All my life I was surrounded by alternative subcultures. My dad listened to grunge regularly, along with many other forms of rock created between the 70's and 90's. Meanwhile, my oldest brother was a teenager during the 80s, the goth subculture playing a role in what influenced his style and music taste, reaching me early on, from the age of four.
With exposure to the music and aesthetics adults in my family enjoyed, it also affected the way I viewed fashion and aesthetics as a whole. As a young child, I was excited for the day I could finally choose my own clothes and get as weird as I wanted with it, instead of primarily wearing pink, dresses, or the dreaded pink dress. It would only be fitting for pink to grab my attention as an adult.
By middle school I was obsessed with emo music and fashion, almost every album I had until tenth grade would be one of those bands except for the rare occasion I borrowed something from my dad. My dream was one day my wardrobe would exist exclusively of band tees from Hot Topic and shows, black skinny jeans, and Converse.
Once I reached tenth grade, I fell in love with the idea of becoming a scene queen. I felt starved of the colors I avoided so strongly previously. Shoveling on as many colors as possible, I finally felt content with reading scene people looked like they were emos who had a rainbow throw up on them. Along with that, I teased my hair as much as I could, knowing how much I’d suffer for having a sensitive scalp.
Everything comes to an end, and I avoided the end of my scene phase as long as possible, partly due to mental health struggles I’ve learned to live with over the years, but finding how I’d dress next was a huge issue. I’d go back to my emo look, come back to the scene style, then just stopped trying and wore whatever I could lay my hands on, except for a few times when I looked for my style again, however short term they were.
This is where writing about fashion comes in. Writing was something that followed me since a short story I wrote in sixth grade about a scarecrow and a witch for Halloween. My hope is if I write about my experience and experiments in fashion, I’ll be able to find my sense of style again and feel not only more comfortable in my skin, but proud of the choices I make when it comes to my aesthetic.
This is something I’ve already slowly begun, by up cycling my favorite dress into a skirt. Something I’ve avoided for a long time, mostly out of fear of making mistakes in sewing, which I did, but I also learned a lot and can’t wait to add more personal spins onto my clothing going forward.
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