The beauty of looking at fashion through the lens of culture and visual language is that you can then recognize that lots of people are stylish, so long as you can read their cultural language. (Although this doesn't mean that everyone is stylish and anything goes) 🧵
When you look at 20th-century fashion, power flipped from elites (e.g., British aristocrats, Italian industrialists, and Hollywood actors) to everyday people (e.g., punks, rebels, rockers, hippies, and such) after the Second World Ear. These ppl gave their styles meaning.
One of the great, untold stories about 20th-century fashion is how the Army Navy surplus store served as a fashion boutique. It was here where youths picked up army-issued chinos, naval-issued chambray shirts, fatigues, and military jackets.
Here are some young ppl wearing leather jackets outside a cinema in Paris, France (November 1961). The clothes were likely picked up at military surplus stores, which had excess bomber jackets post-war. You can still dress like this today.
Something I try to emphasize in my writing is that fashion is a language. I dislike it when ppl think only one language is legitimate (e.g., classic tailoring). There are many diff languages, each tied to culture, and the world becomes a richer place when u learn diff languages.
You can still dress well today on a budget, so long as you're open to diff languages. Consider budget-friendly aesthetics such as workwear, or learn how to shop at thrift stores. Some ideas on how to build a quality wardrobe on a budget here:
putthison.com/is-it-classist…
Another example of great fashion by ppl with little money is this quote from the film Paris is Burning:
“Those balls are more or less our fantasy of being a superstar, like at the Oscars or being a runway on the model. A lot of those kids don’t have two of nothing. [...]
[...] Some of them don’t even eat, they come to the balls starving. They sleep at Under 21 or the piers; they don’t have a home to go to. But they’ll go out and steal something to get dressed to go to the ball for that one night.”
You can see in this quote two dynamics:
1. Stylish ppl are often intentional about clothes. They know the language
2. Culture gives fashion meaning. These looks are cool not bc of some abstracted art theory, but bc of who wears them and what they do
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