Style vs Fashion vs Fads

Alright, so today I have most likely progressed to this stage:

(mostly unaware of what's happening in the world, but still fully aware that something is not right!)

(If you have no idea what I am talking about, I had my wisdom teeth removed on Friday and I am NOT a happy camper. These posts are pre-planned while I become a self-pitying blob of painful unhappiness)

So it’s time for me to bring up the concept of fashionable verses trendy verses stylish. It seems to me that the word ‘trendy’ has fallen out of fashion (haha, pun intended!). ‘Trendy,’ for me, signifies someone who has no personal image to express to the world, but instead lets the fashion industry dictate what she will be wearing. (I say she, but this could also apply to men as well—I just see it more obviously in women, and have more experience with it as it applies to women) After five years she will have an entire new wardrobe and it may be completely unrelated to the wardrobe she had five years prior.

On the other extreme, for me ‘style’ implies that the woman is extremely aware of the image she is presenting to the world and she refuses to change her style in acknowledgment of the passing fads. Five years may pass and she may still be wearing the same type of clothing, but out of love of the style, not out of a lack of self-awareness.

I see fashionable as being in the middle—having a strong opinion about her personal style, while still bending with the popular styles of the season. In five years, her style will change, but it will still be recognizable as having her unique stamp.

Do you agree with me in the way that I’ve defined trendy, fashionable and stylish? Or do you think I’m completely off the mark?

Do you identify yourself as one of the three?

Fashion Rules in Magazines

Well, about now my post-surgery face probably looks something like this:

And the inside of my poor, pain-killer drugged out brain probably looks close to this:

So let’s talk fashion rules and the blogging community!

But first, gentle viewers, let’s travel back to last Sunday, when I was impatiently waiting at my favorite chicken teriyaki take-out restaurant for my order to come up. I grabbed one of the new magazines and absent mindedly paged through it, wanting to see if any of my personal fashion likes ended up in the ‘popular for fall’ section (which, of course, signals for a time to stock up!). However, I was dismayed and angered at the Guide for Weekend Wear section. Mincing no words, the author dictated that neither dresses nor skirts were appropriate for the weekend. Only skinny jeans (but not too skinny!), sweaters and either a long necklace or a scarf were appropriate choices. Wow, so I get to express my individual style in choosing either a necklace (within reason) or a scarf (long and drapey—knitted scarves were not permitted!).

Admittedly, I do not read magazines very often, so I can’t be sure that this isn’t de rigueur for an article. However, I’m not completely out of touch with pop-culture. Aren’t we supposed to be glorifying individual style? Accepting a variety of looks (as long as they conform to the ideal body type—but that’s a completely different discussion, for a different time!) for women and men to display? Am I being naïve in thinking that this article was completely out of line? I definitely see a more accepting viewpoint in the blogging community, with a greater emphasis on developing a recognizable personal style rather than following the dictations of a higher fashion power.

What do you think?