What I Wore Wednesday: Retrospective
Since I'm currently in Sweden visiting my friend Linda, and therefore nowhere near my Wacom, I can't actually give you guys a glimpse of my outfit for the week but never fear: I have a solution.
I never really explained the whole What I Wore thing and I feel like there's a bit of clarification that could happen. As I mentioned in WIWW: VOL 1 I've been documenting my outfits, under the title What I Wore since 2010. Back then I was just starting my degree and trying to develop my own art style. There were a lot of things going on at the time; having just graduated from a public school I had the peculiar problem of trying to work out a fashion style that suited me. Coming from wearing the same uniform every day of the week (well, not exactly the same uniform) for 13 years to having to pick something different to wear every day was a daunting task. On top of that I'd just moved out of home for the first time, and was trying to adapt to adult life in the city. There was a lot of experimenting happening in terms of style; both art and fashion.
My fashion sense was still all over the place. I would go to Uni wearing a retro dress and 50's make-up one day and the next arrive in a loose cotton shirt, jeans and thongs. A staple outfit was developing though: loose graphic T-shirts tucked into tight high waisted skirts and army boots; with or without stockings.
Toward the end of 2011 I got into watercolour painting and tried to recreate that digitally, at the time I was balancing five classes, my major work and an internship at an advertisement agency. Most of my outfit posts from that period are from my days at the internship. I was getting into Korean fashion blogs and had developed a love for a softer colour pallette and lots of bows.
2012 brought with it new challenges, for one I was suddenly let loose on the world with a degree in hand and not a single clue what to do with my life and for another I no longer had a reason to dress up nicely any more. Most of my days were spent behind my computer filling out job applications, and for quite a while I was trapped in office-wear tedium before quitting that job and starting fresh at a new place where I could actually dress the way I wanted. Because I was working so much for the first 6 months of the year I barely had time to record my outfits. At some point I bought myself an Intuos Bamboo tablet and attempted to get back into things, but as you can see by the pictures below; the quality of art wasn't as high.
During the second half of the year I enrolled in a Post Graduate course and went back to Uni, well, actually I went to a completely different Uni, but all the same. Being at this new University was great because there were so many more people around me and the pressure to dress well was way higher than it had ever been at my old college. Not one to back down from a challenge I started developing a more uniform style: fit and flare dresses, thigh high stockings and cute shoes. I also decided to do a little social experiment and wore a natural looking black wig and black clothes to my Web Design classes every single week, there were several occassions in which I would walk past my WD classmates on another day (in natural dress) and they wouldn't recognise me.
My art was slowly but surely getting more refined. During my degree my friend Bailey bought herself an Intuos 5 and graciously gave me her Intuos 3 (which I still use to this day) the quality was so much higher and I actually felt encouraged to draw more.
My Post-Grad came to an end in late 2012 (it was only 6 months which is handy) and I was once again left to my own devices. This time it took me a lot longer to find a job (6 months in fact) but in the meantime I kept myself busy by volunteering in an Op-Shop and making the most of my otherwise free time by drawing or socialising. Not only was my art style becoming more refined, my dress sense was finally starting to come together. A line skirts, cute blouses, cute shoes and the right accessories were all making regular appearances in my wardrobe.
2013 also so the branching off of my art styles, on the one hand my more 'realistic' style was becoming more defined and concise and on the other I was working toward the ideal simplified style in which to draw my outfit posts and all other casual drawings.
2013 was a very busy year, I was giving up a weekend once a month to get organised for RYLA 2014, and from June I was working part-time (30+ hours a week) at the supermarket, saving up for my move to Holland just after RYLA. I also made my first zine, and had my first art show. All of that on top of maintaining a wicked social life (Tuesday Nights: Karaoke. Thursday Nights: Board Games.) Suddenly it felt like everything was coming together.
2014 saw me move to Europe to begin my year as an Au Pair in the Netherlands. I went from an Australian Summer to a European Winter in the space of 26 hours and suddenly my fashion sense change dramatically. I barely ever wore jeans in Australia, and it's much too hot for layers there, but here it became essential to my health to stay as warm as possible. For the first few months my fashion sense went completely out the window, I tried my best to stay cute but my outfits were more dictated by practicality than attractivenes. After a few months I began to get the knack for dressing for the weather and have actually come to love the laid back, casual style I've developed here and look forward to translating it into my Australian wardrobe come May, when I'll be home for an Australian Winter (i.e. Dutch Spring)
One thing I love about fashion is that it's an amazing tool for self expression. I've always enjoyed playing with identity and costumes are my jam so I tend to treat everything I wear as a costume. I've become hyper aware of exactly what my outfit is telling the world about me and I like that. I like having the power to tell people the story I want them to hear before they've even heard me speak. One of the few agencies of self expression women are allowed is through fashion, and yes there is a lot about the industry that is destructive and unhealthy, but if even one person can find comfort, and strength and confidence through the outward expression of their appearance then the Industry is doing something right.
Woo, took a little turn there, oh well. What I wanted to say is: keep experimenting; never stop growing and changing and learning. Take a keen interest in yourself. You're a complex being and there are many things you don't yet know about yourself. Find what makes you happy and follow it. Follow your bliss. Even if it's just in little ways, like combining a love of fashion and drawing for a weekly sketch of yourself.
xx
Lily
BONUS: What I actually look like vs how I draw myself, circa 2013. It's rare for a full length photo of me to surface on the internet, so it was actually hard to find a clear enough picture to show you this comparison.
I never really explained the whole What I Wore thing and I feel like there's a bit of clarification that could happen. As I mentioned in WIWW: VOL 1 I've been documenting my outfits, under the title What I Wore since 2010. Back then I was just starting my degree and trying to develop my own art style. There were a lot of things going on at the time; having just graduated from a public school I had the peculiar problem of trying to work out a fashion style that suited me. Coming from wearing the same uniform every day of the week (well, not exactly the same uniform) for 13 years to having to pick something different to wear every day was a daunting task. On top of that I'd just moved out of home for the first time, and was trying to adapt to adult life in the city. There was a lot of experimenting happening in terms of style; both art and fashion.
Most of my early outfits were documented roughly in biro somewhere in the corner of an artbook. Often I'd jam multiple outfits into one page. The pictures make me cringe now, not just because the art is quite terrible (mostly lazy) but also because my fashion sense at the time was a mess. Not to be too self critical, I'm actually quite proud of my 19 year old self for being so brave with her style choices.
In 2010 I really bounced between a boho look and a casual, t-shirt and shorts style. I'd gotten into fashion blogs towards the end of 2009 and took most of my fashion inspiration from there. I even bleached my hair in an attempt to get it light enough to dye it cotton candy pink. (A dream that has only just recently been acheived.) I was totally clueless about dye too so I spent quite some time with bleached orange and then light yellow hair, before giving up and dying my hair red for the majority of the year. I was also incredibly unaware of some things, like dress length, and I'm sure I flashed my knickers at more than a few dozen people every time I ventured out in a dress.
In 2011 I started getting into documenting my outfits a bit more. I moved from pen sketches to digital drawings, grateful to finally be able to portray my clothes in full colour. I developed a template for sizing purposes and would colour pick from previous drawings to keep my skin, eye and hair colour uniform. At University we were being told to DRAW DRAW DRAW. It was important to draw every single day so as to keep improving. We were also developing the ability to redraw the same character over and over again (an essential skill for an animator) which is something I often struggle with. I decided to kill two birds with one stone and drew myself almost every day for a solid few months. After all, what better subject than oneself?
Toward the end of 2011 I got into watercolour painting and tried to recreate that digitally, at the time I was balancing five classes, my major work and an internship at an advertisement agency. Most of my outfit posts from that period are from my days at the internship. I was getting into Korean fashion blogs and had developed a love for a softer colour pallette and lots of bows.
2012 brought with it new challenges, for one I was suddenly let loose on the world with a degree in hand and not a single clue what to do with my life and for another I no longer had a reason to dress up nicely any more. Most of my days were spent behind my computer filling out job applications, and for quite a while I was trapped in office-wear tedium before quitting that job and starting fresh at a new place where I could actually dress the way I wanted. Because I was working so much for the first 6 months of the year I barely had time to record my outfits. At some point I bought myself an Intuos Bamboo tablet and attempted to get back into things, but as you can see by the pictures below; the quality of art wasn't as high.
My Post-Grad came to an end in late 2012 (it was only 6 months which is handy) and I was once again left to my own devices. This time it took me a lot longer to find a job (6 months in fact) but in the meantime I kept myself busy by volunteering in an Op-Shop and making the most of my otherwise free time by drawing or socialising. Not only was my art style becoming more refined, my dress sense was finally starting to come together. A line skirts, cute blouses, cute shoes and the right accessories were all making regular appearances in my wardrobe.
2013 was a very busy year, I was giving up a weekend once a month to get organised for RYLA 2014, and from June I was working part-time (30+ hours a week) at the supermarket, saving up for my move to Holland just after RYLA. I also made my first zine, and had my first art show. All of that on top of maintaining a wicked social life (Tuesday Nights: Karaoke. Thursday Nights: Board Games.) Suddenly it felt like everything was coming together.
2014 saw me move to Europe to begin my year as an Au Pair in the Netherlands. I went from an Australian Summer to a European Winter in the space of 26 hours and suddenly my fashion sense change dramatically. I barely ever wore jeans in Australia, and it's much too hot for layers there, but here it became essential to my health to stay as warm as possible. For the first few months my fashion sense went completely out the window, I tried my best to stay cute but my outfits were more dictated by practicality than attractivenes. After a few months I began to get the knack for dressing for the weather and have actually come to love the laid back, casual style I've developed here and look forward to translating it into my Australian wardrobe come May, when I'll be home for an Australian Winter (i.e. Dutch Spring)
Woo, took a little turn there, oh well. What I wanted to say is: keep experimenting; never stop growing and changing and learning. Take a keen interest in yourself. You're a complex being and there are many things you don't yet know about yourself. Find what makes you happy and follow it. Follow your bliss. Even if it's just in little ways, like combining a love of fashion and drawing for a weekly sketch of yourself.
xx
Lily
BONUS: What I actually look like vs how I draw myself, circa 2013. It's rare for a full length photo of me to surface on the internet, so it was actually hard to find a clear enough picture to show you this comparison.
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