A response to the question 'why are you interested in fashion?'

A response to the question 'why are you interested in fashion' and the implication that fashion is rubbish put to me by Nigel Playford on the 18th February 2007 in the car to the station.

Discovering fashion in the sense of exploration of new looks and designers like Miucca Prada (she has integrity) rather than in the sense of self-beautifucation and enhancement of purported female assets (boobs, legs etc) really helped me to escape from being locked into a fixed image of femininity that I found to be oppressive and that deprived me of an existence as an emancipated individual.
The re-construction of the outwardly perceived aesthetic self facilitates internal change, a changing in behaviour and is indeed, a symptom of it too.

That this seems so subversive to others, is because appearing as a newly contructed person (aesthetically) appears to de-validate the former, relied-upon construction (relied upon as in knowing how to interact with that person) which in my case was an ideal of femininity (long nice hair, feminine clothes etc). And it was this definition of femininity that in turn defines masculinity: through the contrasts, the differences. These differences, these largely culturally pre-supposed differences, define what we value in each 'gender'. Thus to devalidate feminine norms - to discard them, to 'move-on' equally devalidates, or seems to, male norms (what we value in the male gender as a society) and thus disturbs those who rely on these gender norms for their perception of themselves and the world.

EXEMPLARY of the cited response to my various aesthetic changes is Guy (my brother) and his violent and aggressive responses to my haircuts and clothing choices. If EVER there was someone who utterly defines themselves by their conformation to masculine gender norms it is Guy. On the recent skiing holiday, he said 'you used to be beautiful when you had nice hair now you look like a freak etc etc' something that Dad did not dispute. To me it is tragic (on a universal as well as a personal level) that my decisions to cut my hair or wear different clothes could engender such a response - that people found it tragic that i chose to deviate aesthetically from female gender norms.

I find fashion liberating with its disregard for conservatism in aesthetics (looks changing from month to month) because it allowed me to change. The response from people when I cut my hair was a sharp wake-up call to how locked into a certain identity i was - that me doing this was just SO 'crazy' and subversive. At the time i was just having some fun, I had no idea how much it would change people's perception of me. Frankly I was shocked by the response, i had simply not considered that letting someone dye my hair was an act of vandalism to my identity as female. I was called lesbian by people on the sailing team, told by dad that when the London bombings were happening that I looked a bit like a terrorist because of my hair and so should be careful of being shot, and wholeheartedly verbally abused by Guy. By others, I was treated like someone who was daring, more interesting and edgy, also solely on the basis of my hair and clothes - and that made me feel freer to change too. It was not I who placed such importance of my hair and clothes - it was the response of OTHERS primarily those who consider themselves above fashion that caused me to realise its power.