Photo by Caroline Mackintosh
WORDS by agnès aeberhard, PPC Analyst
“Dress like you are going to meet your worst enemy today”.
I chose to start this non-expert opinion article with a Coco Chanel quote because, you know, who could describe what fashion is any better than who quite invented it?
Needless to say, I am not any kind of fashion guru or style expert. However, I find it thrilling how the fashion industry is always evolving. As I see it, fashion is a way to express how we feel underneath our skin. It’s how fabrics and accessories come to life.
And just like that, stilettos stand for “today, I’m feeling myself”, and a messy bun for “I am not having the best morning so would you please not piss me off”. It’s the art of speaking without words. And this is just what fashion is; a language.
Fashion gives you the power to decide how you are going to feel for the rest of the day. Like “today, I’m gonna rock this leather jacket and a badass pair of heeled boots, and nobody is going to stand in my way”. Bam! From woman to superhero in seconds.
I really think fashion is challenging, but challenging in the greatest way; every morning, you get to be creative with the canvas you know best: yourself.
Personally, I would only need some black pants and a burgundy lipstick to beat that enemy Chanel was talking about.
I usually am a huge enthusiast of all types of creations related to the fashion world, Confessions of a Shopaholic and The Devil wears Prada being my top two favorite of all times. Mostly, because they frequently tackle what a majority of people sees as a superfluous industry with a deeper message than “wear something nice”. Within those plots, fashion represents a safe place when everything else is falling apart. And the value we give to what’s important to us is what really matters in the end, isn’t it?
Carrying on with the role model quotes, Chanel once said, “beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself”. Now could this be any truer? Is there something sexier than self-confidence? I do believe that makeup and clothes are there not to hide the things we don’t like about us, but rather to make us feel confident about them. I am not any different than all the girls out there feeling self-conscious about their body, but a nice dress can make me feel just like I’m walking through Beyoncé’s Crazy in love video. That, is the power of fashion, and it’s a feeling nobody deserves to take away from any of us.
And, as Miranda Priestly would say, “that’s all”.