The last year has been lonely to say the least, but it’s also been kind of freeing and exploratory. I don’t think I’ve ever spent this much time alone or outside of the expectations of the world. In my piece An Everyday Look, I wanted to create an outfit that felt like a reflection of that change. If I could go out to a party tomorrow and show who I’ve become, this is how I would want to look.
In the last year I’ve began making my own garments whenever possible, which is an interesting process. You’re no longer just investing money into something, you’re investing time. You spend hours if not days looking at it, analyzing each choice hoping it’ll turn out. This meant that for a garment to be worth making it had to be something that I’d truly love and preferably something I couldn’t just buy in a store.
Between that and buzzing/dying my hair I look like a very different person from who I was going into all this. And that’s scary. There’s this vulnerability to falling outside of who people see you as, you no longer have a disguise on, and everyone can judge what was sitting below the surface. You start to wonder if you’re worth the prying eyes, if you should tone it down so that people don’t waste their time looking. But then I remind myself that being me isn’t inherently selfish, it’s just another way to exist.