This spring, show your Wilde side and redefine fashion

Kidnapped by Style: "The Satorialist": Reclaiming the power of innovation for all

Sometimes confessions are necessary to move forward, so I will go ahead and get this out of the way: I am not an innovator, at least not all of the time. Sure, there are times when I'll put an outfit together that no one else might think of (and, admittedly, sometimes with good reason), but there are other times when I look for inspiration as fervently as everyone else. At such times, images from magazines, newspapers, and news sites come to mind. What was Colin Firth wearing in In Bruges, and why did it seem to fit his character so well? What was Michelle Obama wearing on election night? Was it from J. Crew? However, the age of information offers more specific portals to sartorial thought.

Kidnapped by Style: If not for your fashion, stand out for your passion

On Wednesday I watched two very interesting presentations consecutively, exiting each with the same conclusion about their style, but not their fashion. First, I saw a painter present his work as though the presentation served the role of a job interview, which in a sense it did since Bowdoin is currently hiring for a professor to fill the role of two people on sabbatical. Normally, I would expect someone coming in to interview for a job to dress as if interviewing for a job—at least a button-up shirt, tie, suit jacket, dress pants. This is what the Career Planning Center (CPC) conditions us almost-graduated seniors to do, isn't it? So I was surprised to see a man in a casual jacket, button-down shirt, and jeans standing at the front of the room.

Kidnapped by Style

This spring, show your Wilde side and redefine fashion

March 27, 2009

In this column, I strive to offer sources of stylistic inspiration from outside the Bowdoin Bubble: magazines, blogs, experience in different cities and countries. Admittedly, some forays are more inspired than others. My column on novelty boxers is more my plea to humanity to cut it out than "inspiration." However, I do think, since the season threatens to change ever so gently, that I should address questions not as of yet covered by my column: "What is style?," "Why does it matter?," and "Why should anyone care?"

I've met people that say, straight out, "I don't have style." I don't necessarily believe this to be true. But having style does matter because it pervades one's every perception of another. Although this stance may seem like a subjective one, a sense of one's own style or one's own fashion is something that every person has and uses daily. The word "style" can encompass everything from clothing and fashion, to the way an individual holds his fork at the dining hall, to one's manner of speaking, or even something as subconscious as an individual's walk.

For the purpose of this column I will stick to the definition of style that involves clothes. Everyone wears clothes, and those clothes send some sort of message about who an individual is. In this regard, even if you pay it no mind, you have style and you have fashion. As Oscar Wilde writes in "An Ideal Husband," "Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear." You wear what you have worn and know. However, Oscar Wilde's insight is not necessarily meant to make one stylistically complacent; it is a perspective that empowers everyone and anyone to try anything new.

Even Bowdoin has a specific style different from other colleges and other places. Some readers may be familiar with a recent Curia article I wrote titled, "The Bowdoin Dress Code" where I decry Bowdoin's lack of fashion variety. In it, I state, "We are a college of two, basic fashion extremes: the J. Crew/Banana/Abercrombie/etc. crowd, then the subset that dresses for the possible Great Outdoors." It is a culture of "conformity," some commented. While I still believe this may be true, I recently had the opportunity to spend some time at a few other colleges up and down Rt. 95. Without naming names and incriminating peer institutions, I can now safely say that Bowdoin is no more conformist than any other college. In fact, it is definitely less so, and better for it. But that only means there is more room within Bowdoin for the Bowdoinite to move around, and there is an obligation to explore the possibilities and search ways to avoid conformity.

Perhaps the most compelling reason why anyone should care about style at this juncture is that spring is (getting) here. With the changing of seasons comes the perfect opportunity to try out something you've never tried before. While winter weather seems to enable (and the resulting depression compels) people to put on a medley of mismatched clothing and allows people to get away with a bit of sloppiness by covering it with a thick winter jacket, once you lose the jacket the clothing underneath suddenly matters. The flannel and long underwear go away for good, and brighter, happier people emerge from beneath it. People can dust off the shorts and t-shirts that have been sitting in cold (very cold) storage and expose them to fresh air once again.

After reading a few blogs and magazines the last few weeks, however, I've been relatively unimpressed by the new spring styles. They seem to be a regurgitation of what's already at Bowdoin: button-down shirts with zip-up sweaters and jeans don't seem very revolutionary, thank you very much Esquire Magazine.

But it doesn't really matter what the sources that give "style advice" say: The onus falls upon the wearer, not the "expert." Don't be afraid to keep some of the lighter sweaters out from winter, and those lighter jackets you used last year are probably still serviceable. In fact, since the pieces of clothing that were "in" last year still seem to remain somewhat fashionable, last year's clothing can be recycled and reapplied in different combinations, and in different uses. Try anything out. Beside, "fashion is what one wears oneself."

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