my favorite place to buy shirts in 2010/2011 was Urban Outfitters because they had this brand called Character Hero (that doesnāt seem to exist anymore) that made all of these cool striped shirts in radical colors. i like stripes, and i like radical colors. one of my favorites was this gray shirt with like, black specks all over it and then very thin pastel cyan, magenta, yellow, and black stripes spaced fairly far apart. i miss that one ā it was my CMYK shirt (wish i could find a picture)
i found a picture of the only one i have left that isnāt all fucked up:
are there any places that make shirts like this? preferably not from UO because their shit is expensive.
edit, wait, i found a picture of the gray shirt
I am certain you could find this on aliexpress if you looked long enough and made many many different searches (aliexpress is cool and sucks)
I wear nothing but all black all the time
I have evolved. Sometimes now I wear white and also include highlighter yellow accents.
All my basewear stuff is from Uniqlo and I have some Veilance / Stone Island Shadow Project shit in my closet for when I want to feel cool.
For the past year Iāve been shaving my head but now Iām growing my hair out so I can get a c-drama haircut. I just want to be a weird future-facing pretty person.
This shot has been inspiring me for a long time now:
Fair
Today I caved and gave into all of my egirl and ugly-as-an-aesthetic impulses and bought a pair of Fila Disruptor 2s and I do NOT regret it
For the uninitiated:
First time Iāve bought something not thrifted or hand made in ā¦ a long time. Thrifting just, feels cooler, is cheaper, gets you cooler garms (as long as youāre in a decent area for it) and also is more ethical so we love that.
The thing that makes me mad tho is itās pervasive enough that capital took note, so now popularly thrifted brands like Tommy and Champion have come back more expensive than they used to be because they saw people buying their old shit second hand. Plus youāve got high end designers going for the āI paid a thousand dollars to look poorā style. And then fast fashion stores like F21 or H&M stealing ideas from thrifted stuff and small artists, then just making it with cheaper materials!
But Yknow actually thrifting still kicks ass so
Sometimes I think about the cyclical nature of fashion and just feel great about my black t shirt aesthetic. I really like getting into patterns and trends sometimes, but playing into the fashion game is just shitty
I follow fashens to confirm what I donāt like and wonāt wear for the most part
I genuinely believe that, with the pervasiveness of aesthetic-as-product from Insta and YT ~influencers~, combined with the internet allowing us access to, everything, we have reached a post-cycle fashion world. Not in the sense that there arenāt things that come back and go away as trends, but in the sense that every vibe there has ever been is currently a Thing. Wanna look like you just stepped out of a time machine from some decade past? Go for it. You wanna dress like the 2002 idea of what 2020 fashion looks like? Hell yeah. You can wear literally anything and if you do so confidently, its fashion baybee.
All the big fashion houses and fast-fashion stores are trash but like, thereās still tons of cool small designers! And with shit like Etsy and Depop getting bigger its easier to sell your hand-made garms. So I think that like, yeah while thereās parts to fashion that suck ass, it fucking rules to treat yourself like a character design. Playing with contrasts, palettes, shapes, silhouette, inspirations, it is just really cool i think!
Anyway fashion is one of my ~special interests~ so I think about it, a lot
Whoa! I never thought about it like that.
I definitely want to wear more than my jeans & T thing lately, but I still am a little wary about what my aesthetic projects. I feel like Iām slowly dipping into interesting patterns or different kinds of functional clothing, but the connotations of certain clothing are hard to deal with. I also think that in a cold weather place like Wisconsin where functional clothing is more necessary than other places, the classist and cultural (/racist) associations with clothes are more pronounced.
Edit: I need more fashen thread
I think the easiest way to start to shift your wardrobe / aesthetic is to do it slowly. I would think about what matters most to you in clothes: their comfort? Their simplicity? The way they fit? Their functionality? A good way to figure that out can be to just look at what you do wear a lot and figure out why you like it.
Then from there Iād start to just slowly push boundaries in a direction that isnāt as important, or in a particular direction if thereās something that interests you. If its important that it be cozy and functional, donāt give that up! But you can play with colors and patterns and silhouettes while keeping that the same. The fact that youāre already starting to play with patterns means youāre already doing that so, nice!
And as at all other times, I think the best way to find stuff is thrifting. In this case its good because you can find both a huge range of unique garms, but ALSO because its easier to get something that pushes your comfort a little if its only 4 dollars and not 40. Thereās less of a risk to not liking something when it doesnāt cost a huge chunk of your income, and itāll be easier to get something you wouldnāt normally have tried.
Also Jeans + Tee is a look that I still personally love thereās never any shame in it! It took me a long time to figure out my exact permutation of it, especially because oh my god finding flattering jeans as a gal is a nightmare. But also there was like figuring out what kinds of weird tees I like, and figuring out ways to style it - layering long sleeves under tees, tucking in slightly oversized shirts and pulling them out a bit to have a big poofy shape, what kinds of shoes to wear, etc.
Also, never underestimate accessories! A hat or some rings or belt or the right shoes can totally change the vibe of an outfit. It can be hard to find rings that fit me in general, but I always check out the jewelry case at thrift stores that have one.
Anyway this is a lot but the point is, you donāt always need to drastically change the way you dress to change up your aesthetic when you wanna branch out. Thereās tons of ways to try new things while still staying relatively comfortable!
in my early 20s i was very anxious about being scrawny enough to be a dior boy (this was the 00s to be clear) because the only apparently effective mode for white guys to be edgy was basically leaning into decades-old punk stereotypes
thank fuck we live in the ashes really, there is no context you can dress for that is actually mysterious and sexy
man I remember when I was a teen and thought hediās dior, cloak, early 00s raf etc was so cool. in retrospect itās kinda silly, but Iāve always been a small person, Iād be swimming in the smallest sizes at all the mall stores I had access to growing up in suburban ohio. I used to be super self conscious about it, so it felt like some kind of win when that look started to become mainstream. anyway itās all probably pretty unhealthy (I mean both the look at my attitude abt it).