I remember the outfit I wore on my first day of third grade. It was a pair of camouflage cargo pants and a red T-shirt with a bright yellow smiley face printed on it, with a newsboy cap tilted to the side. I wore it with a baby blue beaded choker necklace. It was the first piece of clothing I ever wore that was purposefully made. I really enjoyed wearing it and sharing it with friends. I remember being so in love with it that I couldn’t sleep.
I think there are many people who have this kind of core memory, especially those involved in magazines and fashion. It’s a love of clothes that come from the suburbs: mall brands, music videos, cable TV show stars. When I moved to New York, I didn’t have a clear vision of what I wanted to be or what kind of clothes I wanted to wear, but when I got here I realized that everyone spoke a really special language. Ta. Outside. Moving here was the closest I’d ever been to fitting in anywhere, but I still felt far from belonging.
If I wanted to fit in, I had to learn quickly. And I couldn’t show that I was sweating it. But I quickly got the hang of it. A world that once seemed incomprehensible to me now not only makes sense to me, but I can speak to it in ways that others cannot. I finally graduated inward. For a moment, I felt like I understood the meaning of the game. A feature of the fashion language is that it is easy to learn. It’s easy to understand what people are talking about, copy their ideas, and make them your own, but by then you’ve completely abandoned any unique perspective you had on style. They are gone.
Fashion became something I did in pursuit of a sense of belonging, and I soon tamed the wild things that made me want to do it in the first place. I got a job at a magazine and started honing my point of view until I was like everyone else. Because I thought that’s what I needed to do. It’s now so easy to forget your origins (clothes that you try on, take home, and want to float up when you lay them flat on your bed the night before school) and choose something you think will win you an award. Ta. Invite them to a runway show. When we focus so firmly on that ambition, we forget that to wear clothes is to go out into the world of shows, restaurants, parties, etc. and live in that world.
I felt lucky to be asked to write the editor’s letter for this issue. But once I started writing, I started thinking seriously about what I had to say. I have had a fortunate career as a journalist, but it has also been a very puzzling and fraught career. It often leaves me feeling small and ignored, and often wondering if my perspective on the world can still bring me reward. Over the past decade, we’ve all been asked to create personal brands as professionals and as denizens of the internet, but nothing has done more damage to the idea of a unique point of view. I think this also applies to personal style. We live our lives for algorithms, so naturally that means we dress for them too. The new Shopping Catalog is your exploration page, one that feels created just for you. But we have to assume that the pendulum will swing. If I am tired and unfulfilled, I have to assume that others are too. I can’t help but think that a renaissance is on the horizon.
The best style wisdom I’ve ever found is reading Rilke, hanging out outside cafes and watching people, giving yourself time to be yourself, and then giving yourself time to be yourself again. It was born from giving to myself. As I was doing this, I realized that I wasn’t interested in being invited to certain parties. It didn’t amuse me to be attacked by people I perceived as being out of my league. Being followed by cool people on Instagram didn’t amuse me. My clothes didn’t make me interesting. It’s so obvious, but it’s easy to think like this. The ratings we receive, the people who follow us on the internet, the clothes we wear. It’s easy to treat them like evidence of a life well lived. It’s easy to think that if you can find an effortless white T-shirt, the perfect capsule wardrobe, a life-changing haircut, and a movie-like social life, you might actually have a chance at self-actualization. But this is not the case.
It’s very difficult to deceive people, and unfortunately, trying to live an easy life still looks like an effort. Clothes, love, attention, these are at most products of the kind of life we live. Life itself, the sense of self, must be created from scratch. I found my style while sitting at home writing in my diary, going to parties, and buying tickets to things I had never heard of. Please go back to the drawing board, prioritize uniqueness, and regain your individuality. Think about what you like and what you think is cool. Ask yourself why you decided to buy wide-leg jeans or fancy sneakers. After all, there’s a reason it’s called personal style.
