Issue 2: Our Style, Our Selves
Where does our personal style come from — and how do we remember that place?
“To always try to look good is such a loss of joy and freedom,” provokes the headline of a recent interview with Gen-Z pop icon Billie Eilish in The Guardian.
I disagree.
At its best, style functions as an expression of power through the quotidian act of “looking good.” As fraught as that act can be — ask any marginalized person what it’s like to negotiate the borderland between their body and the rest of the world — getting dressed every day is an aspirational performance. Finding one’s personal style takes work unless it doesn’t. Grunge icon Kurt Cobain’s look was effortlessly anti-fashion, whereas Eilish’s is aggressively pro-fashion, yet equally effortless.
Where — and how — do we locate our own style?
Want to read the full issue?