streets-and-blocks

Falling Through Your Clothes

Following up on earlier discovery, I finally got through the pay-wall of Psychology Today to see what Hara Estroff Marano has to say about fashion-versus-style. From the September/October issue:

Style goes a long way beyond fashion; it is an individually distinctive way of putting ourselves together. It is a unique blend of spirit and substance—personal identity imposed on, and created through, the world of things. It is a way of capturing something vibrant, making a statement about ourselves in clothes.

People want to be themselves and to be seen as themselves. In order to work, style must reflect the real self, the character and personality of the individual; anything less appears to be a costume.

Style presumes that you are a person of interest, that the world is a place of interest, that life is worth making the effort for.

In the end, style is fundamentally democratic. It assumes every person has the potential to create a unique identity and express it through grooming and a few well-chosen clothes. Yet style is also aristocratic. It set s apart those who have it from those whose dress is merely utilitarian. It announces to the world that the wearer has assumed command of herself.