The Big 2-0

I have officially entered my third decade of life and am finally out of my teens!!! I can still remember when I was 13 in high school and thought that some of the 19 year old seniors (and some almost 20 year olds if you were either a Chinese or South Korean student) were impossibly old. Now come to think of it, I really don't feel all that much different than when I was 13.

If it’s possible, I think I was quite possibly even more “mature” then than I am now. I was this angsty, bitter, cynical teenager, who in an effort to escape the WASPy conformist atmosphere of her boarding school, delved into the arts and sought refuge in fashion. The campus was big enough that I could wander off into the woods, away from human contact and much of civilization, to pore over magazines and books that none of my peers seem to be interested in. I have to thank fashion for taking the edge off of what could have been the darkest and bleakest hours of my adolescence. The things that I have witnessed when a lot of money, lack of parental supervision and teenage hormones are involved! It doesn’t seem all that bad now when I look back on it retrospectively, but it all felt too RAW and REAL for me to deal with it then. I survived to tell the tale. Perhaps this explains my utter distate and avoidance of drama and desperate attention seekers alike (and yes, fashion peacocks included).

To turn the conversation back to style, while I still at times don’t feel internally all that much different than I was 13, externally stylistically speaking, I have finally settled into a groove. I am finally more or less comfortable in my own skin, and thus have very little desire to upset this happy balance I have found for myself by experimenting beyond my comfort zone. It’s not being complacent as much as knowing what works and doesn’t, through mistakes both good and bad over the years. I am glad that I can afford to be lazy as my body shape hasn’t changed all that drastically throughout my high school years, save for my height.

Since people seem receptive to more personal style photos in the Curating + Collecting series, maybe I could also share more personal anecdotes and vignettes, lending more context and flavour to the discussion of wardrobe curation. While more empirical and analytical blogs are absolutely important and are utterly vital to the conversation, the atmosphere can seem a little cold at times were we to rely on that entirely. We are but two sides of the same coin. Maybe I’ll eventually find my own happy medium in talking about wardrobe curation, in the middle ground between the two. To the beginning of my 20something years ahead (which will hopefully not be ANYTHING like the girls on Girls *shudder*).

+ BIG WET KISSES TO JADA WHO CELEBRATED MY BIRTHDAY EARLY IN DC AND TOOK THIS PICTURE FOR ME.