a$ap, leather, and a reframing of luxury

When I go to sleep at night (or more accurately, 4:33 A.M on most nights), I'm at my most  delusional from sleep deprivation but also most active when it comes to things I want to talk about. Something about being incredibly loopy makes my mind break open a little bit and I see things a lot clearer in terms of the big picture. Like, the other night, it struck me that most people's idea of "luxury" is pretty outdated, and it's causing some strange hypocrisy and more than a little racism and classism (not that this is new, pft) when it comes to the 'new' luxury consumer. By this I mean -- there are a lot of amazing designers who cater exclusively to the kind of hyper-aware consumer who doesn't buy often, but buys very loyally to a handful of brands, and their aesthetic is deeply based in streetwear, but strangely, these consumers think it's ok to scorn the people who inspire the designers they're buying from. Listen -- luxury is not a static thing, it's no longer a Chanel 2.55 and some YSL heels and Tom Ford lipstick. It's also the limited edition Supreme t-shirt, it's also your leather laser-cut mesh shorts you wear when you're pretending you're exercising (but really just scoping out babes on the High Line), it's paying hundreds of dollars for a fashion sweatshirt. 

 

You don't need to have a lot of material things to be living in luxury. Luxury is about options, quality, choice, not quantity, you know? For example: minimalism is very luxurious. When you're poor or working class, I/you never try to throw things away because you always want to find a use for them. Fixing is more of an option, so you'll keep something even if it's broken for a little while. You don't know when you can get something better so you keep all things mediocre. And the stuff piles up. You might end up hoarding. To intentionally practice minimalism, you have some kind of understanding you will probably always be able to buy whatever you need when you want it. Space is the ultimate luxury: Comme des Garcon's ultimate status symbol is their incredibly sparse store spaces in Tokyo, a place where square footage is rare and prestigious. And Comme is not your traditional purveyor of luxury, with it's boiled and  intentionally torn wools and strangeness, but it's still luxury. Luxury is just as much about the rejection of traditional status items as the appropriation of more 'lazy' items like sweatshirts and sneakers, and the appropriation of pedestrian fabrics and unusual things like manmade plastics. Anti-fashion is still fashion, after all. The language of luxury is the same as the language of privilege. Denying status symbols of what you have doesn't mean you don't have it. It's the same with privilege. They both operate in terms of economics, and capitalism, and identity. When we don't bring these things into a discussion on fashion trends & marketing, we're choosing to ignore the importance of these things to how consumers treat one another. You can argue that brands shouldn't have to care about that stuff, but I am a romantic and I want to believe brand culture at it's best extends to build a community that takes care of one another. I've seen it first hand and have had it myself, so I know it exists, and I know brands are aware of the culture they create or aspire to create. I definitely feel kinship to other black crows of CDG, and I know my lolita friends feel community within loli. 

Which brings me to my real point: no one has the final say in what a brand should mean to someone. Just because you know a lot about this one brand doesn't mean a newcomer isn't any less worthy of wearing their stuff. We're all buying into a personal experience of a universal projection. Hypebeasts making fun of A$AP Rocky for wearing Rick Owens or whatever, and fashionistas making fun of Riri at Chanel Cruise, I see you. And the masculine goth dudes dressed in Rick Owens like to forget Rick is (inarguably) a huge kinky queer dude who loves hip hop (Zebra Katz 4ever) and doesn't take his work very seriously (pony play tails on the runway, goth metal bands suspended in air, photoshoots of him cumming in his own mouth, come on) and he probably loves A$AP Rocky. And people who idolize Coco Chanel seem to conveniently forget she was also married to a Nazi, sold people out to the Nazi Party, and fled to Switzerland because of it. I personally think it's hysterical that now Chanel is best friends with WOC, because it would utterly upset Coco, and anything that upsets a Nazi makes me super satisfied. Basically: all your faves would probably surprise you. There's always more to know about a person and a brand. I don't enjoy taking things at face value -- I'm insufferable that way. 

 Just because you own an item from a brand, doesn't mean you have the rights to dictate your personal experience with the brand to other people who want something from them too. People experience clothes very differently, you know? When I say I love fashion, my love for it is bound up for it in many different experiences, and books, and personal journeys with clothes. I like very specific aesthetics in a handful of designers, and I spend a lot of time researching them and their inspirations and  little to no time reading fashion magazines or trend watching. When someone else says they love fashion, they might mean they love buying fashion magazines and they really like Coach bags and collect them. We're saying the same words, but the stories behind them are a lot different. And both are completely legitimate and neither negates from the other. 

Anyway, that's my super dense fashion feels post for now. Broke it up with pictures of my take on the eponymous "fashion person" outfit I see on old-school industry insiders, the ones who don't dress up for street style photographers -- they slip in and out of the shows to get what they want, and they invariably do it in leather. I really do love this outfit, and the fact you can replicate it throughout all price ranges. I've included links to similar looks, though my take is all vintage. I am not wearing shoes in these photos, because I'm at home and I don't do that because these photos were taken on my bed -- and I'm not wearing shoes on my bedding for the internet. No shoes allowed. Anyway, thank you for reading this wall of text! I hope you leave a comment.

the weird girl trope.

I have been trying really hard not to say anything brash in response to Isabel's post, mostly because I respect her and consider her a really cool lady who has helped me out on occasion, but I'm really fucking bummed and personally insulted at her last post and I can't not say anything. (And I'm not impressed with the girl-hate going on in the comments section -- a moderated comments section, where people are calling other people shallow for choosing to wear "pounds of" makeup. A lot of those commentors are my readers too, so I'm going to call you all out. Hi, I'm mad at you.) Note, this is 100% my own personal view, and I'm not speaking on behalf of Rookie or Girl Guts, though I do contribute to both. Oh, and I had purple hair. And I have a colorful wardrobe. So, there's that. You can see why I'm kind of insulted. 

Me, in my colorful wardrobe and purple hair, about to perform a ritual to invalidate your existence. 

Listen. I pay attention to all the criticisms I see about Rookie, about GG's, and a lot of time it's 100% valid -- yes, we do need to try harder to be more inclusive. Sometimes we mess up. But what really annoys me is when the criticism about these venues is that they are summarily just Manic Pixie Dream Girl establishments, that they are snowglobes of teen nostalgia about things we might never have experienced ourselves, and that is bullshit. In fact, a lot of the media coverage of Rookie has summarized it to be this little shrine of Tavi's fondness for Daria and whatever for 20 somethings, when it is not that at all. (Putting aside the fact Tavi isn't in her 20's herself yet...) And a lot of the criticisms on Rookie being this shrine to teenage girl nostalgia are really just bizarre to me because.... Rookie is a website for teenage girls. As in, that is the purpose. So duh. That is the space in which ist intentionally occupies. That is who it's for. It's not about you if you're not a teenage girl, though you are welcome to read it, of course. You just aren't the priority.

It's not supposed to be a website dedicated to becoming an adult, it's a website where teenage girls can read stuff about being a teenage girl, and are treated like mature people whose lives revolve around things they care about, and they are taken seriously and their desires and hobbies are celebrated, it's not about their relationship with boys and how to get them to notice you like so many other 'teen platforms' are for. Someone literally wrote, "Why is Rookie pushing a youth-centric agenda? What's wrong with growing up?" And I... I'm speechless, because like..you're missing the damn point. Rookie is a website for the youth. It's about appreciating your adolescence. And if you don't like that, well, ok then, but complaining about it like it is doing you a personal disservice by not doing exactly what you want when you aren't the target audience seems  like a waste of your time and energy. 

Read the about us for Rookie here. Note the distinct lack of "website for twenty something's to be nostalgic about stuff and be twee" in the description. 

I also feel really grossed out and shamed by the idea of me having displaced anybody just for my personal decision of dying my hair purple/green/whatever and for my decision to wear colorful clothes. My appearance isn't a vessel for your own existence to be defined off of. I don't exist just to upset or make you feel more real. We're not being existentialists here. And as someone who has known me / read me / blah blah for years, you know my style is something I treat as personally and as intimately as my thoughts, so for someone to say I have displaced them just for my personal attire, that I have essentially invalidated their own presence in the blogosphere, that is something I take personally, and it hurts and it makes me angry. Because if you leave the blogosphere, that's on you. I've said it before that the blogosphere is fucked up, but it's not something you can blame on the "weird girl" trope, it's something to be blamed on the larger system of capitalism and privileging a more marketable ready to sell appearance over sincerity and unique voices. It's certainly not another person's responsibility to validate you as a person. If you are blogging for validation, you are going to be disappointed, because at what point is x amount of comments going to be enough? How many likes will make you happy? There is always going to be a desire for just one more comment. Just one more reblog. That is so exhausting  and it's putting he power over your insecurities in their hands.You're looking for happiness in other people, and you're shaming them for their own appearances, for them taking up space you wish was yours, when there is plenty space for both of you to exist peacefully. 

If I wear black and white, it cancels out the purple hair, so I'm not a Weird Internet Girl anymore, right? Am I doing this right?

If there is anything, anything that I have ever wanted to make clear through my blogging is that yes, there is enough space for you to be whoever you want, to create your own identity. We should be building each other up, not shaming each other. There is enough of that everywhere already. Celebrate your identity and I will 100% be there with you, as long as you don't fuck with mine. And my identity happens to include purple hair and colorful clothes, but it is certainly not the end all be all, and to be reduced to the trope of being simple another "weird girl" who sells the idea of a cult of perpetual adolescence, it bothers me. Because I don't want my identity to be reduced to that -- it's more than that, all of my personal appearance choices are things I've made purposefully and meaningfully because they help me feel like the person I'm supposed to be, and my own decisions validate the person I hope I am. Everything I wear and do is to celebrate the fact that I exist and I can make my own choices and be whatever the hell I want to be, and none of that takes away from you being the person you want to be. At all. The purpose of my blog is not to make someone else want to be me, it's just to share who I am and hope that someone is inspired enough by my honesty and my sincerity and acceptance that they want to be who they are, too, and to explore who that person might be. This is not a place where I prioritize looking good for other people, it's a place where I prioritize looking good and feeling good about myself and where I can be honest about my insecurities and dreams and my feelings. 

I am not a 2-D Teen Weird Girl of the Internet made to serve you and make you want to dye your hair too, and if you see me as that, you aren't seeing me at all. You have failed to look closer. And that is your loss. 

edit: this post was not to meant to be a "isabel is so wrong let's bash on her" post, so please don't resort to mud slinging -- i've responded to comments in the comments section and i consider the matter closed. thank you for reading.

the state of fashion blogging.

I recorded this a little over a week ago, but you can probably tell by the tenor of my posts that it's been kicking around in my head for awhile. I don't know, it's scary to put this out there -- but I had to. It feels honest.

if the clothes fit

Someone asked me if I consider myself a fashion blogger or makeup blogger or what. At first I was offended (I get defensive easily LET IT BE KNOWN) but then I thought about it. It's a perfectly reasonable question to ask, considering the state of this blog. I'm not as interested in "fashion" as I once was, let's start there. As in, I don't spend hours trolling thru style.com archives anymore, taking notes on each and every collection in a Google Doc when I'm supposed to be paying attention in class. It's not as though I'm ignoring fashion, but rather, my focus in the industry is very finely tuned -- now more than ever. I know what I want out of fashion and I'm focusing all my personal style and creativity on attaining what I want out of the industry -- nothing more, nothing less. I think that is what makes fashion empowering to me, as a feminist. I use fashion as a tool of power/personal identity as much as I am used by fashion as an influencer thru my voice in social media. When people ask me about how I can possibly be feminist and be into fashion I feel like the answer should be obvious: it lets me do what I want. The end.  Minh-Ha T. Pham says it pretty wonderfully in this Ms. article:

If feminists ignore fashion, we are ceding our power to influence it.

 I mean, I get why people don't 'get' the fashion industry, I get that the representations of it can make it seem like a totally shallow, soul sucking industry. It can be. The parodies and satire are funny because they are sadly, woefully, true, in a lot of cases. Fashion isn't deep unless you give it depth. Once you put power and thought behind it, put meaning, it becomes something else: agency. Now, this agency can sometimes be at odds with privilege. It can be hard to like fashion when the only versions of fashion we see in popular culture are the ones modeled by skinny young white girls whose bodies don't resemble ours, who're wearing $500 tshirts and $798 skirts and $1000 worth of jewelry on each wrist. Make no mistake: I'm not hating on the people who can afford these things. Because rich people who see themselves in the popular representations, they might be using fashion as a means of identity, too -- it might just be easier for them to do it. There is nothing wrong with being rich, it's what you do with the money that counts. People read designer clothes and see what they want to see, you know? People see expensive clothes and think, "That person has it easy. That person is probably not like me." And it's easy to hate someone for it. I've done it before and I'll probably do it again in the future, I'm not perfect.  But you also have to take into consideration that fashion can't be equivocated to designer clothes -- it's bigger than that and it's smaller than that. Essentializing it into a scene for rich white girls is selling it short. You're dismissing the power it can give you, and that power is one of the most pervasive and widely used forms of communication you can have as a person. I mean, yeah. I think it's really stupid and fucked up that fashion designers don't make space for larger sizes -- I think it's unforgivable, really. And I think there needs to be a change. There is a lot wrong with the industry, but I think at heart fashion can be good, too.

 I think it's weird that people hate on fashion and in the same breath encourage people to "be themselves" and be unqiue. Girls are told we should "maintain ourselves" and in the same breath it's apparently uncool to be girly because being girly means we're dramatic and troublemakers and guys have 'so much less drama' and blah blah blah. All the mixed messages can really fuck with a girl. And I think a lot of the resentment towards fashion can be grounded in self-hate & the special snowflake complex.There's another blogger that said it pretty succinctly:

Jenny Holzer, Source

“Fashion is one of the very few forms of expression in which women have more freedom than men. And I don’t think it’s an accident that it’s typically seen as shallow, trivial, and vain. It is the height of irony that women are valued for our looks, encouraged to make ourselves beautiful and ornamental… and are then derided as shallow and vain for doing so. 

I love fashion. I hate fashion. I can't really live without fashion, because I can't escape clothes. I can claim defeat and pull on sweatpants and keds or jeans and a hoodie, but it's like slipping into someone else's skin, it doesn't feel like me. Fashion gets me into my own space, it's like I can breathe properly. I know that fashion can make people feel really bad about themselves but I think if you subvert it and use it and make it work for you and not the other way around it can be more than you'd ever expect......use the power it has and you get stronger because of it. I wrote a post about agency and fashion a little while ago, if you remember. The words are as relevant as ever:

I always return to the sentiment that my favorite clothes are my armor and my friends. They will never fail me. . . Clothes give me agency where talking often fails. . . I can be a feminist and also love fashion because I believe that your style and how you approach the industry and dissect and create the media can give you agency, give you a voice, give you strength. Passion in any form, like getting dressed (even if that is a simple form), just says that I am here and that I exist and I am not ashamed.

you need to know the rules before you can break them.

I am uncomfortable with the big elephant of privilege in the blogosphere. So I am trying to think of ways to acknowledge and subvert it in my own blog without being a hater to the girls that I support and love who also blog but who also perpetuate the bubble of privilege that makes reading fashion blogs not very enjoyable anymore. I mean I acknowledge I have that privilege, too -- I am white-appearing, cisgendered, don't read particularly "QUEER" if people are stupid enough to judge by appearance, 'straight sized', I am in an area where I am afforded every opportunity to shop where I choose because there are plenty of places I like to shop near me that I can afford and that have things I want and I can fit into most everything I try, and I get sent things that otherwise I may not be able to afford, by very generous friends, followers, and stores. And I work as a writer and 'blogger' and get paid for it occasionally by sponsors and editors so I can afford things if I save up. I know I have privilege myself when it comes to being a blogger.

But then again, I am not a rich person, I don't get as many opportunities as some other bloggers because I'm not quite as marketable (also I'm terrible with answering emails at a reasonable time) and I've turned down things many times, for many reasons, and I'm okay with all that. I think and hope you all trust me and my opinion and why I blog. I am just contemplating what it means to have integrity but also individual freedom to market myself. You can't make bank on pride, you know? I don't know if what I am writing is making sense. I hope so. I've been in this hard place for awhile. I just don't like the feeling that I have this power to affect change and help people and make people less lonely while also making them feel like they're only going to have a good blog, only get where they want in the world if they do x things, look x way, buy x things, take pictures x ways, x times a week, write x way. I think I am doing a disservice to you now by saying you can only be a successful fashion blogger by being 'yourself'. I think we all know that is kind of bullshit, now. Successful fashion bloggers, they/we have this unwritten glossy standard now, and it's tiring. I am tired. I have realized I am not tired of blogging, but by the rules of fashion blogging that have silently creeped up on us, the rules we have kind of invented for ourselves. I wonder how and when it happened, really, and how can we actively change it without making everyone change if they don't have to. I wonder if enough people care.

What I'm saying is that I am, as I've said before, tired of playing by the rules. I have played by them, I have gotten this far by them and by making them accommodate me and my personality and my style, but meh. Enough is enough. I don't think fashion blogging is enjoyable enough a pursuit for me to keep blogging if I'm gonna keep trying to accommodate a certain style of blogging I'm not into, anyway. I dunno what my resistance will be, in what form it will take on this blog, other than this long winded declaration. I guess I'm gonna do whatever I want and I hope you're gonna go along for the ride. I'd like to know if you feel the same about where the blogosphere is going. Do you like where fashion blogging is at the moment? Does it alienate you too? I wanna know your thoughts.

Talk to you soon.

there is no magic word for how i feel

Thrifted Shirt, Vintage Leather Shorts, c/o Rebecca Minkoff Bag, c/o Steve Madden Silver Oxfords, Zana Bayne Harness. It looks like I have a weird rash on my leg but IT'S THE PHOTO FILTER I SWEAR OK

 I was initially reluctant to talk about it (uhm, my being queer) on FP.... it's not that I was ever in the closet, or hiding it from the internet, but FP is a personal style blog and most of my random talking falls into my tumblr. But I have been getting dozens of tumblr asks and emails talking about femme invisibility lately and lesbian self doubt, being uncomfortable with labels, et all and I guess the short of it all is that I've been there too, and I am still there. Being un-straight is hard. For anyone who doesn't identify as strictly heterosexual, we constantly deal with labels, with coming out, with finding others like us, with presentation, with whatever. It is kind of like falling over yourself in the dark, over and over again. Everyone deals with wondering who they like, I guess, but for a lot of queer kids it's not just wondering who they like, but how to translate your feelings about people into a word. Just like, a single word.

Straight kids won't ever have to do that, because their sexuality is normal, represented everywhere, all the time. That is their privilege. They are lucky to have that. Good for them.

Privilege is not something to be ashamed of, and I don't hate straight people, or anyone with privilege.....not on the basis of them having privilege, anyway. It is just imperative that those with privilege acknowledge it. That, of course, is the funny thing about privilege: it's privilege because you don't notice it. It's just there. You don't wonder about it. You don't question it. You dismiss it as the way the world works. Queer kids will never have straight privilege, not in this system, not in this society, not how it is right now, but I mean, it's getting better. But we're still operating under a system where there is one normal, and everyone else is just that: someone else. The other. Queer kids fall into that category.

Now I don't mind being the 'other', and that is perhaps because I don't "look" gay. I don't "look" gay enough to get bullied, I am too femme for people to be like, "look at that dyke," or for people to come up to me and say they've always wanted a gay best friend, or any of that stuff. In fact, lots of people don't realize I'm queer at all. That, you could say, is it's own form of privilege.

I didn't realize there was a word that fit me for a long, long, time. And sometimes there are days that I feel alienated all over again, and I sit lost in thought shuffling through the words that are available: queer, fairy, lesbian, gay, homo, dyke, fag, etc trying to find something that has a ring of meaning to me in it and I can't find anything and I just give up. I do! And I think that is ok. It's scary and weird sometimes, not having a magic word that encompasses who I like, how much I like them, how I like them, and all that stuff the word "heterosexual" or "homosexual" entails, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It's different.

 I think we fear that if there isn't a word to describe us, that it means we don't exist or that something is wrong with us as functioning human beings. But there isn't anything wrong with us, it's the system that is fucked. We're changing it though, by talking about it, by acknowledging that it's fucked, that is has to be better, because we have got so much to lose and so much more to gain.

There are so many more things I'd like to talk to you about, and I will, but for now I just wanted to get this out first. I was at my college QSA meeting the other night and we all discussed this exact topic and I wanted to write down my thoughts, so that people who weren't there but want to talk about these things know they are being talked about, and we can talk about it together if you want. This is so, so long, sorry!!!! Anyway. Thank you, love you, bye.

meanwhile....

Everyone is off at fashion week (including me, this is a scheduled post), but right now I'm totally happy going to class and chilling in my dorm for the time being. I will indeed be attending shows and reporting both reviews and backstage things and attending blogger brunches and photoshoots and whatever, but right now I'm happy being a normal kid. Fashion can wait until the weekend. The balance between being a student and being a "professional blogger" aka "making money off my blog and the opportunities I have gotten from blogging" ("pointless quotations") is often a very precarious one, it always involves sacrifices -- some that I am not entirely willing to make, and my parents are reluctant to support me when I do.

Real talk time: My parents never really liked that I blog. They've gotten used to it -- I mean, it's almost been four years now --  but they aren't the type to let me jet off to Paris for shows even when the opportunity arises. They both worked in fashion for decades before I was born, and they are quite jaded from it and would rather me not be in it, but I never really asked them for their support concerning it anyway. I have a lot of resentment towards them for not letting me do things when I could have, but I'm also grateful they didn't enable me to do stupid shit I probably would have regretted (movies, documentaries, tv series, weird book deals... believe me, I've been offered to do a lot of crap. I could have Snookie on speed dial by now.). I am thankful they would rather keep out of my business than have them become my personal managers, because having to deal with partnerships, and design, and collaborations, and writing prospects all by myself makes me feel like I have control over my identity. It's all me, you know? Not everyone can say that. And my parents, even if they don't exactly like the fact so much of myself is on the internet, they've learned to deal with it because I would still do it even if they forbade me, because I do what I want and that's how I've always been. I follow their lead because I respect them, but when it comes down to it, I go my own way if I believe in the cause.

I've been thinking about how my life has changed since the first time I ever went to fashion week, when I was like, 15 or so, and I'm thankful that I've grown a lot.  Not just as a blogger but as a student and just as a person. I'm thankful people have stuck around and supported me through the changes this blog has gone through. I just wanted to say that before I go off being busy as hell. By the time you see this I'll already be at the shows, but whatevz. I hope you're enjoying my tweets from the tents.

X

the pursuit

 I cannot understand the desire to be normal. Normal is the starting point. You go through things to make you who you are. Different. Something else. Normal means you did everything as expected, you didn’t take any chances, you did what was expected of you in the situation, you didn’t do something away from average, you shed away from the spectacular, the scary, the weird, the awesome, the frightening. why would you do that? why would you want to be average? Average is to conform. I mean literally, the definition of normal is conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? WHAT IS THE ALLURE OF BEING TYPICAL? I am terrified of the typical. I am in a constant race with myself to become different from what I once was, I go through stages of myself, I metamorphose into different caricatures of myself constantly to make sure i am never quite the same as i was before. If i change at least it means i have done something. Sometimes this fear of sameness paralyzes me and I sit in my bathtub with the water too hot and the lights turned off and pretend I am lava and I am melting everything away because then I am nature and I am an unstoppable change and everything is better and I can breathe. 

I relish the thrill of being afraid of my own self, like when I put on an outfit that I know is really strange and I know people will look at me funny or that time I chopped all my hair off and dyed it a thousand colors and everyone looked at me like I was too scary and stopped talking to me. I liked it because it meant I had become the idea of me that I had In my head. I don’t know if i can really explain, but, you know, when you look into the mirror and you see someone and it doesn’t match up to who you are really in your head? My life is a pursuit to figure out who that person in my head is, really. When I was little I think in my head I wanted to be like megan fox, only megan fox didn’t exist yet to me. but I wanted to be normal. And the fact that I didnt look like me, that in reality, in the mirror I was just a skinny as fuck chinese girl with a square face and bad acne... that fact felt unfair to me so I decided if I couldn’t become perfect then I would rebel against it and wreak revenge upon the mirror and the fact it betrayed me and thats what I did. I guess I escaped the mirror and I am glad I did but now i feel sad because i cannot relate to people who still want to be normal.

Normal is losing to me. I don’t want people to understand me, I think, because that means we are the same, and that means I am normal when i’d like not to be. 

Purity Ring- Lofticries from David Dean Burkhart on Vimeo.

I am in a really contemplative mood right now, just cleansing myself of the fear and negativity and resentment I've built up at school over the year. I think I'm ready for the summer and a big change -- I wonder what? -- and just having time to think and relax and stuff. Anyway, I hope everything is going well with you, and that you are happy. I'll talk to you soon.