As fall approaches, the annual spate of “What to Wear to Look Like a Total Hot Tamale This Fall!” articles are starting to proliferate. In magazines and online, fashion rules and trends are popping up like mushrooms. This season, we’re supposed to aim for a “smoky eye,” and jump onboard fashion trends like the 60s miniskirt (heaven forfend!), metallics (ugh), novelty prints (kill me now), neons (noooooooo…..), and pastels (not going to happen).

I’m depressed just reading about it, but then I have a rather jaded approach to the fashion industry in general, and fashion rules in particular.

However, I do have a secret formula that helps me avoid being driven screaming around the bend by it all: I live outside the law.

Quite a long time ago, I came up with this patented Theory of Personal Adornment:

If you’re never in fashion, you can never be out of fashion.

I know, on the surface of it this makes no sense. Until you really think about it.

Let me explain: if you choose your clothing (or your glasses, your makeup, your hair style, your shoes) based on what pleases you,both aesthetically and comfort-wise, you’ll quickly discover that your choices don’t necessarily fit with whatever happens to be au courant.

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And if your choices reflect your own preferences, rather than the ever-changing whims of the fashion industry, you’ll suddenly discover that their fashion rules are irrelevant to you. You cannot possibly be out of fashion, because fashion has no meaning to you. As you pointed out a couple of years ago, this can take you in some amazing, and very freeing, directions.

Fashion rules create desire and fear

This isn’t what the fashion industry wants you to do. Their job, and they’re very good at it, is to convince us that last season’s choices are hopelessly out of date now, and that the only possible remedy is to rush off to the nearest mall and drop big bucks on an entire new wardrobe.

They make their money by creating desire: the desire to fit in, the desire to look hip and of the moment. The desire to buy their stuff, whether it’s miniskirts or leopard prints or metallics.

The flip side of desire is insecurity and fear: fear of missing out, fear of being uncool, fear of looking like that one dork in Grade 12 who didn’t get that elephant pants were no longer a thing, and had been replaced by skinny jeans.

No one wants to be that kid.

Here’s how I side step fashion in my own way:

  1. I never read fashion magazines. I don’t read fashion articles online. I pay absolutely no attention to what’s in, out, hot, new, trending, or about to become big. I don’t care what other people want me to wear. If other people started jumping off bridges, would I do that too? No, I would not.
  2. I buy very little, but when I do get something new, I make sure I really, really, really like it. I don’t just buy it “because it fits and it doesn’t look to bad.” I buy it because I think it’s awesome. Because it makes me grin like a maniac.
  3. I measure an item’s value by using this formula: Price ÷ number of wearings = actual cost. In other words, a cheap t-shirt that cost me $20 and looked like hell after 2 wearings actually cost about $10 per wearing. A woven cotton vest that I bought in 2007 for $180 and have worn at least 100 times and still looks brand new? That cost me about $1.80 per wearing…and it’s still going strong. Within a year, I expect it to be paying me. (Okay, never mind, that made no sense.)
  4. I buy things that make me feel good about myself. Following fashion trends doesn’t do it for me.
  5. I rejoice in the liberation that comes with not allowing anyone else to tell me what I should do.

By the way, as I was writing this, my friend Erin passed through the house. I told her what I was writing, and she said, “You need to title this post ‘Let Your Freak Flag Fly’.”

She’s right. That’s exactly what we all need to do—let our own personal freak flags fly, and to hell with the fashion industry and its minions.

Because on the day when we all stand up and tell the fashion industry where they can stuff their metallic neon pastel animal print 60s miniskirts, we’ll be free. When we all let our freak flags fly strong and proud, we’ll have decided to make our own fashion rules. It’s going to be awesome.

Fashion Rules Need Not Apply was last modified: August 21st, 2014 by Karen Irving

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Karen Irving

6 Responses

  1. Cheryl Reply

    I started wearing long skirts about 20 years ago and have never stopped. Countless episodes of “What Not to Wear” told me I had to bring them to my knee, but I don’t have good legs and never thought that was a better look for me. Now “maxi” skirts are back in, and I’m still wearing the ones I was able to glean over the years of skirts getting shorter and shorter. Occasionally I’ll wear something just below the knee, but there’s nothing like the feel of a skirt swishing around my ankles. Besides, I volunteer at an animal shelter and many small dogs have felt very secure hiding under my skirts!

  2. Camille DeFer Thompson
    Camille Reply

    A teen in the late ’60s, I love the new boho chic styles. But every time I put on a flowy, patterned blouse or skirt, I just look like a cow, despite my slim figure. I’ve resigned myself to a more tailored look. It “suits” me.

  3. Haralee Reply

    Being like a non acknowledged step child in the fashion industry, I sell sleepwear, I get criticized for not having pastels! I know my demographics and a white pair of pjs is not on anyone’s list. Just saying…..

  4. Bouncin Barb Reply

    I’ve been following this methodology my whole life. As a kid my mother “dressed” me. I hated it. Yes, the clothes were in style and pricey but the kids as school weren’t wearing it. I felt out of place. In high school I started wearing what I wanted and while Mom and I had some fierce battles, I won! At almost 54 I dress in my own fashion style and I get compliments quite often. My hair is long, my skirts are shorter and my cleavage shows and I’m comfortable barefoot any day over those fashionable shoes!!

  5. Bouncin Barb Reply

    I’ve been beating to my own fashion drum since I was in high school. As a kid my mother used to “dress” me with what she wanted me to wear. Yes, the clothes were in style and of quality but my friends at school were not wearing them. I always felt like a fish out of water. In high school I finally won a few fierce battles with Mom and wore what I wanted. Mostly blue jeans but I always looked nice. Now at almost 54, my hair is long and beachy, my skirts are shorter, my cleavage shows and my feet are bare 99% of the time. And the compliments flow! Be yourself is and has been my mantra!

  6. Barbara Falconer Newhall Reply

    When my husband and I were invited to an Indian wedding, I thought for the first time in decades, “Oh, dear. I don’t have a thing to wear!” I knew all the women would be wearing magificent saris in bold colors that would wash out my fair complexion. Then I remembered that I owned a Japanes kimono that my mother-in-law brought me from Asia years ago. It had never been worn — till I put it on for the wedding. Here’s how I — and those women in their saris — looked. http://barbarafalconernewhall.com/2013/07/11/when-the-bride-doesnt-wear-white-and-neither-does-anyone-else/

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