WELCOME BACK GUYS! Unfortunately, I was recently consumed with final exams, which is why I haven’t posted in over a week. For my Intro to Fashion Design final, we basically had zero direction and absolutely no basis for our project, so naturally, I concocted something that included neon paint, glitter, puff-balls, tulle, and lots of denim. If you can’t already tell, I like to keep things simple. Ha. Just kidding. I despise minimalism.

Before we presented our projects, I had high hopes and lots of confidence. Afterwards, not so much. I suppose mega-conceptual, Comme des Garcons-esque fashion is favored in SCAD’s fashion department. Although my professor complimented my work, I still left feeling defeated. For a reason that I can’t even totally explain, I felt like an oddity in my own program of study. Fashion is the single place where I thought I could seek refuge from conformity and simplicity, and yet here I am, feeling like a misfit once again. Should I even be in this major? Maybe I should switch back to fashion marketing, since designing profoundly odd ‘clothing’ (but still artistic, of course) for a pretentious runway show isn’t my desire, anyway. I felt lost, honestly. How do you even know if you’re in the right place? It’s a question that many people, especially us college students, tend to ask ourselves over and over again.

With fashion, and art in general, individuality is greatest thing we can possess. You want an A, but you also want to stay true to who you are as an artist. It’s a difficult pick, and sometimes one of those desires has to be compromised.  When making this garment, I was totally aware that it wouldn’t be like many of the other garments that people made in my class, and whether that was a good or bad thing, well, I’m not sure. Regardless of how the garment looked, I knew that I wanted it to portray a version of my absolute best self- someone who I may already be, or maybe the woman that I will be when I’m at a point where I’ve finally figured myself out. I wanted that girl to be, in whatever sense, a rebel. Maybe she doesn’t drink a lot of Smirnoff and smoke cigarettes to enhance her art-kid aesthetic, and maybe she really only breaks the rules of identity and fashion, but she’s a rebel nonetheless. Not only is this girl fearlessly funky, but she’s bold, quirky, free-spirited, and undeniably unique. She’s herself, and that’s really all there is to it.

Ourself, regardless of whomever or whatever that may be, is the single thing that we should all strive to embody. Otherwise, you’re merely wasting your energy.

So whatever place you’re in, feeling like an oddity is not something that’s completely out of the norm. Use it to your advantage, seize your tendency to divert from the norm and make something spectacular out of it. Even in a creative world such as fashion, there is still a pressure to create, think, dress, or be a certain way. And in the midst of all this geometric, black-and-white nonsense, we should take pride in being as organic, and unapologetically colorful, as possible. A rebel, if you will.

Embrace Your Misfit (and Rebellious) Soul,
xoxo Julia B.

 

 

 

 

 

Design and Styling: Julia Blandford
Photography: Julia Blandford and Peter Chrzan
Model: Olivia Bishop