Am I a skirt person?

The thing about fashion is that it’s not art, but it’s also not math or physics—you may add 2 and 2 and get 4 for years until one day you don’t—style truths escape like water through my hands when I try to grasp them. This is why big statements about my personal style that box me in a rigid way tend to feel not only asphyxiating but jinxed by imminent future contradiction.

I guess saying “I’m a skirt person” would be easier in Spanish, where the verb “to be” is divided into two forms: ser and estar. This division contemplates the possibility of being either permanent or temporary. “I am happy” could be translated into estoy feliz, as in “I am happy at this moment but may not be happy in the next 10 minutes.” But there is also the possibility of ser feliz, which is a permanent state of bliss, as in “I am a happy person.”

It’s in these seemingly little intricacies that I realize the many ways language shapes not only our vision of the world but our understanding of style: certain pieces in my wardrobe represent ser—a constant, unshakable part of my identity. Other pieces embody estar—which result in fleeting but meaningful moments of experimentation that sometimes stick with me for decades.

Like skirts. Which started as an estar. And now they feel like a ser.

“I’m a skirt person” feels like a ser for the simple reason that, for almost two decades, I have felt more myself when I am wearing one. Perhaps it’s the familiarity of wearing them every day in Catholic school. Perhaps it’s the sense of femininity they offered as a teenager when my ultra conservative parents didn’t allow me to wear other trendy feminine signifiers my friends were wearing: spaghetti straps, crop tops, strapless tops, etc. Perhaps it was that Studio F fuchsia pencil skirt I wore to the club in Barranquilla when I was 18, which made me feel really good that night. Ever since then, the skirt shapes and lengths I have worn have varied, but the feeling of skirts being so undeniably me has remained:

Handmade full skirt, wool sweater, Pull & Bear heel flip-flops.

Capezio tights.

Vintage Adolfo hat, old Uniqlo wool sweater and a-line skirt, Tibi boots.

Handmade skirt, Willy Chavarria sweatshirt, heirloom pearls.

Stella McCartney skirt via TRR (this is one I have wanted since the day I saw it on the runway around 2014), old Zara t-shirt, same heeled flip-flops from before, old Wayfarers.

Uuuntld shirt, old Zara skirt, Wayuu mochila worn as a necklace.

Navy cotton sweater, vintage necklace, vintage beaded skirt, second-hand M2Malletier bag, belt and shoes from Ross.

Tibi shirt via TRR, Jeff’s belt, old Zara skirt.

Vintage mini bag.

Frankie Shop oversized blazer, vintage skirt, Chanel flats.

Old Uniqlo wool a-line skirt, Jason Wu jacket, vintage brooch, Easy Street sandals.

Thrifted slip skirt, Muji t-shirt, old Celine tote, Comme Si socks, Not Celine toe cleavage ballet flats.

Twenty years suggest that perhaps being a skirt person will never change, and I’m not just into skirts as a sort of phase. But again, since a sense of personal style is not math or science, I’d rather keep this statement open to being challenged the day I wake up thinking that I am now a pants person. Or a jeans person. Or a dress person. There is no truth to hold onto. Or at least not a rigid one.

If it sounds postmodern, it’s because personal style is one of the few realms where the absence of truth is bearable, even liberating. Certainties dissolve, and while unsettling, this dissolution holds no real consequence—2+2 does not stop equaling 4. The so-called truths of personal style are just that: illusions, scaffolding to steady us for a time. To confront our mortality. And yet, the illusion can be comforting, as reassuring as an old photograph where you still recognize yourself. But when that scaffolding falters, when the style you once held tight no longer mirrors who you are, you let it go. You try something new. Even the immutable laws of science yield when evidence insists otherwise. Why should we expect more from fashion?

~

Laura<3

Full brocade skirt and Hungarian beaded headband. Budapest, 2012.