Saturday, September 30, 2006 How to look chic (without spending an arm and a leg!) By Joy C. Bernaldez Joy In Fashion
THE predicament that most people find themselves in when it comes to dressing is both funny and sad. So much has been lost and sacrificed without most of us knowing it, and the basic reasons for dressing up, which as far as I can remember are defined by either necessity or by the sheer joy of it, or both, have changed.
Fashion magazines come up with state of the art survival programs and sensible beauty how to's to help us out of the crisis but these are just not enough. I don't recall when it all began but people have been taught, or at least subliminally been conditioned to think, that spending big money is a requisite to building a persona in the style scene. If you can boast of a Blahnik, a Gucci or a Ferragamo or all of the above in your closet, then you're well-dressed, you have good taste and yes, that you're a valuable person. Never mind that you actually resembled an ostrich or looked completely "off" in the last party.
People now tend to lose sight of the wearer who, after all, is the star around which revolves the world of fashion. It's not about the clothes or shoes or bags or jewelry, it's really about how these trappings enhance the "us" part.
Somewhere, somehow, people are now supposed to be more impressed by the thousands of pesos or dollars we spent to pull together a look... and not anymore about the way we walk and carry ourselves. And some people just have to ask. And we have to tell. And since we don't want to be outdone, we go right on spending our hard earned money on an outfit-calculated make their jaws drop. Now, where is the joy in that?
The problem is not less the financial toll exacted by the purchase of an Escada, a Prada or a Louis Vuitton because for some this is not a problem. It is really about losing track of the essence and joy in fashion, if we make brand-collecting our purpose for dressing.
We can still be in high spirits in this very basic art if we learned to go back to the basics: being simply ourselves, discovering our own style, and deriving something equal or greater in value than what high society dictates from the brandless, the locally made, or even the ordinary and still make ourselves beautiful. There is more joy in that since the surest way to looking so un-beautiful is to spend two-thirds of our time catching up with the Joneses, anyway.
Beauty is about letting the best of ourselves shine through.... and we don't need to join the Italian craze to do it. It's about wellness of mind, body and spirit. It's about living a full and meaningful life and unconsciously showing it through an aura of confidence and contentment in manner and in dress, in our outlook in life and in the choices that we make. From that, we develop a distinctive, very personal style.
Going by what has now been my trademark of downright pragmatism in an industry characterized by sophistication, hype, glamour, and extravagance, this column will not pretend to be anything that this writer is not. This page will feature articles about the pursuit of elegance, grace and beauty for the Filipino woman, in the hope that these qualities as embodied by people and their lifestyles will help Sun.Star readers to rediscover joy in fashion and its reasons.
