Comfort should be the new black

I shamelessly check people out. I want to see how their clothes
fit, not because I’m personally interested in their bodies,
but because I’m fascinated with comfort and how it collides
with style.

People think I’m looking at them. Well, I mean, of course
I’m looking at them, but it’s not about them ““
it’s about the human form and all its idiosyncratic,
misguided abilities to feel vulnerable even in the safest of
situations. When I’m looking, what I’m looking for
isn’t something tangible within the parameters of a returned
gaze, but rather an understanding of comfort and all its
complexities.

I check them out because comfort interests me. Why is it more
“comfortable” to be uncomfortable, to wear high heels
and short skirts? Do we want to create an identity for ourselves
that takes that much work? Under whose scrutiny? Certainly not mine
““ I obsess over others’ discomfort in an attempt to
alleviate it, rather than to instigate more of it.

Through fashion, we want to create an identity from which we can
then interact. Clothes create a series of signals, a vague list of
dos and don’ts where casual conversational is concerned.

They give us an identity, but more specifically something to
identify as. The clothes we wear create the shape we perceive as
our bodies. The clothes and the body are so inextricably linked
that they must be seen through their interactions rather than as
separate entities.

We piece together a conceptual “body image” from the
ever-trendy presence of society, where we’re affecting the
way we feel about our bodies through clothes. Too often, this
perception is uncomfortable and negative; we may think it
doesn’t matter that we think so poorly of our bodies, but we
shouldn’t be putting down our bodies day after day.
They’re what we live in, after all.

To shun your body is to come home to an unfriendly house.
Through this, we get depressed and desperate, beholden to the
homogenous likenesses of the human form that develop us into
“perfection” and envelop us in their scrutiny.

For hot trends to catch fire, people must be buying into them.
So for clothes to become more comfortable, we must perpetuate
comfort until it permeates the world, until to be uncomfortable is
unfashionable.

Purchasing a piece of clothing is like a vote in very obvious
ways: Boycotting sweatshops and supporting sustainability are two
examples. Purchases are also votes for or against how clothes are
shaped around us and thus how we perceive ourselves.

Though I don’t have the budget for an entirely
sweatshop-free, sustainable, environmentally safe, organically
grown (in other words my dream) wardrobe, there are a few rules I
follow.

I only buy clothes (or shoes, for that matter), that I
wouldn’t mind being stuck in for a few days. Worst-case
scenario: natural disaster; best-case: impromptu road trip. I
don’t buy clothes that restrict my movement ““ I keep
enough tension in my shoulders on my own, without a blazer that
doesn’t fit.

Most importantly I don’t buy anything that makes me feel
bad about my body. Regardless of what I try to convince myself
later, each time I put an item of clothing on, I know I’m
going to have the same feelings so why put myself through all
that?

Fashion is about dressing up the body, so let’s be
fashionable and dress up our concept of the body into something we
like.

Regardless of how you dress, I’ll be checking you out all
year.

If you’ve ever caught a blond girl with pink
highlights checking you out, e-mail Rood at
[email protected].