I was flipping through style magazines yesterday and thinking about my own desperate closet (heaping with mangled piles of dresses and sweaters that are definitely not in style and it’s questionable whether or not they ever really were), when this thought hit me:

Models wear clothes to make the clothes look good; we, in turn, as consumers and as a society, wear those clothes to make us look good.

There is a difference.

The inputted material does not equate the outputted material. These are not parallel and so, why do we feel the need or the pressure to make them so?

Can we use the inputted material (the fashion industry) as inspiration rather than as supreme rule over the clothed universe, of which we are linked to, simply by wearing clothes?

The fashion world is not necessarily a fabricated fabric reality, but how we react to it is what matters—that reaction is wholly yours if you allow it to be. Individuals will always differ on this subject.

From Marlene Dietrich, actress: “I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men.”

From Seneca: “We live not according to reason, but according to fashion,”

From fashion designer, Karl Lagerfeld: “Luxury bags make your life more pleasant, make you dream, give you confidence and show your neighbors you are doing well,” who also said, “Elegance is a physical quality. If a woman doesn’t have it naked, she’ll never have it clothed.”

I’m suggesting releasing yourself from the pressures of compare-and-contrast.

And so, as I trace the holes lining my favorite sweater that I’ve been dragging around since eleventh grade of high school, I realize that, no, this sweater probably doesn’t look that great but it sure as hell will never leave my closet until the sleeves are missing.

Bottom line: wear what makes you feel good.

Because there are deeper measures of beauty:

“The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It’s the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows and the beauty of a woman only grows with passing years.” ~

~ Audrey Hepburn

And, when you feel good…well, you know what that feels like and that is priceless.

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Assistant Ed: Steph Richard/Ed: Bryonie Wise