It is 7:56 PM and to say it quite frankly, I have been procrastinating to put these words onto paper since midday. I don’t know, why sometimes I can be so afraid of my passion, why I fall in such a deep stage of self-sabotage and spent most of my day mentally beating up myself for not being as productive as I would want myself to be. Maybe the answer to all this is the classic war of art, that I am unable to resist my inner resistance.
Anyway, now, at this very warm late summer evening, I finally resisted the resistance and started typing out those words which have been floating around my mind all day. Today, was the first day of online school, which is still a very strange sentiment to wrap my head around. When the world started to go off its usual tracks this March, I naively thought, that by now, I would be back creating and learning on campus and being Tesco’s best customer.
But instead, I did the lecture from my living room, and now, sitting on my sofa sipping wine, I feel nothing but nostalgic. Two years ago, when I made the brave move to leave my home country, my parents, everything I knew, I was so excited but also insecure for my first day of uni. Looking back, I was not fully aware of what I signed up for, but what I can remember vividly (as if it was yesterday), was my outfit and more importantly, how it made me feel. For some, fashion might be just a means to cover up our naked bodies, but overall, it is an escape from daily life, a medium that allows us to communicate who we want to be, instead of who we see ourselves to be. I remember, that day, the very first day of my higher education career, I put on this pink checked co-ord set, as it reminded me so much of the Cher character in the movies and her iconic Dolce and Gabanna suit.
I bought the skirt to the set I wore in one of Paris’ Topshop’s and I remember when I put it one in the changing rooms, “This is the coolest thing ever”. I saw in this suit everything I dreamt of being. Secretly, even though I adored it to pieces, I was still hunting for its yellow sister, which was the other version that Topshop produced of this set, but sadly it was nowhere to be found in my size. Once I moved over to England then, I completed the set of the skirt I bought in Paris just a few days before, and once I wore them together, I felt so invincible, it was almost like protection from my outside world. And obviously, on top of all that, in those days I was very mesmerized by all the past subcultures, such as Punk that emerged in London, post-second world war, where checked patterns have always been a key item of expression.
Internally, I was madly nervous on my first day at university, as most of the other students in the room. I worried about all different kinds of things, apart from my outfit, as this made me feel confident, even though, deep down, inside I wasn’t.
Now, today, the pink suit is in my childhood bedroom, and I have upgraded to this very much identical clueless suit- this time in yellow.
Although some people will never admit that they dress with a certain purpose in mind, I believe that we do. Our outfits are the skin we choose to wear that day, it gives us a chance to reinvent ourselves in a world that constantly tells us who we should be.
Our clothes mirror our created identities, and allow us, to be who we truly want to be each and every day.
Ps: here enjoy a very bad mirror selfie of myself.
N x
