Why you don’t need the ‘right clothes for every occasion,’ & how I do Coffee + Yoga in one outfit!

I’ve started to work out in the city three times a week, more to keep myself sane on an entrepreneur’s schedule than anything else. Every other morning, I catch a bus and head to a killer exercise class*, before walking into a coffee shop with my laptop to tackle the day’s work.

This, as you might imagine, presents a tricky style situation.

After all, how do you work out and still look street chic? Especially when you don’t really want to be toting clothes to your next engagement? Do you have to just grin and bear it looking like a street bum?

Enter the coffee + yoga ensemble!

…Just a teensy glimpse into how I’m able to make the one-bag closet work. I’ve also combined sweats with cardigans, glitter and tshirts, dresses over shorts… you name it!

Obviously, this doesn’t work if you’re doing crazy cardio and dripping with sweat after, but hopefully you’re heading to a shower in that case. This is more for those of us who like to multitask + hop from one thing to another, in which case dragging around extra clothes all day is, well, a drag!

It also works for any 2-in-1 scenarios where you want to be comfortable, but still look presentable. Hot date where you might be doing a couple miles of romantic strolling? Grabbing drinks at that fancy bar right after work? Got a business meeting on Skype but fighting a cold? A little creativity goes a long way.

Because it’s not about having the right clothes for the occasion. It’s about making the clothes right. If you don’t believe me, just replace ‘clothing’ with ‘attitude’

*I’m currently addicted to the Bar Method. A bit less calm than yoga, perhaps, but it’s a nice complement to the mental masochism of entrepreneur-ing! Plus, it does wonders for getting my energy up for the day.

-

A note on the recent lack of posts: I’ve been positively STUFFED with ideas lately, but digesting slowly behind the scenes. So instead of my usual crazy 6-meal-course philosophizing, I’ve decided to just post a taste! OK no more of this metaphor. We’re talking style here, not food. (Though this does remind me of a certain fashion internship where no one ate more than espresso for lunch, but that’s a different story…)

Anyway, rest assured I haven’t forgotten about you! Good things are on their way. You may even have noticed the tagline for this site has changed. It’s a sign of things to come.

Hint: Personal style + a desire for creative leadership in life/work/the world = what might be one of the easiest paths to innovation, ever. Want to discover more? Stake a lookout here.

 

 

Dreaming through the fashion industry, which is a kind of looking glass when I think about it.

Last night, I dreamed about Alexander McQueen.

He sat towards the back of a bus that I don’t remember getting on, but I do remember sitting down, forcefully, and trying to peer at him over the side of the seat. It was hard to make out his face. It seemed joyous and young. So young, in fact, that I try to comb through my dream memory, searching for visual validation that it was in fact him.

None of the other bus riders seemed perturbed, leaving me alone in my discovery. I felt a conspiratorial grin on my face, the kind that runs across your mouth when you know something that no one else knows- or probably would care if they did know- and yet is a great happening all the same.

The dream sequence cut to awhile later, when I’d gotten off the bus to stand with my friends. I watched him get off and walk away from a distance, and I pointed, saying- “Look! That’s Alexander McQueen!”

My friend Gina, dressed in vivid turquoise, craned her head to look. “Where? Where?” I watched him walk away.

I woke up feeling light. I sat up, and gazed calmly out the window, where there was a rare scattering of sun through the clouds. Then halfway through my morning meditation, I remembered the dream.

The sudden sadness, like a bad fall out of nowhere.

Strange, that at no point in the dream did I consider his death. His presence, even though I had never met the man, was so natural, like a relaxed tourist in the middle of my hometown. In my dream, he was safe from our sorrows and speculations, the Google searches of his name where the obituaries clouded his brilliant legacy.

Curiously, now that I think of it- when I found out he’d passed last year, it had been in bed, too. I’d woken up next to my friend, who had slept over, and felt the deepest contentment that you can feel on a lazy Saturday morning with someone you love. Then I had rolled over to check the time on my phone, and found the text message from @jessxchen: Omggg Tessa Alexander McQueen is dead!

It’s worth backtracking here: I’m not one of those always-been-fashion-obsessed girls. Only halfway through high school did I begin to gulp down Style.com shows and industry news with a ceaseless thirst. But from the very beginning, McQueen’s mad sensibilities dove into my inexperienced bones. I idolized his tartan and lace extravagances, tainting my impressionable aesthetic forever with his irony, his dramatic interpretation of beauty. I, who tended to love all dresses diplomatically, democratically- coveted his double-peacock gown with a vengeance.

From my journal entry that day: “Indescribable, to wake up to the news of Alexander McQueen’s death on the first day of fashion week. On a beautiful morning bright with sun and dreams…What has the ability to counter that [brilliance] is something I don’t even want to venture into, philosophically.”

I went through probably four stages of grief in a single day, and dug my heels into the last- depression- for weeks. It was a mix of my unsatisfying fashion program, where I felt alone and misguided, and the knowledge that someone whose work for me glimmered with hope in that deteriorating industry had removed himself from it altogether.

Why am I telling you all this?

I think today’s McQueen dream woke me up. And brought me back here.

When I was studying at RISD, my professors used to tell me to stop thinking so much. I remember sitting at my drafting table with my lips pressed tight against the fury that threatened to spill out. I got into fights with my roommates because I spent all my free time despairing over sketches rather than hanging out with them, then I’d bring in the designs to class and my struggles would feel so irrelevant in context of the bland critiques. I can hardly describe how disconnected I felt, trying to fight people who simply didn’t share my values.

It’s hard to speculate, of course, but I don’t think the fashion world did McQueen any mental favors, either. I was also angry at the time that he chose out. That he didn’t fight more- how irresponsible, to simply leave a world that doesn’t serve you? It made me hate the world for being able to be a good enough reason for suicide, that someone like him could grasp it as a last resort.

Yet life goes on. In surprising ways.

Less than a year later, I, too, found myself leaving the industry.

This is a crazy world to live in, you know. It’s permeated with industries and societies that dwarf our individual spirits and douse our brilliance. Such systems wring the creative spark right out of us, and then expect us to produce amazing work. In such darkness, even the brightest stars can extinguish.

Or- if at all possible- we can choose to light a different sky.

For the last three months, I’ve been wandering. Both physically, from one coast to another, and digitally, from one revolution to another. There’s a sort of playfulness at work here, actually. I feel a great tenderness towards our ability to choose.

Not our freedom to choose, mind you, but our ability. It’s quite different- less about attaining freedom and more about its exercise, nuanced with carelessness and curiosity. I believe that art can save us, and when it doesn’t- we must dive deeper, and expand with more breadth- until we reach the art of compassionate and deliberate living.

Something as simple as clothing can bring us there. For the heart of style decisions is independent thinking. And driving far down the road of independent thought is a bus on which you can meet anyone, going anywhere, giving you unexpected peace in passing.

…

It’s good to be back. To my RS readers: love for your patience. To my new & ER curious cats, welcome to yet another experimental space!