#11: How I Dress Now

Hyperfixation, the food pyramid, and several button-downs.

When I started blogging at the impressionable age of 14, the way I dressed revolved around looks. It was the time of Tumblr, Lookbook.nu, and Polyvore, two of which no longer exist (RIP).

By looks, I mean not only entire outfits but particular people or scenes, in the way a Polyvore board pasted a street-style photo of Alexa Chung or Anna Karina alongside a Breton striped top and denim cut-offs, and Tumblr posts collated gifs of Hope Sandoval and Fiona Apple mid-song. In the early days of my blog, these looks referenced photos, people and stories that I had no actual connection with. Brands started gifting me things, and by then I cared more about photo-worthy outfits than I did standalone pieces that made sense being in one’s closet.

As a teenage girl I was convinced that if I bought the striped tee and wore the ballet flats and cut the choppy bangs, I’d become these women of a very specific (tousle-haired, mostly white) ilk; I saw the things they owned as passports to all their charms and self-deprecating jokes and off-screen relationships. I knew, and therefore cared, little about what actually suited me or made practical sense; when you’re cosplaying someone (as I now realise I was), it’s not about you — even when you’re posting outfits on a blog that is ostensibly all about you.