Fashion isn’t all about clothes. And no, I’m not going to write about the importance of accessories, hair, and makeup (but don’t underestimate them—they are important!)—I’m talking about that air that every great fashionista of our time carries. It doesn’t really have a name; I think I can only call it having a sense of decorum. Being well-mannered. Having class and respectability. You are a presence on the Hill House Dining Hall runway.
Being fashionable is about wearing things that look beautiful. It’s having the ability to carry off looks that may at first seem outrageous and awkward, but which are attractive. How can you be well-dressed—admired—if you’re not respected? No matter how much confidence you have, if people don’t believe that you can pull off a look, you can’t. And if you can’t pull off what you’re wearing, you can’t be fashionable.
My advice for this week is, if old-fashioned, very simple: take a stylistic note from icons like Grace Kelly, Jackie Kennedy, and Anna Wintour, and earn yourself a little respect. Act in a way in which you would be proud to tell your grandmother. Be nice to your friends, polite to your acquaintances, and don’t do things that make you look down as you walk through the senior section. Sit up straight, square your shoulders, and stop making yourself look stupid. Because, really, we’re not going to accept that street-bought “Balenciaga” bag as real if you don’t give us a reason to.
If you find yourself unsure of the fashion-do decision, there’s an easy question to determine the right course of action: what would Carrie Bradshaw do? Let’s be honest, anyone whose movie is allowed to shoot in the Vogue offices—the only feature film ever given that right—certainly demands a fair amount of respect. And I can promise you that she would never…
You can finish that sentence. After all, it’s up to you now to figure out just what constitutes fashionably appropriate behavior.
