Esme on Fashion Style

I came across this thought provoking video by Esme Young today. It's well worth watching for yourself, so take a look on The Great British Sewing Bee 🧵 🪡 Facebook page👇

Esme on Fashion Style

I really enjoyed this video. It's made me think 🤔 💭 There are some key concepts about fashion design that she's summarised here: as a fashion designer (and if you create original, handmade clothing) you need to create a particular style and look, which you can base on your own personal stylistic preferences and your unique personality. What I love about Esme's sense of style is that it's so artistic, creative and her style breaks conventions, thinks outside the box 😍 (and I love a bit of sparkle and fabulousness too ✨ 💖). Inspirational! Spurs me on to go design some clothes and maybe try to sew a few of them together too. I can be quite wacky when it comes to fashion design though: I've been known to design a gathered dress with lots of folds in it by putting a dustbin sack on myself. 🤷‍♀️ I also enjoy keeping a fashion terminology notebook. 📒✍️

I love the way she wears her art, as it were. I can relate to that: my ideal is for my fashion style to transform me into a walking work of art. Sadly, this doesn't always seem very practical in my life, such as when I'm doing a workout! 

I think it's absolutely fabulous that Esme enjoys wearing a jacket her ex-student designed, made and gave her - none of this uptight nonsense that unis like to encourage between students and academic staff! Love that she's appreciated their creative gift ♥️ and continues her relaxed relationship with this ex-student after they've graduated. 👍 

Q&A: 

Do I have a style preference for certain types of statement necklaces and what's my personal fashion style?

I don't focus on necklaces in particular when I want to wear a statement piece of jewellery or an accessory. I'm happy to mix it up between necklaces and bracelets, rings, belts, scarves, hair accessories, brooches, pins/badges, and ties. So eg I'm happy to switch it up between wearing a Jewish Star of David necklace and wearing a Jewish 'Chai' decoration I've attached onto my bag, that I adapted from a keyring. I love collecting keyrings - I incorporate them into my accessories and style. And I currently wear a big bold rainbow bracelet all the time, instead of the Pride necklace I wore last summer. I also have many intersecting identities so it's tricky to reflect all of them all the time in my personal fashion style and creative expression. 

Nevertheless, I do have a bit of a 'thing' for bold designs on ties so I have a tie collection I love and I like to keep adding to. This includes ties of all sizes and thicknesses, from slim women's ties to chunky men's ties and gender neutral ties, and the themes vary from arty🎨, to LGBT rainbow coloured🏳️‍🌈, to music🎶, to physics⚛️. I also collect badges, especially if they relate to LGBT+ statements, art, fashion, music eg some I bought at the museum exhibition of the Supremes. I pin most of these together on my arty graffiti bag to create a personalised statement bag. 

I also have a 'thing' for wearing waistcoats. So I do love to wear statement jackets and waistcoats, be it ones with applique patchwork, or sewn details, or more masculine styles. 

I also like to shift between purely fashion statements eg a bold, colourful, floral scarf that functions as the centre piece of my outfit (imagine Ted Baker style) and making social statements through clothing and jewellery (think LGBT+ statement items, Jewish accessories, and Vivienne Westwood stylish, arty statement clothing range as well as her punk slogans & safety pins style). I also collected punk jewellery and jackets and enjoyed wearing that Vivienne Westwood inspired fashion style too. 

I don't wear any style to stand out to others. I experiment with fashion design and what I wear for my own personal and creative fulfilment and it makes me happy and makes life colourful and exciting. I feel that wearing various styles and designs of clothes is just part of my genderfluidity as well as an extension of being an artist, a bit like Frida Kahlo's clothing was sometimes continuous with her art. The trouble is, unlike my maternal grandmother, I'm not a dab hand at making clothes, so I am more reliant on adapting/customising bought clothes or buying items in independent, creative shops, or markets or boutique stores. 

So for me, my personal fashion style is just a form of expressing myself, hence I wear a huge variety of styles. However, if I had to pick only one fashion style, it would be bold, colourful, unconventional, arty.