Style and Fashion

  In early middle school I loved the word fashion.

Since 8^th Grade however, style has been my love word for anything clothing related.  

  Why the change of opinion? The answer is simple: I realized the difference between the two.

   Fashion can be bought. It is what you are offered four times a year and every day in between.  The girls and guys wearing only the latest trends, the women who only buy the big names [Gucci, Prada, Channel, etc.] the girls in only Aeropostale, Hollister, American Eagle…all these individuals start to blend together. There is nothing that sets them apart; that shows what makes them uniquely them. If you only wear fashion, what the current trend is, without taking the time to personalize it. You are missing out. Now, I am not saying don’t buy name brands. But wear them in moderation. And I am not giving a bad rap on trends. I love runway. I love the keeping up with seasonal trends.  Through middle school, I realized that plastering myself in trends and name brands was 1. A lot of work for nothing and 2. Super unoriginal. I looked like everyone else. That wasn’t the plan. So I had to figure out how to wear fashion. How to wear the trends and be me.  This is where style comes to play.

  

   Style is personal. It comes form knowing who you are. As Nina Garcia puts it, “Style is a deeply personal expression of who are, and every time you dress, you are asserting a part of yourself.” Style is what you pick out of the fashion, out of the trends, boutique shops, thrift shops, any store that has clothes essentially. Having style means you know how to wear fashion. You know how to incorporate trends to your look. Style is something only you can do for yourself. You can’t take someone else’s style. You can learn from others style, but not take their whole image. That defeats the purpose. Style incorporates trends, and vintage clothing, and name brand clothing, and your average store clothing with personal flair and preference. It is a personal expression of who you are. There is no herd to follow. There are no rules. There are no ‘in’ seasons. Style comes from within. If there is anything absolute about style, it is that it holds you accountable to yourself at every moment. The possibilities and creativity of style are endless.

I’ll go further in to style and how to cultivate it for yourself in a later blog post. I just want to lay out the basic differences between the two before getting into either one.

With Love <3