Self Love Error 223: Wardrobe Malfunction.

‘Clothes [do usually] maketh the man’ (or whatever that one person said)

I absolutely would not deem myself a stylish person and not in the cute-messy-baggy-clothes-but-still-looks-like-a-god kind of not stylish (which for a while I thought was my category) but in the very literal I do not know how exactly to put clothes together kind of way. I like a few tops, yes. I like a few jeans, sure. But I cannot really define a style from that alone.

My mom has dressed me up for a very long time and it is not a forceful thing or serious thing, it was just always a joint effort on my style, we do the shopping together, come to a mutual consensus on what to buy and my mum puts the clothes together in anyway that she sees fit, which was very fine by me because I trusted her style and still do but it took only a few months by myself to realize that I do not trust my own.

The part about university that I was most excited about was dressing up myself, This whole new fashion world was opened up to me and I was ever so ready to leap in but when I did I, surprisingly, drowned. I struggled with shoes, with shirts and dresses, I was confused and scared. The outfits I was conjuring in my head the night before had collapsed once I put them on. I felt silly with every top, belt, and hair-do, I wasn’t feeling myself at all (Forgive me Onika).

You see I’ve had a lot of style phases- like the ” I’m a child and if I want to wear a rainbow colored pantyhose under this hot pink dress I will.” phase, the very delightful “I’m going to be buried in my ripped jeans otherwise I will not rest in peace.” phase and so on. There are a ton of fashion milestones in my life which have shaped up the incredible mess that I am today and I will only remain grateful for them.

Sometimes I think it is the utter lack of confidence I have in myself, I mean that is usually the number #1 problem. People like to say that it’s your confidence that carries an outfit and the ‘packaging’ and of course I agree, I’ve watched too much “Who Wore It Better?” clips to even think of disagreeing. There are definitely some people that even if they wore a potato sack and one bathroom slippers they would still look absolutely perfect, because they carry the look so well you’d only look dumb for disagreeing with them. Oh what I would give to make everyone look dumb for disagreeing with my choice of clothing.

I’ve tried to fix this the same way I fix all my existential crises- by reading. I went through a great number of articles (2) to only come out with one good theory that did not completely sound like a cat poster. I read somewhere that sometimes you are not honoring your body, in the sense that you need to find out what flatters your body, not exactly get what you like but get what would make your body look nice in its own way. This has to be the ultimate reason for me wearing only high-waisted jeans for the greater part of my life, because I feel that my waist is very low and if I wear normal jeans I would only be betraying my low-waist. Although I think this contradicts the confidence theory because if I’m confident in what I’m wearing doesn’t that mean I’m flattering my body already? But perhaps it also works hand-in-hand; If you find what flatters your body, you’re supposed to like it, then you are supposed to be confident in it because you like it, like a very fashionable chain effect.

Everyone has their style that is unique to them, I state and believe this because I do not think I have ever set my eyes on a really bad fit simply due to the fact that in my head it’s always been; “If this person likes what they’re wearing then what they’re wearing is great.” But then I never like what I’m wearing so does that translate that what I’m wearing is not ‘great’. I tend to feel a certain way about the top or the body fit of the skirt or how my sneakers look on my feet. I have just simply found it exceedingly hard to extend the blind trust I have in other people’s dress sense to myself.

I plan on making myself more comfortable in my body, having fashion icons that look like me, skin wise and body wise on my Instagram and Pinterest and experiment more. Maybe one day I’ll have comfort in my clothes, flatter my body and have the confidence to carry it to the finish line but right now I’m at home and so I am shamelessly going to keep pretending that I am the first type of not stylish.