The Matrix
This movie was my introduction to androgyny. Trinity was dressed no different than the men in the movie. She wore a lot of grey and black. Sweaters had rips in them and it was a non-issue for both the genders. Boots were utilitarian. She is athletic and successful on her missions. This was a start of my adoration for women in sci-fi films. They aren’t ornamental. They don’t spend their time decorating themselves. That, in itself was a revelation for the young woman I was.
Dagney Taggart from Atlas Shrugged
“Lillian moved forward to meet her, studying her with curiosity. They had met before, on infrequent occasions, and she found it strange to see Dagny Taggart wearing an evening gown. It was a black dress with a bodice that fell as a cape over one arm and shoulder, leaving the other bare: the naked shoulder was the gown’s only ornament. Seeing her in the suits she wore, one never thought of Dagny Taggart’s body. The black dress seemed excessively revealing – because it was astonishing to discover that the lines of her shoulder were fragile and beautiful, and that the diamond band on the wrist of her naked arm gave her the most feminine of all aspects: the look of being chained.”
The Explorers
Men and women who travel and/or do field work became my heroes. War movies, Nat Geo, photographers, climbers, explorers, journalists, … set the tone. Out of Africa, The English Patient, Inglorious Bastards, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Tarentino movies, Samurai movies, Arizona’s cowboy culture, … became “exotic”. Buying clothes for their durability and mobility factor – and look stylish is a plus.
Monsieur Yves Saint Laurent
Someday, I will find the right words to pay my homage to him. I am a fan girl. He helped me understand the meaning of the world ‘style’.
French Chic
Dead Fleurette ( a defunct blog )
‘when in doubt, size up’
‘every item is my fav’
Minimalism isn’t an endless parade of things and OOTDs. She was the first minimalist I read. Her’s was the first curated closet I saw. I have never seen such meticulous style of building a closet. Every garment was there to serve a purpose and she took her time finding the right one to suit her needs. You will ofcourse have limited outfits but that is an advantage. You put your mind towards other things. You figure this wardrobe stuff out and move on to other passions. Minimalism is not an endless parade of things. True to that, she quit blogging after.
HELENA
Garance Dore posted this image 5 years ago. And something clicked in my head. A silk shirt worn with black pants is all I need. My shirts are navy blue in color.
Mimi Thorisson
Uniforms are often boring and utilitarian.It never occurred to me that I can wear a uniform that I choose for myself . To be able to pick your favorite garment and wear variations of it everyday – simplified my closet. All my dresses are navy blue and similar in cut. All my shirts are navy. Most of my pants are black. I wear my most favorite outfit every single day.
Taj
I wasn’t born loving worn in things. When I was 10, I begged every aunt of mime to buy me patent shoes because they were shiny. Over time, something changed. This image helped me see ‘worn in’ as something intimate. Why should one be ashamed of wearing your old things ? If anything, one should be ashamed of consumerism. I would like my shoes to look like her pair. Some hours of internet search later, I found Yohji Yamamoto, Rei, Margiella, Vivien Westwood, Rick Owens, Ivy Style, worker wear, wabi sabi, ….
My work
In Computer vision, we train algorithms to understand information from imagery using Artificial Intelligence. For one project, we got an eye tracker and observed how humans see and look at things. How does the eye scan an image? Why does it spend more time on object A than object B ? How much time does it spend on the background vs the foreground ? Busy frames almost ‘overwhelmed’ the eye. The photos with minimalist aesthetic helped it focus better on what ever is in the foreground. After analyzing millions of images, I value simplicity and minimalism even more.
Photography
The camera teaches you a new way of looking at the world. Everything is a frame. Having visual clutter in it annoys the hell out of it. Having ‘n’ clutter inducing objects next to each other is a cacophony. My presence in the frame should add serenity and simplicity instead of adding to the busyness. Neutrals are soothing to the eye. High contrast details is not something I want to add to the frame and thereby competing wth the landscapes I reside in. On one hand, the camera strengthened my need to dress minimalist. On the other hand, photography teaches you the opposite. If you are judging whats in the frame and rejecting what you don’t like, you will take a photograph that is true to the environment. You will never see beyond your perspective. You will never present anything other than your perspective. Your photographs become one dimensional – they become about you than the content you are trying to present. A photographer needs to not be dismissive about his subjects. She needs to adore them to make good art. This applies to style as well. There is no ONE good style. While you choose what you want to wear, you should admire every other kinds of dressing to appreciate choices made by humans around us.
Margaret Howell styling
Simple garments worn with dignity – is enough.
Sofia Coppola
I like the balance between style and fashion in her dressing. This amount of fashion is enough. It’s mostly style. My ratios are similar.
Jane, Deluminators.blogspot.com
” I’m trying to stop thinking about what is “flattering”. There’s no such thing as flattering or unflattering clothing. There are only societal expectations of what women’s bodies are supposed to look like, and how much we want to comply with them. Ever since I stopped trying to do things like make my waist look more defined and my legs look longer, I’ve found it a lot less stressful to dress. “
These are the dots I can identify so far. In the recent years, I have been enjoying all things blue, vintage worker wear, my own old clothes, everyone else’s worn in clothes, my partner’s clothes, the way gardeners dress, the way environmentalists I know dress, …. I no longer follow fashion or the outfit making bloggers. Beyond a basic understanding of combinations, OOTDs are noise and can fuel consumerism. “I don’t need another coat but I can use it in that combination of an outfit and it will look great”, is a common consumption fallacy. It has become all about the garment I already own and how I feel inside it. I have fallen in love with a color and my own clothes.