For a long while now there's been a backlash building against the street style frenzy at Fashion Weeks around the world and I've been awkwardly aware that for many I'm most likely seen as an example of what they feel is wrong with the industry, typecast into a parading peacock let loose for the week, before retreating to a dull world where I couldn't possibly continue to wear the same things.
In February last year I turned up to London Fashion Week in a lolita dress I adored and my first wig, which had arrived two days before- a pretty pink and lavender blend with delightfully bouncy curls, which is the kind of hair I wish I had been born with but sadly wasn't. I put it on and immediately felt joyful because I quite simply felt like myself. I wear the same clothes for a day in town, to visit an art gallery or to meet up with friends. Sure my outfits vary from relative simplicity to over-loaded with accessories, depending on what I've got to do that day, but you're not going to catch me in jeans on my day off.
Whenever I get dressed my aim is to wear something that will make me happy. In doing so, as well as compliments I have to face random outbursts of laughter, exclamations of "What the @*#$" and not-so-surreptitious phone snaps. I can't say I like it but I would rather dress to please myself than go out in an outfit I just don't like myself in and that makes me uncomfortable. Is it really so wrong of me to make my day a little brighter by wearing lovely things? The attitude is not limited to strangers but also extends to fellow bloggers and fashion industry professionals. More than once I have found sneaky, and sometimes immensely unflattering, snaps of myself in publications, obviously taken to invite their readers, subtly or unsubtly, to mock what they see.
Turning up on the cobbles that morning at LFW I had no idea how much attention I would get. This may seem naive of me but I'm fully aware I don't have model looks, a sample size figure and a wardrobe full of Céline, and in a way it was a really lovely surprise to see the industry support a wide range of styles. It would be disingenuous of me to say I don't get a little thrill when I find myself in the street style gallery but that's not why I picked the outfit. I go to London Fashion Week to support amazing designers and I feel so honoured to get to see their shows. I'm amazed by the wonderful support and press I have received and I'm so grateful for the opportunities that have come my way.
Today my picture appeared in the
Sunday Times Style magazine alongside an article by Laura Weir despairing that "street style is more about attention-seeking than anything a sane person might wear". So besides the fact that my sanity is apparently in question, I'd like to express a few thoughts from the point of view of a so-called 'peacock'. I don't assume or expect that every single person will like my style, whether it's a fashion editor at a show or a stranger in the street in my hometown, but what I do want to express is that just because a person's style seems outlandish to you does not mean it isn't genuine.
I'm sometimes met with a disbelief that I actually dress like this by choice- sadly Angelic Pretty is not giving me clothes to promote them at industry events and yes I do dress like this for life beyond blog posts. This last London Fashion Week I was flummoxed as to what I was going to wear even the day before I headed down to the capital, which was somewhat problematic as I couldn't pack my entire wardrobe into one suitcase. Funnily enough the outfit which appears in
Style was the most last minute of them all, decided that morning out of what I'd packed.
Blogger and UK Vogue Talent Contest Winner 2011 Rosalind Jana expressed some of her thoughts on the street style phenomenon in her post
People Take Pictures of Each Other, which is well worth a read. One very interesting point she made is whilst "'high-fashion’ fans of the dressing up box such as Daphne Guinness, Zandra Rhodes or the late Isabella Blow are celebrated for their innovation, those who do not have the name to match their outrageous ensembles are often criticized". In
Style Weir concedes that there are "those not so desperate to be seen. Take Francesca Burns, the fashion editor at British Vogue, who clashes a Meadham Kirchhoff patchwork fur with Prada flatforms at the shows with no intention of being photographed- it's just the way she dresses."
I find the phrase 'real women' an incredibly irksome one because it implies that only women with curves are 'real' and waifish models are not actually, you know, 'real', when I would wish that all women would be allowed to feel comfortable in their own skin. What is this elusive magic that makes @Oscarprgirl or @Marinalondon "the real deal" compared to anyone else who looks at their wardrobe and picks out an outfit? In Weir's article she quotes Alex Fury, the editor of
Love magazine, saying "Pay no attention and they'll stop doing it soon enough.", which makes the assumption people get dressed purely to create a spectacle- what if people actually dress like this simply to please themselves and not for a so called "fashion circus".
Thanks to the phenomenon of street style photography there will undoubtedly be a few people who dress up solely for the purpose of trying to be photographed at Fashion Week. I'm not going to deny it, but perhaps some of these so-called peacocks are just as genuine and "real" as someone in a classically chic tweed Chanel jacket. Who are we to say they're not simply trying to express themselves through clothes just as much as the next person?
Is this Fashion? I reply: does it have to be? Street style photography was never about the pristine designer looks perfectly coordinated for the models, but capturing a sense of individuality. We don't all have to dress the same, but we may as well be able to dress to make ourselves happy or what's the point of it all?
