The Problem With A Whole ‘Look’
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studio reflections is a monthly dispatch of observations from the fitting room of barostudio___. It is indicative of my evolving impressions of being a maker of things, a learner of embodied emotion, a writer and a receiver of endless information. It’s a log of my learnings where I resist the optimised pull of algorithms and document my process in long form. I choose this space to unpack the politics of visual communication via relevant texts, theory, imagery and conversation. I consider dialogue to be my social currency with this project so if you find yourself having opinions about what you read here, I would like to engage with you in the comments or email. This particular letter is a part 2 of my previous post on the value of details and the power of lingering. Here, I attempt to apply that framework of enchantment, towards the lens of fashioning our sartorial experiences.
Part 1 of this essay:
The formula laid out in that essay was:
strategic attention + lingering = enchantment
While this was initially a recipe to resist sensorial overdrive in high stimulus environments (museums), I have been using this framework to digest/experience fashion on and around me. To explain better, a few things as preamble:
- I argue here that instead of viewing the ‘success’ of our outfits as a whole, it might be better to cultivate intimacy with parts of our outfit
- I attempt to reimagine a system where the actor and action are in agency of the moment via conscious awareness and deep feeling
- The practice of lingering on our favourite parts of our outfits is an embodied act of resistance to the forces of hyperstylised expression that surrounds us
- By romancing the details of what we are wearing, we become a testament to our presence—which gives us the emotional and later analytical cache to understand the world around us
- There is no ‘output’ that is expected from this exercise. Challenging notions of optimisation is central to this practice, the objective is purely to approach our everyday/night dressing through an embodied lens of reception, experience and lightness
While we are being told and sold entire recipes of looks to go from day to night, work to play, brunch to dinner— we have somewhere allowed ourselves to be convinced that unless every component of our visual package is not optimised to the maximum, we need fixing. Of course, this has done greatly for shoes, bags, jewellery and accessories brands, not to mention makeup and fragrance, but I refuse to give up my agency to this horizontally integrated market of validation. What has happened, many many times to me and I am sure to a lot of you, is that our approach has shifted from “does this feel/look good”, to “does this go with this”? Or “does this perform with this”? While I am all for coherence and harmony in visual expression, this is more layered than that. When I have clients try clothes on, the number one question I face is:
“But does this go with the x y z pant, shirt, shoe, bag?”
Once again, this is not against orchestration of pieces in our existing closet, rather its a plea against deciding your whole by ignoring your parts. By being more deliberate in deciding what and why we love about a certain top, pant, jacket or scarf— we can feel more empowered in our sartorial expression and infuse authentic intention into our choices. This works in so many ways I cannot even begin to tell you. It feels like a natural, non-intimidating start to curating our existing closets in a way that ignites joy, curiosity, wonder and ENCHANTMENT to our daily lives. Let me share some images to explain this concept in action:
The point of illustrating this concept of nursing our attention via details is not so much to fixate on simply identifying the object of our observation, but really to be embodied by the details of what clothes us. The relationship between ourselves and our bodily movements is mediated by design, material and intention—to bring our awareness to this is a service to the world around us and a reason for celebration. Here is one last example of how my favourite mug reminds me of my place in the world:
Wishing your parts, your wholes and your in betweens—tender awareness and specific joy,
Malaeka x
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