Because We Live Our Lives In It

There’s a scene I love in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’. A team of stylists, under the eagle eye of editor Miranda Priestly, are putting together an outfit for the latest edition of Glamour Magazine. Andi Sachs, the protagonist and supposed heroine of the story, snickers at the gravity the assorted fashionistas and their assistants afford the situation. Because she’s ‘above’ fashion. Miranda, catching onto Andi’s contempt for fashion, gives her the passive-aggressive upbraiding of the century, culminating in saying that fashion is important ‘because we live our lives in it’.

Although I would hope that noone reading this blog takes their look, or themselves, as seriously as Miranda Priestly does, I can’t stand by her more. No culture in human history could be described as free of fashion. Even when we try to ignore it, or downplay its influence in our lives, like Andi in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, we can’t escape the fact that our very decision to NOT be ‘fashionable’ is, in fact, buying into a certain counter-cultural aesthetic – a fashion - that exists only because fashion does.

This blog is about celebrating the way that we live our lives in fashion. By fashion, I do not mean what is in fashion at the moment – what I mean by fashion is the way that we express ourselves through the clothes that we wear. The way that it can allow us to be a pirate princess, an earth mother, or Sophia Loren, all in the space of a day. The way that it communicates who we are, who we belong to, and who we wish to be, through the placement of a button or the shape of a heel. A fellow fashionista once said to me that whilst other people paint, compose music, sculpt or write, we wear our art every single day. That isn’t to say that we are always spot on and impeccable – I for one am most certainly not – or that every outfit could be described as art. But it is about realising and celebrating that every day, when we get dressed, we have an opportunity to create.

I don’t mean for this blog to be an exposition into the ‘rules’ of fashion – in fact, I will rail against the notion that fashion has rules in a post appearing here shortly. What I mean for it to be is a place where I can share with you my thoughts and experiences with ‘wearing art’, and where you, hopefully, will feel comfortable with sharing your experiences too.

Stay Fabulous,

Peggy Entwhistle

P.S. One final note before we truly get started – you may recognise yourself or things that you have said at points in these blog posts. You’ll know who you are, but, for the sake of keeping your identity a secret (like a fashion superhero!) I will have given you a pseudonym. Likewise, my true identity is pseudonemically shrouded, although if you’ve arrived here through a facebook post it’s likely my cover’s been blown! Nonetheless, let the guessing games begin….