Last night, I found myself having an interesting conversation on the porch of this place. I was talking with a young man studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology. He complimented me on my outfit, and we traded assessments of the state of young people and self-expression, with particular regard to the fashion scene in Manhattan.
I told him that if you incline toward an interest in style or decorative arts, it’s important to keep independent fashion designers in business. It could, justifiably, be argued that over-attention to the way in which one experiments with clothing is frivolous and issues from economic privilege. I don’t really ascribe to that mindset, though. The way in which people live through the fabrics and colors that they put on their body really interests me. Style is a mediator for the content of the spirit. Furthermore, relegating the practices of style and grace to a sphere that is distinct from, say, music creation, writing, cooking, practicing medicine, or other ways in which human expression takes shape creates a culture that devalues the small, the everyday. Everybody must get dressed in the morning, just as everybody must eat food. We do not have a choice over these things - and that, I think, is why they are worthy of as much consideration as the movies, music, and forms of healing with which you choose to engage.
I was hanging out in Manhattan’s West Village last October and happened to come across a beautiful sidewalk market. A man who works for the designer of this piece had set up shop; that photo, and the website from which it came, does not do justice to the regard for innovation, creativity, and functional practicality exemplified by the skirts, sweaters, and dresses I saw (… gawked at) hanging on the racks. The fact that I still remember the name of the designer after having had a very brief exchange with one of her employees a few months ago says a lot, too, I think. I might be a little more attuned to this kind of thing than most, just because I find it really fun. But there’s something more to it than that, a greater humanist sort of thing, and that crossover point between expressiveness and humanism is something that never ceases to amaze me.
