Personal Style - A Game of References
In a social climate obsessed with individuality, vintage is the perfect opportunity to wear garments that are truly unique. Although, twins can be found in rare instances even with really old garments from the 1930s and 1940s, you are usually the only owner of a particular true vintage item. It's rare for many pieces in a pool of already limited resources to survive for nearly a century. But does that mean, a vintage dress automatically grants you personal style? Personal style somehow seems to be inextricably associated with uniqueness and originality, but as we've come to know with most artistic expressions, nothing is really original. It can't possibly be.
Personal style is, in my opinion, not a question of wearing unique items in themselves, but of references. Or rather, the blending of these into one distilled expression of style. It's a game. In order to use vintage items for your own personal expression, and not just copy what you see elsewhere, you need both knowledge and references. Looking as vintage as possible or historically accurate, has never been my goal with my style, and therefore I seek other devices to convey my aesthetics. This is just my approach, I do me, if your goal is looking as vintage as possible - do you. Avoiding what I don't wish, though, demands some in depth historical knowledge and overview of the aesthetics of the obvious (you probably would need this anyway, to be able to decipher the age of a garment etc.).
I live in a world of movies, mythology, literature, ballet and music - aesthetic expressions of the current, as well of the past. I have an academic degree in philosophy, gender studies, film studies and an MA in film aesthetics - defining expressions in references and searching for context comes natural to me. This is also the case with style and clothing. I love to think, that what I wear has an aesthetic meaning to me and is rooted in a blend of references. All my life, I was obsessed with creating universes. My favorite part of playing mermaids or fairies or unicorns, was planning how we and everything would be like and look like. I loved the mythology around an aesthetic expression. When the actual storyline of the game unfolded, I was basically done playing unless we would visually elaborate on the universe. I'm sure that is the case for a lot of people. How I dress and how I think about dress as an expression, is clearly a continuous behaviour from playing. In fact, it is still playing, but the references have changed and blended into something entirely different. Please be reminded, that my identity is not rooted in my style, but my visual expression is.
Absolutely everyone is drawing inspiration from things, but I have to admit I hate being blatantly copied. I'm sure that's because of an insecurity in me, that someone can just tap into my universe instead of creating their own. That has been both confusing and educational for me with my Instagram account that seems to have inspired and encouraged a lot of people (which is mostly a good thing). It is impossible to avoid and I have consciously put my style out there for everyone to see and take as they like. When people say that my aesthetics are now theirs too, I catch myself thinking: how can it be, if we don't have the exact same references - how can it translate to the exact same expression? Instead of accepting that the superficial translation (that a visual medium like Instagram provides), can mean a lot of things to different people. And if that is the case, no expression is really ever personal to others than yourself. Meaning that it both exists and doesn't exist at the same time.
Personal style is a game. One of playfulness and references. How you play it will change the way people conceive your expression of style, and how you implement meaning into an aesthetic expression.