So you like to wear make-up I see, why is that?
For starters I don’t wear a lot of make up but I do think that a little make-up can enhance your natural beauty and improve upon what nature has given you.
How long have you been wearing make up?
13, I probably just started with mascara and lip-gloss, probably lip gloss first. When I was a kid I always read fashion magazines so I probably learned a lot from reading how to trick from things like 17 magazine. I didn’t learn anything about make-up from my sisters but I learned a lot from my mom and I have very fond memories about watching my mom put on make-up when I was a kid.
You mentioned you read a lot of fashion magazines; did this affect what you wore?
Yes, because I always liked clothes and I used to make clothes for my dolls when I was a kid and I even bought a dress I saw in the magazine once because I thought it was cool. I was making clothes for my dolls when I was like 4 or 5, so it wasn’t a stretch when I got into fashion.
Would you say you wear a lot of fashionable clothes?
Yes, with my background in fashion and I always thought that clothes were a really important part of how you are judged, so why not be judged well? When you go l=on a job interview you should look at a persons shoes and their nails, you can learn a lot about somebody.
Why were you into fashion?
I liked the way they looked. I liked to try different looks and changing my look and one of the ways I could do that was through clothing. I guess I am somewhat chameleon like, it was a way for me to express myself through fashion and clothes. And then I did work for a world famous fashion designer, which didn’t hurt so I got into clothes even more with that. After I worked for Vivienne (Westwood), it helped me make sense of what I was putting out in the world and how to play around with my look. It helped me to define and try to hone-in on my style. Working with Vivienne Westwood shaped my fashion sense tremendously. I consider a genius and myself lucky to have been able to work so closely with her.
After talking to my mom about why she likes to wear high-end clothes, I applied a similar lens to myself, asking why I wear what I wear. For the record, what I wear tends to be graphic T-shirts with a pop-art type of image or a comic book-type image. When not wearing one of those, I am wearing a button-down t-shirt, long-sleeve. I wear all of these with jeans. I say that I wear these things because they represent things that I like. However, that is not always true. I have a t-shirt that has a bike on it, and while I enjoy riding bikes the shirt has nothing to do with that. So why do I wear it then? Well, in some regards because of my dad. He always gave me his old clothes as I grew into my middle school and high school years, and I wore many of them for quite some time, including the t-shirt of a bike. In instances like that, I wore these clothes because I thought they were cool. I thought this because I had gotten compliments in my dad’s clothes many times before. So by wearing them, I thought I would look cool.
However, with other clothing selections, the reasoning changes. The only clothes I feel that I do truly wear because they are comfortable is jeans. Jeans are sturdy, don’t get too visibly dirty, and I can throw them on day after day if I really want to. So those I wear because of comfort. However, in the last year I have started to wear button-down shirts, which I used to hate. I wear them now because I think I look good in many of them. This logic applies towards all of fashion though so it isn’t exactly revolutionary. The entire fashion industry is based on trying to look cool and to look your best. This makes fashion a very superficial business, but it can seep down to a deeper level. For example, going back to the button-down shirts, I often wear them because they make my girlfriend happier (I think), because I look nicer in them and it shows I am making an effort. This is a little thing that doesn’t impact me in many ways but it can have a chain reaction that I feel is worth it. I think that the whole process becomes subconscious but leads to things later on. Many things are like this, a lot of the ways of disguising ourselves or acting a certain way because we “like it”. We don’t actually like the act itself, but rather the consequences and what it leads to. This is arguable, but often true and is a matter of opinion.
Your analysis of Schwartz was strong. I think you could have explored more the contrast between this playful "whatever" charmer and the context (death and funeral). What was Tolstoy saying about cool by placing this character so prominently in the beginning of the novella?
ReplyDeleteThe analysis of your fashion struck me as honest. That seems sweet, that you wear your dad's clothes. Does it feel sweet to you?
Please avoid in all future writing the phrases "this is arguable" "and is a matter of opinion". Unless your readers lack intelligence, in the same way that broccoli might, we already understand that what you're saying states your opinion and we already grasp that you probably understand that too.