Ten Reasons to Love Fashion

Source – Vogue Magazine April 2012

The only closet essential now is a healthy sense of self. It’s a great time for women who love fashion. – Vogue Magazine, January 2012

It’s easy to love to hate fashion.  It’s completely superficial and filled with people so unpleasant that movies are made around how awful they are. There are certainly negative aspects to the fashion industry. Issues like young girls becoming anorexic due to the unrealistic aesthetics of the media and the ecological fall out from apparel and textile manufacturing are certainly a problem.  Still, I love fashion.  I love it so much I have spent most of my life designing, sketching, reading, watching, shopping for and obsessing over clothing and trends. Instead of dwelling on the unpleasant aspects of the fashion world I thought it would be fun to find some positive things about this aspect of life that I love so much. Here are ten things I love about fashion, clothing and style.

1. The clothing we wear is often our most powerful and obvious form of personal expression. What we choose to wear tells everyone what type of person we are and what we think of ourself.
2. Clothing covers our bodies, protects us from the elements and keeps us warm.  Fashionable clothing does so in style.
3. Fashion shows are an entertaining spectacle unlike any other kind of performance art.
4. Fashion boosts the economy and creates jobs for a huge number of people, from the designer who sketches the original concepts, to the outfitter who manufactures the clothing, to the salesperson who sells the garment to us.
5. Whether I shop online, at a department store, small boutique or thrift store, finding new clothes is fun.  I love welcoming new items into my wardrobe, wearing them, and delighting in how they update everything else in my closet.
6. Shopping malls offer safe, pleasant and free (except for parking fees) community centers where people congregate and enjoy themselves.
7. Window shopping is a fun way to get new ideas and become inspired.  Best yet, it’s free!
8.  Apparel is reusable and recyclable.
9.  Fashion is cyclical.  If you hold on to something for long enough it will go from being fashionable, to being a bit out, to being really dated, to being in fashion again. (If you didn’t see it before, check out my 20 year old Norma kamali suit that I recently removed from the attic and placed back in my closet.) If you invest in good quality clothing you can conceivably wear them for many decades.
10. Fashion photography is a gorgeous art form and you don’t have to go to a museum to see it, just pick up a Vogue magazine for your daily dose of visual inspiration.  The photo, above, is from the April 2012 issue.

How do you feel about fashion?  Do you agree or disagree with my list?  What would you add to it? Let me know in the comments!  I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

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