If the enemy of art is the absence of limitations, then last week I found myself in a closet full of friends. It was one of those days when I didn’t think I had anything “new” to do with my wardrobe, just the temptation to wear one of my old Hanes men’s undershirts over a ripped pair of jeans and slap some heels on, calling it an outfit. Who knows, maybe that would have worked, but in the moment it seemed so dull that I didn’t even try.

My sister was in town, and we were off to the City to run some errands. Since each day is precious, an opportunity to dress *exactly* the way I want, and made more so by the fact that my sister was with me, I felt this primal urge to find an outfit that clicked. You know, when you pull something together and it just feels right and you’re not sure why or how, but it just does.

A piece of me would have loved to invoke The Fashion Rules that people talk about, like “what to wear on a Thursday when you’re a 5’1″ 32 year old cis-gendered female,” which would likely invoke something about not wearing a miniskirt over a certain age and how to tuck your skinny jeans into ankle boots. I remembered, though, that at my center I’m a bit of a prick and don’t enjoy being told what to do, especially not in terms of how to express myself.

A Loose Use of the Word “Karma”

My mom has crazy parking karma (this is going somewhere, I promise). She’s legendary in the family for it, that and her penchant for making sugar sculptures at family gatherings; really, she’s a renaissance woman. She visualizes Her Spot, exactly where she wants it to be, and more often than not Her Spot is there, waiting for her even in the most crowded of lots. She’s said it’s a muscle to be practiced, the karma improving with repetition – that and whatever offerings she’s been making to the Parking Gods.

I have mediocre to bad parking karma.

Coming Together and Falling Away

However, my Outfit Karma seems to be improving with time – the exercise of constantly creating Some Thing out of discreet pieces, that Thing being bigger and louder than myself or any individual piece of clothing (I say “discreet” in the “finite” sense; there is nothing discreet about this look at all. I also realize that “karma” isn’t really used correctly here, but let’s call poetic license). I gather up my wardrobe and shape it into something, then let it scatter back to the winds (or my closet floor), gather it back up again in a different combination. I then step back with an admittedly bloated sense of accomplishment that I’ve done something new, at least new for me.

Instead of visualizing My Spot, I visualize My Feeling – and then I do what you do with a feeling, for lack of a better description. I feel for it, kind of like when you’re a kid playing with clay and you let it ooze through your gross little kid fingers, not caring that your process is a. Mess.

I take that feeling – say, of wanting to wear a gross, stained undershirt, and ask myself, “what’s the motive behind me wanting to wear a cotton gunny sack? Am I wanting simplicity, comfort, or maybe some cover for whatever bloat I’m feeling today?” After I identify those points, I move on to, “what’s a way of honoring that feeling while doing service to what I’m up to today?”

Intuitive Evolution of a Look

So then then undershirt becomes Rodrigo’s white buttondown [after some failed shirt experiments].

The jeans become faux leather leggings [after many failed pants experiments].

The heels become over-the-knee boots that serve the multiple purposes of adding vertical dimension, texture, and tying the colors together.

The chill necessitated a jacket; the leggings and the boots begged for black, so my old faux leather biker jacket from Anthropologie got thrown into the mix.

Then you step back and realize that you’ve stepped into something that perfectly sculpts on your outside how you’re feeling on the inside and how you’re interacting with what you’re up to in the world that day – even if your creation raises an eyebrow from your snarky sister.

Dump the “Fashion Rules”

This is why I dislike “fashion rules” – there’s no respect for feeling, intuition, individuality, or process, it’s all about product. It’s anxiety-provoking and strips the art away from it all.

“You look like a 90’s Hollywood hooker.” Her eyes slid from side to side when she realized what she’d said. “But, you know, the classy ones. From the movies.”

And frankly, that’s not what dressing is about. Sure, maybe save your sexy clown outfit for a day when you’re not in the office – whatever creepy dressing you do in your down time wouldn’t serve you well in in the context of your career in corporate giving (or whatever your 9-to-5), right? It’s a “whole person” approach that incorporates what you’re up to while you’re wearing your outfit, starting with your core and moving outward.

[I talk more about asking yourself questions, fashion rules, etc in this post]

For the record, before we left the house I asked my sister if my outfit was too much.

Her response?

“You look like a 90’s Hollywood hooker.” Her eyes slid from side to side when she realized what she’d said. “But, you know, the classy ones. From the movies.”

We laughed about that all day.

And that felt right. Thank God I didn’t follow any fashion rules.

love,

Stig.

PS. On a different note, ff you think I went to lunch and didn’t wear a bib over this outfit, you think wrong: