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Fashion Blog (Archive)
Sunday, May 25, 2003
posted by TheBroadroom.Net at
11:01 PM (Pacific)
I very definitely got my sense of fashion, for what it's worth, straight out of the 1970's. 1970's East Coast, New York style, being more specific.
I don't mean the 1970's fashion as it is now. The current style is superficially the same, but what's missing, is the politics of the '70's. There was a persistent theme of individualism, anti-establishment if you will. I'm not extolling the good old days; you couldn't pay me cash money to go back and live in any past era. It's too easy to forget the bad stuff. But the influence remains.
It's not as if I grew up in New York. I was born on the eastern coast of Virginia and spent the first nineteen years of my life there, until basically I got sick of it and moved to San Francisco. I idolized the New York style though. The notion that you could actually dress any way that you pleased; that you could express yourself through your clothing rather than merely expressing something as prosaic and boring as your social status.
When I first saw how Californians dressed, I was more than impressed. No one...ironed. They just...didn't. It was fantastic. They'd take a cotton dress or a linen jacket, wash it, hang it, stretch it out a little and put it on and go out.
And Californians generally, favored comfort over style. I liked that too.
At one point though...several years ago, after having lived out here for fifteen years...I suddenly returned to my East Coast roots. I don't remember the context. It had something to do with 9/11 but I think it happened before that. It just felt more natural suddenly for me to favor an individual style.
Before that...in my life...I had stood out, but had never felt quite comfortable standing out. When I returned to that old '70's East Coast state of mind, I felt liberated; the concept of expressing yourself through your clothing rather than anything else.
--Josephine
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