Human-core dressing: In search of the perfect wardrobe
How can mere mortals compete with the silicone-and-money ideal?
Perfection is a losing game.
Somewhere in the sea of tan-and-white capsule wardrobes with tasteful accessories, I start to get the gnawing feeling that this isn’t necessarily a solution. While it seems like the perfect way to downsize, to do “more with less,” it’s so prescriptive, and collecting all the perfect pieces is a task that never feels entirely complete.
It all reminds me of being a kid in Catholic school, where uniforms were required. Girls could wear a white polo shirt and a very specific selection of navy pants.
Supposedly, the purpose of a uniform is to reduce distractions, to level the playing field, and to make it hard to visibly identify markers of class that can stratify the playground so quickly.
In reality, the limited variations in hair, jewelry, and shoes, displayed against that canvas of sameness, only made it easier to play ‘spot the differences.’
As long as there’s one single, agreed-upon ideal, there will always be someone doing it a little better.
Going too far is the most human thing I can think of.
The internet is like that, too. So many skillful, creative people have been working our hardest to get as close as possible to the ideal so that we can be promoted, accepted, and followed. Whether you’re running a TikTok channel or an Instagram account or writing blog posts that you hope will be indexed on the first page of Google, it’s all about determining what ‘the algorithm’ prefers, then creating to that rubric.
What we end up with is so much quasi-sameness. And the joke is on us, because we’ve produced so much ‘content’ that the robots can, through the magic of AI, just replace us. They’re already creating art based on our faces and writing based on our voices.
In school, I remember this one girl:
she wore these wide-leg, navy blue trousers that made my teacher furious—and made her look impossibly cool. I think the worst part, for our teacher, was that her decision to flout the rules made it glaringly obvious that there were actually no consequences for doing so. All the authority figures could do was shame her, and if she refused to respond to that, she could continue wearing her bell bottoms and long nails.
Could it be the same for us now? Is it possible that there are no real consequences for refusing to comply? Is it possible that we don’t have to create to the algorithmic prescription in order to attract a following before we can begin expressing ourselves completely?
The only answer, then, is to be as completely human as possible. Be lumpy and squishy, have dirty hair and dirt under your fingernails, say curse words and cry a lot. Wear clothes because they feel good on your skin, because at least for now, the robots don’t have nerve endings; they can’t match us here.
But what if it’s not about being the best? What if it’s just about getting by, being good enough?
If getting dressed is an act of creativity, and creating is an act of spirituality—as I and many others believe it is—then giving one ounce of energy to styling ourselves in the likeness of some smooth-filtered AI mirage is dangerous spiritually as well as culturally.
Mindlessly copying an ideal that developed around the idea of concentrating large amounts of money in the hands of a few men in Silicon Valley—an ideal that can only be achieved, fittingly enough, with silicon and money—can’t be good for us.
I hope to see human beings doing strange and unexpected things as a badge of humanity. I hope to see us dressing in ways that splash emotion. I want to see us lean into the surreal, wear literal garbage, wear nothing at all.
I want to see us intimately connect with what our clothes are made of: this is the skin of an actual animal that once walked; this is the boiled cocoon of a moth; this is plastic that disintegrates in the wash.
Is that too much? Have I gone too far?
Good. Going too far is the most human thing I can think of.
Tomorrow, subscribers will receive the first installment of a new series where I share inspiration, ideas, wardrobe prompts, color palettes—anything I can think of that will help you have fun getting dressed.
Most exciting of all, it’ll include a weekly roundup of the most beautiful boutique windows in Bologna for artsy-chic styling inspiration from the pros.
If you want to be included, you know what to do…