Discipline and Fancy

Photographer: Alex John Beck
Model: Anna Ratchford
Styling: Me.

Tangent:
The idea of personal style as a kind of uniform has become so increasingly interesting to me, especially the more I learn about the industry of aesthetics, fashion, and publishing. We go back and forth between novelty, newness, rage and classics, timelessness, enduring meaning. We talk about—and sell—archetypes. The person who likes this. The person who wears this. We herald women with amazing personal style and then they just become the new archetypes and its nauseatingly oversaturated. Muses and the like, feels fresh for only so long (probably because of the internet). Working where I work and consuming the kind of media I consume, I’m inundated with so much newness and classification, it’s kind of overwhelming.

It’s something that I often talk about with my friends (those who can tolerate me when I get esoteric about fashion). Dressing to whims and feelings and different ideas of myself has long been something I’ve believed in. I’ve always approached getting dressed as adventure-full and wonderful and unlimited and employing inspiration wherever I’ve found it. Having had the quality of being able to ‘pull something off’ was a huge point of pride.

For some reason that feels wrong now. Not wrong, just kind of empty. Before, the idea of narrowing anything down or restricting myself was totally anathema. Maybe now, its because I’m trying to figure out what’s next for me (and I’m taking it out on my wardrobe, which is something I do). Maybe because I’m getting older and the piling of responsibility—both professional and personal—makes me less inclined to run around trying to keep up with TopShop production schedules (bills are bitches when they’re for uninteresting things like gas and mortgage and internet usage). It’s not that I don’t feel that I can get away with dressing like Bianca Jagger one night and Oliver Twist the next. Because for the most part I can. It’s that a part of me, for the first time, is feeling like restraint, and editing down my taste, is somehow more important. Figuring out what works for me and not giving in to capricious whims--not to be rigid, but because of an understanding that they’re kind of pointless. Cathy Horyn talks a lot about the implications of the recession, in ways fantastically more articulate than I. But basically, I don’t want to be the person who wants everything. I want to be exacting.

Styling for me is a huge release because I can enact my sartorial fantasies on someone else. It has alleviated a lot of my desire to ‘pull things off.’ But I think a woman—outside of photographs and editorials—should look smart. And so much of that, so much of taste, is knowing what is integral and what is excess. But mostly, I think personal style should be disarming and decidedly intentional—even if it is the most “effortless” look in the world. Because what’s more effortless than putting on a uniform?