In some cases. In mine? No thanks, I'm fine for fashion.
Don't get my wrong, I love clothes, I really do. They can make you feel happy, sexy, confident, assured, noticed. They can make you look slimmer, taller, more tanned, curvier and bustier. However, I think there is a very big difference between the clothes you love and your style, and fashion.
I'm not deliberately trying to be unique and different (you either are or you aren't, it's not something that can be created) but I will not have shops/magazines/friends/trends dictate to me what I should and shouldn't wear. All of my clothes were bought because I went "Oooh, I like that, it looks pretty ok on me" and they went on my debit card. The majority of them make me feel good, and when you feel good, hot damn looking good will follow. Even if you are wearing a black bin bag, if you are happy with it, it shows!
I am an avid reader of all the high street glossy magazines. I know they're tripe, but I love them! A bit like Home and Away, but I'm ok with it. I love reading the interviews, reading the crude lies so obviously made up about people, even quickly glancing through the beauty and fashion pages. But I do not spend my time pouring over this week's must have dress, this cannot-live-without clutch bag or impossibly expensive but would sell my soul and remortgage my house to get shoes. It's just not me. There are even these pages set up in which readers can ask where a certain celeb managed to get hold of a top, jumper, necklace. But it begs the question, why would you want to dress exactly like everyone else? What has happened to complete individuality? Does everybody want to look the same? I have some clothes that I don't think anyone else has. And if I do see someone else wearing it, I will (and have done) gone to speak to them and laugh about how good a taste we have. If I see something pretty in a magazine, I say wow, that's quite beautiful, but I will not scour the earth for it.
Maybe it's not fashion I have a problem with. Maybe it's being so dedicated to trends and wanting to be seen as cool and having the latest thing that I have a problem with. I like when people are themselves, good, bad, or indifferent. Who says you have to have an iPad to be a great person? Who needs that heart shaped locket that Fearne Cotton was seen sporting two weeks ago to have a fun personality? Do people think that if they buy the latest things to impress others that they will make new friends? It's the adult equivalent to buying sweets in national school to get someone to hang around with you at break times.
Much and all as most of us like to be seen to be on trend and conforming, we must face up to the fact that we are really all different. We are all unique. Dressing like Kate Moss will not make you look like Kate Moss. If I dressed in half the stuff she is so fantastically able to pull off, I would look like I slept rough for a year. That bed head thing she does so well? I look like I need to go have a good wash. The panda eyed eyeliner look? Looks like I haven't cleaned my face since the night before. But I'm ok with it. I have my own style and my own look.
Maybe it's time to really celebrate that fact, buck the trends, do what we can to be true to ourselves. I like being me. So should you.
p.s. £400 for a pair of shoes???? Ha!
