It got worse when the interview started. One of the girls had studied fashion design in Paris. She was interviewing because she wanted to work her way into fashion design from the bottom. Then the interviewer asked us who our style icon was. Everyone went into such depth and immediately had someone that came to mind. The cute girl in the polka dot dress said Zooey Deschanel. I have no idea who the other people were. I bullshitted my way through by claiming I got style tips from friends, which the amateur fashion designer used to save my ass by marveling over how helpful "street fashion" is. Obviously, I didn't get the job.
Anyway, I told that story because I was thinking today about my strange fashion choices and how much I honestly amuse myself with how I dress. Because, generally speaking, I don't give a flying fuck what I wear. So I tweeted about it:
Just in case anyone's wondering why I'm not in the fashion industry, my favorite "fall fashion" is wearing sweatshirts as shirts. #prostatus
— Kirsten Erin (@KirssyRen) September 29, 2014
It got me thinking about other silly reasons I'm not in fashion design and I decided to make a list of a few of them here. Without further ado, here are the top five reasons I'm not in fashion design:1. Sweatshirt Shirts
Obviously, I already talked about this, but it has to make the list nonetheless. I love wearing sweatshirts as shirts. They're so damn comfy and warm! I'm currently wearing my "Books Turn Muggles Into Wizards" Harry Potter Alliance sweatshirt as a shirt (which are sold by DFTBA Records). If I owned more sweatshirts, this would be a main staple of my wardrobe. Unfortunately, I only have about four, so I can't. Maybe I should add more sweatshirts to my Christmas Wish List . . .
2. Shoes
I horrify my best friend on a daily basis (who is a manager at an Old Navy in Texas) on a daily basis by my sheer disregard for footwear. I've never been much of a shoe person, even when I tried. At this point, I have five pairs of shoes: 1 pair of DC Comics Flash Converse high tops, 1 pair of DC Comics Batman & Robin Converse high tops, 1 pair of light brown boots from Target that have crochet flowers on the side, 1 pair of sandals (also from Target), and a pair of grey and pink tennis shoes I bought at Ross. I find shoes irritating and generally ill-fitting. When giving the option, I will generally always choose the sandals, because they're the fastest to put on. This includes rainy days like today, in which I'm wearing a sweatshirt, jeans, and sandals . . . like a crazy person.
3. Nerd Merch
I am a firm believer in the fact that if you have to purchase something, you should always try to get it in the nerdiest version possible. I like repping the things I'm into. I'm a pretty nerdy person, which means I will try to get nearly everything to represent one of the various fandoms I'm a part of. Obviously, this easily translates into what I'm wearing. Thus, two out of five of my shoes are DC Comics-related. Two of my four sweatshirts are the Harry Potter one I'm wearing and a Flash one. My two phone cases are a Batman & Robin one and a Wonder Woman one. Even my tattoos are nerdy: one is a paraphrase of a Dumbledore quote and the other is Tolkien's original illustration of the Doors of Durin from Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
4. Priorities
Honestly a huge part of why I'm not a part of the fashion industry is the fact that I have more pressing interests, particularly in where I choose to invest my money. Ask anyone who knows me where I spend most of my money and the first thing everyone will say is BOOKS. It's my passion and it means the world to me. Every time I'm forced to buy clothing, my immediate thought is, "I could buy, like, five books with this same amount of money."
5. I Just Don't Care
The final reason I'm not in the fashion industry, is that I just don't care. It's not my cup of tea. I tend to have a pretty big problem with anyone or anything that presumes to dictate what I should or shouldn't look like or wear or be doing. Maybe that's just me being rebellious, but I couldn't care less if you like my outfit. If I like it, that's all that matters. Like I always tell anyone who will listen, confidence is 90% of looking good in pretty much anything. That's why hipsters can wear such weird clothes and still look so goddamn attractive.
So there you have it: the top five reasons I am not in the fashion industry. The point of this post, besides laughing at myself, is essentially to say this:
Wear what you like. Do what you like. Be who you like. Don't let others dictate the way you live your life, because life is too short to live like that. Who cares if that bitch in your Math class or at work thinks your outfit looks odd? If you like it, keep wearing it.
And if you see me sitting at your local Starbucks with my brown and purple hair in braided pigtails, wearing a "Books Turn Muggles Into Wizards" sweatshirt as a shirt, over jeans and sandals, even though it's in the fifties outside and has been raining since dawn; feel free to judge my outfit. Because who I am and what I do doesn't have anything to do with you. I feel good like this. It makes me happy. And that's what matters in the end.
