ELEMENTS OF STYLE
THE GOLD STANDARD
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THE GOLD STANDARD 〰️
PART XVII
Imani Smith
6.14.22
While I was growing up, my insecurities were crippling in more ways than I could comprehend at the time. They spoke louder than I ever could, and they steered me into several ditches. I built bonds on foundations of making fun of other people. - gleefully. My favorite way to ‘make fun’ was to lazer focus on what other people were wearing. Picking apart looks from head to toe. Criticizing everything from the brands to the color combinations to the inseams of their jeans. Of course, I wasn’t the only one who engaged in this kind of behavior, I wasn’t laughing by myself, but I did it exceptionally well. It wasn’t just a pastime for me, though. It truly was a lifestyle.
When you’re school aged, you’re often hellbent on blending in and you want nothing more than acceptance from your peers. My ideas about what was and what wasn’t acceptable were beyond rigid and weren’t even rooted in my own beliefs. How do I know this? I know this because I hadn’t even started to develop my own true beliefs until many years later, well into my adulthood. My opinions were a combination of what I subconsciously absorbed from every piece of media that I consumed, the deeply ingrained views of my elders and my own ignorance from the overall lack of life experience. My warped viewpoints about fashion and style weren’t entirely my fault as a child but the ways in which I broadcasted them were 100% creatively directed and produced by me. The sad truth is that some people don’t see any of what I’ve just described as a problem, and they never make the effort to ‘grow out of it’.
When you know better, like truly experience a transformation in mindset, you will do better. I’ve had to do years of personal work in therapy, in fitting rooms and every place in between to unlearn so many values and concepts that I treated like law. In that same vein, I had to learn just as many new concepts and values for the very first time. At no point in time, when I was talking down on others about their style choices, was I ever fully pleased with my own. Those were dots that took me a number of years to connect but once I did, I never regressed back into that pattern of behaviors.
If you’ve ever met me and actually listen closely when I speak, you’ll notice that I very rarely express many opinions about other people’s style choices- negative or positive. When I have a compliment bubbling on my lips, I let it flow. I allow myself to bask in the beauty of a well-crafted ensemble but sometimes, I honestly don’t have anything to say. My silence doesn’t always equate to disapproval. Whether someone knows that I’m a stylist or not doesn’t actually matter. My opinions aren’t the gold standard for style, and I know that my sensibilities aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. I’m a human being, a work in progress, who is learning and growing on a daily basis. For those reasons, not everyone’s style choices need my approval and at the core of my being, I find great comfort in that fact. I’ve released myself from the shackles of compulsively making other people’s style my concern.
I find it SO ironic that you only hear remarks like “everyone looks the same (these days/in this city/etc)” from people who also happen to look exactly like the folks that they’re referring to. If you’re fully immersed in your creative process while you’re creating your own looks, you might find yourself having considerably less time to make sweeping judgments or snide remarks about how ‘everyone else’ is looking.
Whenever I have the displeasure of hearing those kinds of sentiments, in my mind, it does nothing but reinforce the importance of having a strong sense of personal style. Relying purely on trends to sustain your appearance is an endless and exhausting endeavor- mentally and financially. It’s important to consider the fact that familiarity breeds contempt. It’s a cliché for a reason. Once a trend hits its tipping point and you start to see it everywhere you turn, it loses its appeal. If you live by the trends, you’ll die by the trends. If you’re dressed with intention and every choice that you’ve made for your look is rooted in your individual preferences and values, you won’t have to live in a perpetual state of fear of judgment.
I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again and again until folks hear me: Style is not a spectator sport. If you’re not actively trying new things, curating and editing your wardrobe and keeping in touch with yourself you’re fighting a losing battle. If you could do all of the shopping for the rest of your life by the end of today, would you do it, knowing that you could never shop again? Would you fully trust your current self to dress every iteration of your future selves? I, personally, would not. Why? Because I’m constantly evolving and as a result of said evolution, so is my style. My mind will change. My body will change. My life will change. In the face of all of these imminent changes, I’m comfortable with the fact that my clothes will change, as well. Whenever I am irreversibly inspired by beauty or tragedy, my style will be affected, as will yours.
One of my favorite parts of my style evolution is that I no longer feel obligated to give my intellectual property away for free. I have reached the point where my opinions, guidance and suggestions require payment before they’re accessed. The work that I’ve done to transform from a shady and insecure child to a woman with knowledge and solutions hasn’t come easily but with the fruits of that labor, I get to not only feed others, but I get to teach them how to feed themselves.
Not everyone is going to love every single thing that you wear. You may not even love every single thing that you wear after some time has passed but that’s okay! When you’re tapped into yourself and quieting the noise around you, you’ll be able to hear your own voice. My job as a holistic wardrobe stylist is to help you listen to and trust yourself enough to acknowledge your comfort zone and then expand it. Before you know it, you’ll be too busy fantasizing about curating your next authenticly unique look to even acknowledge an unsolicited opinion about your current one.
