By Katrina Robinson
Style isn’t the same as fashion.
The day you look in the mirror and think, ‘Actually, this top would look better on me if I wore it loose instead of tucking it into my waistband,’ is a style milestone. It is the day you stop being brainwashed by fashion and take your first step into finding the right style for your individual looks.
Born without beauty or money or a chic background, at some point in my early teens I had an experience that showed me the way I dressed had the power to make life better.
The usual gaggle of school bitches tagged me ‘Raggedy Ann’ due to my unattractive appearance, but one day, when shopping for something to wear to the social highlight of my comprehensive school year, the Sponsored Walk, I accidentally found exactly the right pair of jeans for me.
They fitted my waist, legs, bottom, and hips perfectly. They were an unusually subtle shade of denim. Worn with a soft-grey lambswool jumper and sneakers, for perhaps the first time in my YA life, I looked, in some indefinable but unmistakable way, Together.
That sponsored walk, the bitches were silenced. The jeans didn’t have a fashion-famous logo but they suited me, enhanced me. Style over fashion.
That day I learned that style could send a message, project dignity, be armour. It could help me develop confidence.
Life didn’t change overnight, as my sense of style stalled there for the time being. The transformation came in my early 20s. I spent a year living in a cosmopolitan German city where I was inspired by the smartly-dressed locals, had access to better shops and hairdressers, and mined glossy European books and magazines for looks that might work for me.
That’s what I love about style: it’s democratic. Beauty is about being born with the right genes, but if you are willing, you can teach yourself personal style. It has been freeing mentally to realise I don’t have to be physically perfect to still be attractive.
I’ve found the truth in understated French designer Agnès B.’s philosophy. Done right, she says, ‘Clothes should make you feel happy, relaxed and ready to tackle other problems.’ A good start to the rest of the day.
