Design Opinions

Clothes should reflect the intensities we carry around within ourselves.

While I was out ogling the fashions (and the women ... and men... wearing them!) this afternoon, this phrase came fully formed into my mind. It expresses something I feel strongly about. I'd say about a third of the people I see dress in a way consistent with this statement. I can't say that all my clothes speak to it either. But it is something I think we should pay more attention to. Clothes, in my mind, should be "strong", they should make an unambiguous statement. Even if that statement is about ambiguity!

Note that the affirmation does not say that we should dress "intensely", that the clothes we wear should necessarily be "intense", although many of them will be if we try to live up to the statement. Instead, it is a statement about attitude, about how clothes speak for us, of us.

Many people dress as if to hide the intensity they carry around inside of themselves. This is regrettable, our inner intensity is part of what makes us, each of us, interesting, both to ourselves and to others.

Some people may think they are not "intense", but that isn't quite what I say either. We all carry with us an inner intensity, even if we don't think of ourselves that way. Sometimes, also, this inner intensity is tied up with painful things and feelings, but that isn't necessarily a counter argument either. We should have clothes that allow us to speak to such things as well.

I think people are drawn to designer fashions partly because designers struggle to do this, to express the intensities that they share with us, with potential clients. It is also about aesthetics, and style and those other things, but designers are also tuned in to this question of intensity.