The other night I dreamed that I was flipping through a magazine and came across a feature in which teen celebrities explained the difference between fashion and style. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream about a magazine story before and I figured I should take it seriously. I googled “fashion vs style” and got 195,000,000 hits, so maybe everyone’s having the same dream.
[Pause while I listen to “Talkin’ World War III Blues.”]
The difference between fashion and style basically comes down to this: fashion is current, popular, commercial, created for consumption rather than by consumers, while style is concocted by the wearer or user. Fashion may be inspired by individual or “street” style but it’s essentially a top-down business. It may be based on long-established design ideas (the ballgown, the sports jacket), but its key feature is newness. You have to buy fashion but, as people always say, you can’t buy style.
Style itself may be harder to explain. There’s personal style—your special, quirky mode of self-presentation—and there’s being stylish, which is like being fashionable but not so trendy. And then there’s style as in “she’s really got style”—a kind of ineffable rightness that not only rises above fashion but suggests that you alone know the secret about how clothes and hair and all the rest should really be done. That’s the kind you can’t buy.
The closest I’ve ever come to being fashionable was the period between 8th grade, when mini-skirts and fishnets were the things to wear (I remember a skirt that was light blue with lots of little flowers in colors like yellow, orange, and lime green and it will surprise no one that I had fishnets to match), and the jeans and Indian shirts of the late ’60s and early ’70s. After that, I went my own way—not for any particular reason, and certainly not to be anti-fashion, but just because.
Looking back, I can see that I was developing a personal style—specifically, a commitment to having a personal style—but it took me years to recognize that. It’s difficult to talk about one’s own style without sounding boastful or self-important, but the fact is that I made different choices than most of my friends. I liked the weird detail—yellow Mary Quant nail polish—and the idea that it could be fun, or at least interesting, to get dressed in the morning. While most of my friends chose some version of academic drag, I’d buy a skirt with a lot of colors in it (the fabric below is from one of them) and then half a dozen tops and sweaters, scarves and tights to go with it. I wore eye makeup when all my women friends had given it up for political or counter-cultural reasons. And I had long discussions with other feminists about why I was so interested in all of this.
Feminist analyses of fashion and style and self-presentation have moved beyond simplistic critiques to much more serious explorations of why these things can be so damned appealing and it’s been years since anyone tried to pick a fight with me about shopping. I’m not the first—or even the thousandth—to point out the paradox of creating an original style from mass produced clothes and accessories. But I will say that after many decades, it’s still fun to try.
