The Evolution of My Fashion Choices (a.k.a How I dressed less geeky)

Ever since I was a baby till just a few years ago, I’ve always stayed in this little cocoon. During this time, you could say that I was really antisocial and when I look back, I was and please don’t get me started on my fashion sense because boy was it really old-fashioned. When I was young, I would always let my mum dress me and in some ways, it saved me the effort of going through my own clothes and having to go through the troubles of trying to find an outfit. Unfortunately, it had only worked when I was younger (not to brag but I did look really cute) but as I started to grow up, the style didn’t really fit me as it was kind of old fashioned if I had to say so myself.

As a “naive” little girl, I just wore whatever my mum chose for me and tried to make the best out of it. What I didn’t realize was that I was actually starting to get bullied by a few of my fellow classmates. Mind you, this was around Yr6 and most of them were probably experiencing or at least reaching puberty. Luckily, I still fitted in and was only bullied by a tiny proportion of my year group as the rest where all my friends. For someone who was quite arrogant and stuck up at the time (I personally blame puberty and being anti-social but you know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ), I was actually surprised when I looked back to see that I was actually more or less friends with majority of my year (I know, shocker). Nearly spelt hooker there for a second but…uhm…

Anyways, back to the story. Near the halfway point of the year, I suddenly became really interested in fashion magazines such as Vogue, Elle and so on.  After I became hooked onto your fashion magazines, I started to experiment with my clothes and after numerous outfit fails, I started to develop my own fashion sense by picking out certain elements in each outfit that I had liked. At the time, I had a brief idea of how I wanted to look like but the thing was that I didn’t have that many clothes that suited my own style as most of the clothing pieces that were mine were bought by either my mum or aunties. This might sound nice to some of you but they had a completely different style to mine as they had quite a sophisticated/heiress-looking/”oldish” style. Most of the clothes were bought in high-end boutiques, which I didn’t mind, but it just wasn’t my style. My style took a major turn when one of my aunties had bought me my first three pairs of short-shorts and boy was I excited.

It’s funny because out of all the high-end clothes that were bought for me, the one thing that I’d be excited over were shorts.

One was a pair of studded army print shorts, the other being ordinary, cute short-shorts and the last were these pair of rose printed cut-offs that were A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E. I still wear all three till this day and they’ve managed to fit seeing as I haven’t really grown since Yr6 (which is a miracle in itself considering the mountains of carbs I’ve consumed). I started to buy my own clothes by myself and this is when my style had started to evolve. Soon, my Yr6 graduation dinner was approaching and as a Christmas gift, one of my other aunties had taken me out shopping for a dress. I have a LOT of relatives okay?!

We went all around the shopping centre looking for a dress and had soon arrived at Forever New. Well, I was dragged there but that’s a whole other story within itself. Personally, I never liked Forever New until I saw the dress. You know, the typical dress that you can’t leave without buying or wearing. The one thing that you just have to get. It was a black high-low dress with a lace halter cut and boy was it everything that I had wanted in a dress. I guess this dress had become the main inspiration for majority of my outfits that I’ve later worn for fancier events that I had attended. It served as a starting point for my vintage-inspired wardrobe that would later become my obsession/pride and joy.

At the dinner, you could say that a lot of people were shocked in a good way and boy, it felt good. When me and my friends look back, even they said that they were shocked at how much I had changed at the dinner. Remember when I said I dressed like a total granny all the time, I wasn’t joking.

It’s funny because when I look back, I realized how much of a change my style went through in a meagre year.

All I wore to the dinner was the black dress that I had brought and a simple pair of black heels that were covered in black, fabric roses. They were pretty. I didn’t dress up that much as I couldn’t be bothered to wear any makeup except for some lip gloss. My hair was already straight during that period of time so I just let it down. Hahaha. Period. It’s safe to say that I looked good that night because boy did I flaunt my stuff. When the night finished, I literally threw off my shoes and ran to my fridge as there were so many blisters on my feet. That’s how hard I danced that night but did I regret going? Absolutely not.

The next major change to my fashion was thanks to Instagram and Vogue. Believe or not, most of my fashion choices nowadays was inspired by fashion accounts on Instagram and from the classic Vogue magazine. I still remember the time when I was obsessed with Vogue and still am actually. This is when my personal style really took off. I began to wear chokers (I know, so rebel right) and started to buy more vintage inspired clothing that were quirkier and more grungy than your average “vintage-inspired” clothing (although, I really appreciate it that vintage is back in style).

Thrift-shopping and online stores became my new best friend. It just went from there and here I am now, your average hipster/nerd. All in all, the lesson here is that your fashion choices shouldn’t be restrained by what other people think. At the end of the day, everyone’s different and fashion is an ever-changing. Just look at The Hunger Games. Have a wonderfully chaotic day guys. Cheerio!

Lucy xox