spiritual force exerted on the body, either to turn it upside down or to stand or raise it up over and again, but in every event
to turn it inside out and to mold its inner surfaces. This is to make us "believe" in the body, to restore a direct self-awareness to the body. An interruption of signifiance and subjectification: The body itself becomes expressive.

[/quote]

Now, I really know it's multitudes, cause I don't understand anything you just said [86]

[/quote]

I do tend to have this problem![86]

But then I take great comfort in this little quote ...

Is there anything more dangerous than being understood?
All the more so, as there is no such thing. You are always misunderstood.
You think you aren't lonely, but in actual fact you are even more lonely.

- Pablo Picasso

Hmmmm! but maybe some visuals will help here ...

Jean Goujon bas-relief

Faith and Modesty

[gerry]

Re: Your Style Philosophy



/\ I was thinking more along these lines: ?Is it so bad to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh.? - Ralph Waldo Emerson

But that works, too.

Your style philosophy seems very much in tandem with the early works of Vionnet and Gres. The way I understand it, you feel as though clothing should express the motion of the body. Is that right?

[laika]

Re: Your Style Philosophy



^my suspicion is that becoming-intense does not see clothing and the body as two distinct entities....at least not when it comes to [his] style....

let's hear some more though....the visuals are great! [64]

[mortalveneer]

Re: Your Style Philosophy

bumping this because its a good thread, and to acknowledge that I'm still working on a coherent response. my first attempt turned into a disjointed discourse on color (and my love of black), vision, and perception, which while interesting as a personal exercise, wasn't nearly relevant enough to my style philosophy to include here...

[matthewhk]

Re: Your Style Philosophy

[quote user="laika"]

^my suspicion is that becoming-intense does not see clothing and the body as two distinct entities....at least not when it comes to [his] style....

[/quote]

this sounds like something i'm beginning to agree with more and more every day.

becoming intense i love that pablo picasso quote, it really hits home. i put it up on my facebook profile and styleforum signature heh.

[Johnny]

Re: Your Style Philosophy

i don't mean this in an agressive way at all, but isn't that notion qutie pretentious? what does it actually mean? they are inherently, fundamentally separate - one is placed on the other to cover it, wholly or partly. there is a relation between one and the other, obviously, and i can see that there is interest in how they interact, but in order to interact there must be separation no? i just don't see where a notion like that gets you. because it's basically meaningless.

[laika]

Re: Your Style Philosophy



^I don't see why it's "pretentious"....it's just a different point of view.

Since we are being so pragmatic here, why and when is it meaningful that your clothes and your body are "inherently, fundamentally separate?" Do you feel this separation when you are dressed? Do other people perceive you and your clothes separately? Even if you see them as philosophically distinct, I don't see how the distinction has much practical significance in the world. Unless you are the moralizing, Henry David Thoreau type, that is--"We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches--" who holds that clothes are a superficial distraction from a spiritual, inner person.

I don't think you are that type though...[51]

[Johnny]

Re: Your Style Philosophy

i don't think i'm a moralizer either! certainly not in that way. i don't think it's meaningful that clothes are separate from the body, just that it's very self evident that that is so. my point was not particularly constructive i admit, in fact it was the opposite - i was making precisely that point that it's not meaningful tostate that there is no separation between body and clothes.it may just be a different point of view, but I don't think just saying it has any force. i'd like to understand what somebody means by that.