feeling unmotivated in the fashion space

 Recently, fashion has been such a blase topic, that no one wants to talk about it anymore. There are so many microtrends, fast fashion horrors, and the constantly changing social media space. What does that mean for the fashion of the individual, though?

I am a person who always expresses an interest in fashion, whether I've had style or not. For example, the outfit on the right was my favorite outfit of all time in 2017. I thought it was the most stylish pair of garments I owned. I don't think I would ever wear this today. 

Arguably, everyone has style, you just have to find the one that suits you best. Or so I thought. 

In this photo to the left, I am only 13 years old, so I am giving myself a little slack. But, what really goes into 'style'?

This is going to be a lot more droning on and on but just work with me. I promise I will try to articulate myself properly. I also got super inspired when I watched this video essay by Mina Le, talking about the evolution of her personal style, so you should watch that, too. 

We can not talk about this without talking about the impact of social media and how it changes our needs and wants. At this point, it's pretty obvious that social media impacts our mental health, especially young people, who are easily influenced by creators on these apps that tell you what is "in" or "out". I should know, I am super guilty of this.

As a person who grew up watching creators like Bestdressed and Emma Chamberlain, it just seems like you need to constantly be purchasing clothes and keeping up with trends that are set by people like them. The thing is, I don't blame them either. They probably felt the need to constantly keep up with this never-ending, vicious cycle that forced them to keep buying clothes to stay on top of trends. In fact, I know that this is true because both of these creators have taken a massive step back in recent years and stopped uploading as frequently, or entirely. As for Emma Chamberlain--who is the person who uploads sometimes-- does not post content about hauls, but more about living a minimalist lifestyle in some regard

This is also unrelated, but both of these women have gone on to pursue a high fashion career, and now I see them at fashion shows all the time. I love them. 

At the time of their YouTube prime (late 2010s--early 2020s), this was the normal kind of video for creators to make that was relatable content. But recently, I've seen both of them talk about their openness of feeling the constant pressure to purchase clothes they didn't even wear for an Instagram post, just to never wear them again. This naturally leads to the death of personal style. They aren't even wearing clothes because they like them. This has now trickled down to individual people, like me. 

I often find myself scrolling through Pinterest, saving outfits to my outfit board because I think they are cute. I recently scrolled through my outfit board, and I don't think I would wear about half of what is there. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. You can acknowledge when someone looks good in something, without thinking you would wear it too. 

The real issue to dive into here is how can you develop a personal style right now? Should you even bother with a personal style? 

I would even go on to argue that the phrase "personal style" is dying to clarify my stance on the matter.

Personally, I have felt so bored with my clothes and how I wear them. So much to the point where I don't even want to bother trying to thrift or buy new clothes, let alone explore my options within my wardrobe. This is where I get confused, because why does it feel so tired already? Why is my brain conditioned to feel this way about clothes I bought only two months ago? 

I think my answer to it all is that everything is too overwhelming all the time. By this, I want to clarify that there is too much noise that prevents us from truly pursuing what we find interesting. The number of videos I've seen of wonderful women asking what the next big trend is is actually killing me a little. I would rather have you purchase something YOU like than fit in with a trend that will probably only last two months anyway! There are too many things that are in our faces telling us what to wear and where to buy it, that everything that isn't exactly on trend feels wrong, or boring. 

It is not that brave to say we need to stop overconsuming mass social media content, we all know it at this point. But, it is important to acknowledge it and point it out. Let's all become more digitally literate in 2025. 

There was not that much I had to say that would necessarily add to this conversation, just mostly repeating the things I've learned from others. However, I want to hold myself accountable when I say I will stop caving into trends just because they are popular and really start to understand what I actually like and what actually looks good and feels good. 

That's pretty much all I have today, until next time! Happy New Year!! We made it. I hope to write lots more on this blog in the upcoming year, and I will hold myself to it!