You don't owe anyone a good outfit
If you don't feel like getting capital-d Dressed today (or ever), I see you
Welcome to the Esther Studio newsletter! I’m Carly, PhD, a marketing professor and artist living in the Midwest. I like talking about fashion and personal style, and I spend a lot of time making jewelry. If this sounds fun to you, keep reading and consider subscribing so we can see more of each other!
I started posting outfit roundups on the Esther Studio Instagram about a year ago. These posts - sprinkled in with my usual jewelry content - were a way for me to talk about fashion and personal style in public. I enjoyed the little conversations that unfolded in the comment sections, and seeing my style evolve with the seasons was pretty cool.
When I launched this newsletter last fall, I felt my world expand. Suddenly, I had a special place to put all of the clothing-related thoughts that simply didn’t fit anywhere else. I felt my confidence grow, because with every post I was becoming a new version of myself: a person with something to say about getting dressed.
By signaling this new identity to others, I opened the door for so many conversations I wouldn’t have otherwise. Most notably, people I’ve known for years have started talking to me about clothes. My newsletter started a new chapter in these relationships.
My most memorable and persistent finding from these conversations is that many of my readers aren’t confident in their style or don’t consider themselves to be fashionable. When they tell me this, they are often quiet or noticeably embarrassed. Their fashion confessions denote an element of shame.
To these people, and anyone else joining me today, I want to say: you don’t owe anyone a good outfit.
I mean this today, tomorrow, and in general. Just as having fashion sense does not make you a good person, not caring about clothes is not a comment on your character.
There are a lot of things going on here, and I want to break down a few key themes.
One problem relates to who society has deemed worthy of being stylish. In recent years, online conversation has elevated personal style to an art and a science. In talking about this topic ad nauseam, we’ve created boundaries around the term. Personal style is for some people and not others. Being fashionable relates to certain aesthetics and not others.
I’ll be the first to admit that my love of clothes eats up my time, energy, and money. However, my straight-sized body is relatively easy to clothe, and I don’t feel overly alienated looking at fashion media that prioritizes a certain white, slim, young, able-bodied ideal. If I’ve made a substantial investment in my style, let it be known it was fun and easy for me to do so.
For folks without the privileges I enjoy, the space I love so dearly is exclusive and exclusionary. It’s no coincidence that some of my readers experience fashion and personal style differently than I do. Consider these personas:
Folks with young children who feel like clothes are their absolute last priority in terms of how they can spend their newly constrained time and money.
Folks who’ve aged beyond what brands deem valuable.
Folks who feel shame about their bodies.
Folks who’ve never been allowed to show an interest in clothes, socially speaking.
To these people and others in similar circumstances, distancing oneself from fashion and personal style makes complete sense, and I would never treat their concerns lightly. While I would love to help them discover a corner of the fashion space that feels comfortable, I can understand their hesitation.
A second problem relates to the way we talk about our habits and preferences in black-and-white terms. When I talk to people about their lack of interest in fashion, or their lack of fashion sense, they speak absolutely. They have no fashion sense. They have no interest.
I’m guilty of falling into a related black-and-white trap, but in the opposite direction. Because I’m a fashion person, I put pressure on myself to be fashionable any time I leave the house. If I’m a fashion person, I need to be presentable at all times.
I think, with society’s emphasis on being good at things - and an increasing trend toward the professionalization of our hobbies and interests - we also run the risk of setting our standards so high as to be unreachable.
When we see our relationship to fashion and personal style in black-and-white terms, we lose a nuance more realistic for day-to-day life in clothes. I’d love for us to give ourselves permission to be stylish one day and frumpy the next. Interested one day and disconnected the next. Educated on some topics but oblivious to others.
I’m so glad you’re here with me, in whatever capacity you like. Please know that when I talk about clothes, I don’t want anything from you except what you feel like giving. I think fashion should be a space for everyone, and I want to do my part in seeing that vision through.
You don’t owe anyone a good outfit (not even yourself). But if you’re feeling yourself and want to talk about it, I’m here. Thanks for joining me.