September arrives, and apparently my personality needs a new silhouette. There are colors I should be wearing, decades I should be referencing, and several versions of womanhood available for immediate purchase. Somewhere, a woman who has never met me has decided what I must stop wearing to remain myself. I admire the confidence.
I love fashion. Give me a dramatic hat, a ruby with unreasonable ambitions, or a jacket that appears to have negotiated its own contract. Dressing can be one of the great pleasures of having a body: choosing how to meet the day before the day starts making suggestions.
But there is a peculiar arrangement in which we are encouraged to “find ourselves” every few months, preferably at full price. How often can a person discover her authentic identity before she suspects someone is moving it?
Personal style begins where the trend report loses jurisdiction.
There is a difference between the thrill of seeing yourself differently and the anxiety of believing your current self has expired. You can feel it in the dressing room. One garment makes you curious. Another makes you start apologizing to the mirror. Pay attention to which conversation you are having.
Wear the invitation, not the instruction.
The most interesting people do not dress as evidence that they understood the assignment. They wear memory, contradiction, humor, inheritance, fantasy and weather. They repeat beloved pieces without treating repetition as failure. They allow clothing to amplify a mood without appointing it permanent head of state.
A trend can be an invitation. It can offer a color you had forgotten, a proportion you had never considered, or permission to enjoy what once seemed impossible. The trouble begins only when invitation becomes instruction—when delight is replaced by the fear of appearing outdated.
Nothing is wrong with changing. Nothing is wrong with staying recognizable to yourself. The wardrobe is a studio, not a witness stand. Try the strange sleeve. Keep the ancient boots. Let one version of you speak to another without demanding that either disappear.
My personality is not seasonal. My clothes may visit the weather, flirt with a decade, borrow drama from a runway and return home carrying ideas. But the person wearing them is not old inventory. She is the one making the choices.