What the Hell is Fashion?

It’s a question we’ve all asked ourselves. It evolves. People cutting sweatshirts in half and pasting a hood on the back. See-through plastic boots. Faux fur vests in July. Tiny dogs in handbags. Rainbow hair. Unicorn hair. Mermaid hair.

There’s no explanation to fashion. I’m sure that the designers have a formula. Though part of me assumes that the designers just put on the first thing they see in their closet and add a few sparkles and logos to make it high fashion.

Don’t get me wrong, I have mad respect for people who can put multiple t-shirts, skirts, or ripped jeans together and manage to create a new “high fashion” style each time. Making clothing with triangular cuts, adding star shapes over the spine. Whatever the newest style, I have a lot of respect for fashion designers. Artists in their own rights.

I respect them as artists.

But how about us, the common people? The ones who don’t know a flip-flop from a sandal? The ones who’ve worn their hair in the same style since eighth grade? What is fashion?

I’ve gotten to a point where I look in the mirror and realized something. I hate pastels. They’re too cute. Too sunny.

They’re not me.

They might’ve been me in eighth grade or high school, when I wanted flower patterns. I wanted to be girly as hell. I wanted to be a discount unicorn princess.

Then I grew older. I switched over from reading your average “go on a quest” fantasy to darker surreal horror. To stories where the gods are dead or dying, where the hero doesn’t always live at the end.

And so has my fashion sense. Neutral grays. Dark purple. Black. I wear fashion like a bruise, but it’s mine. I don’t want pastels. I don’t want a sunny backdrop. I don’t follow every fashion magazine. I’m sure, by accident, I’ve managed to follow some trends. But I don’t deliberately follow them. I follow what, ultimately, makes me happy. I like clothing that ties around my waist. It makes me feel covered. I like dark graphic tees. I feel like my clothes speak where I don’t.

When I was younger, I didn’t realize that clothes can mean self-expression. Now, I don’t want to be a pretty princess.

I want to be the badass steampunk chick that goes in at the end of a Gaiman novel or a Tim Burton flick and saves the day.

I guess my fashion style evolves with me. I don’t want to be the manic pixie dream girl. I want to be the Fae, the cruel Grim Brothers’ kind that drinks blood and milk and makes a statement by their ethereal presence.

I want to be bewitching, whatever the hell that ultimately means for me.

But if I’m the witch in the Grimm Brothers’ fairytale, that means I ought to stay away from ovens.

That’s fine by me. My place in life wasn’t restricted to the kitchen anyways.