How My Past Fashion Influences My Present Style
When I was a little girl, I loved to dress up. I would put on my princess dresses or my fancy dresses, then go to my mother or grandmother’s room and put on their makeup and jewelry, and then I would complete the look with a tiara and the highest heels I could find in their closet. On different days I would experiment with different looks, like one day I’d wear a long strand of pearls, and the other I would try some large clip-on chandelier earrings. One thing that remained constant, though, was that I would base my looks on outfits I had already seen, whether it originated from my grandmothers or mother’s previous looks, from a picture I had seen in a magazine or book, or a getup I had seen in a movie. When I would dress up, or even when I would just dress myself, I would pull ideas from a plethora of stylistic inspirations, but the one constant underlying my earliest styles was trying to copy my grandmothers and mother. I wanted to wear hoops and style my hair like my mother, wear red lipstick and large necklaces like my Ita (what I call my maternal grandmother), wear a scarf over my head and brooches like my Granny (my paternal grandmother), and wear large sunglasses and carry a purse like all three.
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Some other influences that I found along the way in my journey to my present style were that of TV and movie characters and celebrities. Even though I knew almost nothing about her, I wanted to wear Juicy tracksuits and carry a little dog in my purse like Paris Hilton. I also wanted to style myself with anything pink and glamorous like Sharpay from High School Musical, even though I wasn’t even a huge fan of the movies. I had my hair in a bob for a large portion of my life in part because I was influenced by Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, and Victoria Beckham; I loved to wear, and continue to love to wear, large sunglasses not only because of my female relatives but also because of Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy. I even did my hair in certain ways for a large portion of middle school because of my love for Princess Leia and Padmé Amidala’s hair in Star Wars!
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Furthermore, I also found influences in the trends that came and went as I grew up; I would pick and choose what I liked from them and add them to my wardrobe. I liked high-waisted shorts (or high-waisted anything really, since the low-rise trend was not for me) because of how they looked on me, and I even continue to wear them to this day. Skinny jeans also made up and continue to make up a large part of my pants selection, and a good crop top continues to be something I reach for year-round.
As I enter my twenties and gain more confidence and comfort in my fashion choices, finally being fully true to what I want to wear, I look back at my past influences and see how they pop up in my current fashion choices. I continue to wear large sunglasses and carry a purse almost every day, and to love a good red lip and statement jewelry when I go out. I sometimes wear hoops and do my hair similar to my mom, and I continue to love all things pink and glamorous like Sharpay and Paris Hilton. And, of course, I still love to dress up. Even though my style is by no means the same as it was ten or five years ago, I am still fascinated by the way I’ve continued to include certain things in my personal style, even as all of these years have passed.
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