Fashion: I don’t know about english, but the italian term for fashion is the same as the mathematical one, were it stands for the most common and frequent number you can find in a statistic, and I think we can say so of clothing too. Fashion is that disembodied entity that every two seasons showcasts new productions, more or less artistic, more or less wearable in real life, and imposes its new diktats.
Maybe you’ve already noticed from how I write about it that I’m not particularly into fashion. I could never stand the idea of someone that decided -in my place- what was to be considered good looking or not. And in the end what I could find in shops and how people would have looked at me.
I think that haute couture creations are some sort of wearable sculptures, sometimes almost pieces of art, I truly admire the abilities and the techniques required to create such things.
Yet it’s not clear to me how we can deduce, from those grand dresses on the runway, those quirky things we find on the stores ranks.
I need to tell you something now: my job is to proof read articles for various magazines, I was hired back in september and this week I’m going through my very second “fashion week”. In the meanwhile “fashion” articles have been countless.
But I’ve learned one thing: EVERYTHING is “fashionable” right now, simply because it’s the papers that choose how to arrange the article, that choose what is going to be used (or who paid enough to be featured), that, in the end, put together what has been seen on runways.
Otherwise I can’t really see how, every single year, these greate creative minds inside the designers can come up with very according things. Do they do briefings at the beginning of the season? Is there any kind of spy-business? Or do they just do whatever they feel inspired to, and then someone else starts noticing matching things here and there?
One last thing: the cost. I’ve never been interested in saying “It’s a shirt from this and that”, also because even though sometimes the quality of these garments is really at the top, you have a huge extra cost to pay only the label, and I’m not interested into this (let alone the fact that sometimes even though there is a big, known name written all over a garment, it’s so poorly made that it’s almost shameful, yet it costs you a little fortune). I’m interested into what a piece of clothing looks like, how it’s made, how it looks on me, not who signed it.

Trends: are tightly bound to fashion, an abundance of some given item on the runways it’s very likely to cause an abundance of said item in the stores. But I’ve also noticed that if in one season something goes viral, there’s a good chance that you’ll see it declined in every way possible on the runways as soon as possible.
This takes me to something that irks me very much: is something is trendy (regardless of what is actually fashionable, therefore considered “ugly”) you will not be able to find anything else into the shops… So, if yellow tartan is your life, this time you’re lucky and please stock up now that you can. If it’s not… well I hope you stocked up when your longing was everywhere!

Style: we’re finally here! I said I was never into fashion, this doesn’t mean I was never interested in what I wore. Let’s bore you with some geekyness: style comes from the greek “stylos” and it was the name of the stick used to write on waxed tablets, literally something to leave a mark with.
Somehow style, at least to me, it’s still the same: something you use to leave a mark, to mean something, to be noticed.
I need to tell you something else: we can be as well spoken as we might, saying not to judge a book by its cover, saying it’s wrong to judge people from their appearance. But in the end it’s all we do, and that’s perfectly understandable: appearance is the very first thing we notice about someone, because sight -usually- is the first thing that’s put in action when we’re meeting someone, and our brain is bound to try and understand that someone for what it looks like to us.
Don’t fret, we’re not hopeless: knowing this you just need to be smart enough to say to yourself “Ok, he/she looks like this, now let’s hear what he/she has to say, ’cause I may change my mind, or find proof of what I thought”.
So, style: that tad bit of very personal you to speak about yourselves. That something that makes you stand out in a crowd, not just very big very bright hats though!

Wow, this was long, but I had to let it out!
Next times (I think once a week, the other posts will be my regular Box and another proper post) we’ll talk about things like shapes, colours, hair&makeup, accessories, how to establish your own style, and so forth… full optional my darlings!