The Promise Of Validation

Note: This is a recurring thought I have had for years about whether aesthetic choices I make are truly mine or are they driven by the forces of validation around me? As I get deeper into the process of making clothes for other people (link to my clothing line), I am encountered with this thought much more but from a different angle this time. Am I selling validation or do I want it in return? The more I see you and speak to you in the fitting room, I observe how so many of you are drawn to a particular piece but somewhere some hesitation kicks in when we are faced with a certain insecurity in the mirror. How to deal with this? Where is the reason in this voice? How to separate the conditioning of an insecurity with some objectivity or truth?

The idea of ‘feeling good’ in what we wear comes from a lot more than just feeling and good. It has much to do with memory, history, and the past. It also has much to do with comparison. I think, as children of the millennia and with our chronically online behaviour, when we delve into why and HOW something feels, we are really imagining how it will PERFORM. We are likely to confuse the two, as we have been trained to. So how does one divorce the feeling from the illusion? I think the only real answer is to test it out IRL and in different contexts.

The thing that excites me about designing clothes and have different bodies, personalities, and genders come in and wear them is that I see these garments come to life via action. The act of a certain garment against a body and the intentionality behind the wearer and the designer/maker come together in a unison that I find enormously fascinating. To be able to intentionally choose and allow a piece of clothing to take form on you is magic. And how I may help you ponder whether it feels good or not is really simply by asking you. When you are in my studio surrounded by mirrors and no real audience, I seek to connect you to what and how you are wearing something, all guards down and no one to appease. And usually, the expression is the first giveaway. Almost always, the wearer always knows how they feel. They just need a reminder to be asked. And once you give your answer life by thinking and saying it out loud, you have allowed yourself to be embodied by that emotion. Whether that emotion is ‘free,’ ‘amazing,’ ‘light,’ ‘fun,’ ‘playful’ (or even the negative ones). What I’m saying is that allow yourself to be questioned deeper by your choices before thinking about how your choices will perform outwardly.

Chances are, when you truly feel like you are centered in your answer—the performance is well underway. You’ve gotten a headstart. Because you truly become the part you are playing. With sincerity and grit. So when you are faced with different contexts or environments, you won’t feel uneasy in your choice.

Ask yourself this question next time you are in the fitting room. The feeling can lead you to some objective ‘truth’. Don’t give your clothes the power of turning this the other way around. When you define visual feedback in words, chances are you will hang onto those adjectives when you step out and shift environments. If your definitions are grounded, you won’t need the external validation you think you do

Malaeka x

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By Malaeka

A documentation of action via visual culture, sociology, fashion, politics, literature and music

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