Days pass, seasons change, and leaves fall. In continual flux, we seek constants to make sense of a life that is always shifting underneath ourfingertips. As we succumb to the unstoppable change, we turn to what we can control- and revel in it. We choose our words, our actions, our outfits with hopes that it will allow us to feel autonomous but, unfortunately, fashion is an old cruel mistress that always favours the trend cycle over feelings. When the seasons change, and the leaves fall, one thing is certain in the world of fashion: all will become enamoured with the lure of a new aesthetic, one that likely won’t last.
Christian girl autumn, brat girl summer, frazzled English woman, clean girl, coastal grandma. Overwhelmed? Feeling sufficiently boxed into a category? With the turn of a new season, and the prospect of new trends, we get to witness the age-old occurrence of fresh fashion becoming the obsession of the public eye. And with social media at its peak, we don’t just see the rise of a new aesthetic, but an invasion of it. No longer is our fashion a matter of our choice, but instead dictated by the internet’s latest obsession.
Yes, trends will always come and go, but the seasonal aesthetics that we live by now seem less like a fad and more like scripture. Not only do they enter into the public domain – they take over it! You get sick of them before the season is even over. But why do we do we confine our creativity in this way? Is creating oppressive aesthetics our method of making restrictions that we feel comfortable in? Can we only be creative within the parameters of something that is on trend? Is the open scope of fashion just too vast to handle? Whether it is a natural effect of the ever-changing trend cycle, or yet another excuse to buy into the influencers’ attempts to thinly veil fast fashion as a necessary evil, when looking at seasonal fashion obsessions, we should question and not purchase. We should ask whether in world that already changes beyond the comfort-level of many of us, do we really need a wardrobe that changes with it? Fashion does not always need to be governed by the leaves falling.
Photo by Adam Neumann on Unsplash