ANN’S FASHION FORTUNES By Ann Rosenquist Fee
Ignoring trends is the new trend
DEAR ANN: How can I embrace spring/summer fashion trends without being a mindless puppet with no signature style of my own? DEAR READER: You’re in luck because never in the history of caring about style has there been a season in which the trends are so closely tied to actual for-real individuality. Specifically I’m referring to what Harper’s Bazaar (February 2022) called “fashion’s current preoccupation with the body,” which sounds goofily redundant until you think about “the body,” i.e. the lines and shapes and angles of our actual bodies, as different from “old ideas about who gets to wear what.” Bazaar notes that, compared to the usual forces driving a style wave, this one “… seems to be driven less by designers reasserting old codes of sexiness and what body type is deemed ideal or desirable,” and more by “a greater cultural shift in how we relate to those ideas in a post#MeToo, post-COVID-19, postgender world.” How this translates to reallife clothes-wearing this spring and summer is that whatever combination of revealing-vs.coverage makes you feel strongest and most ready and most like yourself, that’s what’s in style. Honestly. There’s no brandname silhouette reigning over it, no single dominating aesthetic you’re supposed to know about more than you know your own mind. Which is jarringly exciting if it’s true, and I say we test it. Q u o t i n g H a r p e r ’s B a z a a r quoting designer Bryn Taubensee, “… everyone feels confident in a different type of clothing: covered, naked, formal, casual, chaotic … a wide variety of looks that could all be considered sexy depending on
Who would you be if everything you clutched walking into a fancy event was the same stuff as what you’d clutched to get there? (Foreground: Dinghy bag. Background: All the bags needed to get there.) your personal definition of what that means.” Get clear on what makes you feel confident, let yourself be drawn to that as the foundation of your spring/summer wardrobe, and you’ll be spot-on with the trendiest of trends. DEAR ANN: Is there a word for the outfit you want people to see you wearing once you’ve arrived at some fancy place versus all the stuff you’re wearing just to get there? I’m thinking about coats and
boots, of course, but also the big bag full of everything you might need which you bring along but then leave in the car versus the smaller bag you bring into the event to hold nothing but your phone and some gum and some lip gloss and some tissues? I am a list maker, and so when I’m packing lists for a trip, I like to keep these two things separate. It would be easier if I knew the term. Thank you. DEAR READER: Why not your car key as well in that tiny dinghy bag?
52 • MAY 2022 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
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