Muses of Summer

Summer is a time of innocence, merriment, and adventure. While my fall dress code tends towards the grunge era of my hometown (Seattle), my summer style champions a tender prettiness of centuries past.



Long before the 3D movie came out, Lewis Carol's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass provided me with a template for how I should wear clothing. Alice's innocent wonder of the ever changing world around her continues to inspire the way I view life and style. When you stop being amazed by your surroundings life stops being fun. Alice's little blue dress and head-banded locks create the perfect silhouette for the days when all I want is adventure in the great wide somewhere.













Las Meninas by Velazquez also inspires child-like wonderment and delicacy. Fashion today is so much about being tough, defensive, sexy. Summer is a break from school, a break from defending my intelligence, a break from being a complete grown up. Las Meninas brings me back to a time of aristocracy, naivete, and delicate extravagance. The young Infanta Margarita poses for a painting, surrounded by maids, body guards, and extravagance far too excessive for her young age. I love this painting because it is a painting of a portrait in progress. Margarita's demeanor of a little girl trying (and succeeding by blood alone) to appear important enough to be immortalized in paint reminds me of the days i dressed up in my mother's panty hoes and pearly and pretended to be important. Las Meninas reminds me that we're never too old to play dress up, never too young to be insignificant.

An Academic's Spin on the Fun and Frivolity of Fashion (and apparently alliteration)

YSL 1970

Clothing can be as simple as the cloth on your back, as individual as a personal statement and, every once in a while, as transcendent as a work of art. I don't want to sound like some vain little girl cooing over designer jeans and ugg boots. Clothing trends, while fun, do not embody true style- they are fads. Fads are part of our consumer culture: They have no meaning, no purpose, no end goal- except to make us buy more.

True style is different from fads on two levels.

The first is that true style, unlike fads, doesn't require you to buy more all the time. The perfect pair of heels, your favorite trench coat, or that fitted black sweater, can all be worn year after year and remain in style. Don't get me wrong- fads are fun- but they aren't as honest as true style. From time to time I'll discuss current trends, but you should know my love of clothing is deeply rooted in minimalism, not frivolity.

On a second level, style differs from fads in its ability to transform textiles into art. In my opinion, clothing can absolutely be art. Alexander McQueen's 1995 "Highland Rape" show is an excellent example of a designer's ability to turn clothing into a political and artistic statement worthy of acclaim outside the runway. Non-political art also had its place in art museums. To my, fashion can encompass architecture, sculpture, canvas, and performance art all at the same time.

So on one hand, style should be minimalistic in our every day lives. On the other hand, fashion can be an extravagant if not absurd piece of art brought to life when it kisses the body. And then there's fads...but that's for another blog.

Chanel 2009