more thoughts on dressing
i've been spending some time away from the internet and going to used bookstores instead, picking up old magazines and paperbacks, weird manuals and stuff
one of my favorite finds was this book called koromo seikatsu (living with clothes) by akiko ando.
after getting married, ando moved to a traditional japanese home in the countryside where she realized that 洋服 (youfuku, the word we commonly use for clothing--one of the kanji used to write it means "western") was just that: clothing made to suit the western way of life. She found that regular clothes were difficult to work in, in a traditional Japanese house that requires a lot of bending down, squatting, sitting on floors etc. so she started making her own clothing, long sarongs and soft loose tops...all clothes whose shape the wearer determined and not the other way around
lots of sarongs. so beautiful right?
I like this aesthetic and I find it really really intriguing when a person is able to achieve total satisfaction in a restricted lifestyle, wearing only a certain type of clothing.
Sometimes I think it might be nice if I could do that too, when im much older, but thinking about it like that makes the whole thing very meaningless, doesnt it? You have to take time learning with your body what works for you... and even when you know, the transition into a restricted wardrobe has to be gradual. you cant jump right into something like that just because it sounds kinda cool and expect it to last.
There are some fashion bloggers who enjoy a certain style and focus on just that style, collecting what they consider to be "classic", "timeless" pieces as though they'll be wearing them for the rest of their lives. I really respect that. But for a lot of these same bloggers, their clothes strike me as being very trendy sometimes, and I have to wonder how long it'll be before they sell it all and start rebuilding a new "timeless" wardrobe. I dunno, they just don't seem as sincere about it as akiko ando, for example. probably because if I'm not mistaken, these blogger's styles are not so much the result of a conviction as they are simply the result of them identifying with some labels and disliking others, or trying to realize a pre-conceived notion of "timeless"ness. And if I were to try to restrict myself now, I think the same thing would happen. The clothes might be a little different, but it would be shallow and pointless.
At the moment, I don't see my wardrobe or my clothes as a permanent thing. if anything I see them as assets although i do love wearing them. and I guess it's ok to wear what you want while u can... but I hope that eventually I'll grow out of what I'm doing now and develop a trademark style.. a method of dressing maybe, it's sort of vague. But it has to have meaning and go beyond silly rules like "always buy neutrals". Even if it doesn’t last long, I think experimenting with one idea would be a good start. These things should take a long time to figure out.
