This summer was an interesting one for me, sartorially speaking. Sometime earlier, I became rather obsessed with Ralph Lauren, a designer that had never really been at the forefront of my fashion interests before. It took me a while to figure out why his work started to resonate with me all of a sudden; it wasn’t until I was perusing Ralph Lauren: In His Own Fashion that the answer came to me. Lauren is not an innovative designer the likes of Issey Miyake, for example. Rather, his genius lies in his ability to tell stories using clothes (and to design clothes that can vividly tell stories). As it happens, within the last few years, I have come to understand and view clothes as tools for story-telling in my own life. My use of the style avatars (which started in around 2018) was a first step down this path; with time, my approach has evolved, but the core practice remains the same. So I admire Lauren because he creates clothes for the same purpose that I wear them.
I also enjoy many of his aesthetic choices.
Over the last couple of years, the Adventurer avatar morphed into the Historian, with its witchy academia influences (thanks, A Discovery of Witches!) and, more recently – as I have been watching a lot of TV shows set in or featuring English countryside – a tweedy, country estate sort of vibe. Lauren’s runway collections offer a lot of inspiration in that respect, no surprise there.
His southwestern-inspired collections, on the other hand, were something of a slow burn. Initially, I thought I wasn’t interested because anything remotely cowboy-adjacent has never really been my bag. But then I had a closer look at the clothes and realized that there were many elements that spoke to me. The quilted/patchwork pieces. Prairie-style maxi dresses. Southwestern textiles and jewelry. [Ever since my trips to California and Arizona back in 2017 and 2018, I’ve wanted to see more and learn more about the American Southwest. For now, through books, but some day hopefully a big road trip.]
Anyway, as will have become obvious by now if you’re been following my recent posts, it was this aspect of Lauren’s aesthetic that became my main style influence this summer. For one thing, once the weather warmed up, a lot of the Historian outfits that I had been wearing became rather impractical. But this sort southwesten-cottagecore-ish take on the Bohemian – which I’ve also called my “Jo-March-on-the-prairie” aesthetic – seemed well suited to the weather.
And that is what I have stuck with, by and large, all summer. Here and there, I sprinkled in some colour (reminiscent of the old colourful maximalist version of the Bohemian).
It’s probably the first time in a long time that my outfits have been so cohesive. That was not my goal or intent, by the way. It just happened that way; instead of feeling drawn to exploring different themes with my clothes, I experimented with the one. And I enjoyed it very much – much more than I might have expected given how close to a “uniform” this came to be. But I have to say that, coming to the end of August, I am very much looking forward to a change. I am excited to get back to the Historian, and all my lovely wools and plaids. A few of my summer pieces may end up being transitioned to fall, but I think most of them will be laid aside until next year.
Which makes me think that it might be time for my avatars to evolve into a seasonal pattern. Fall and spring are definitely Historian territory. Summer is Bohemian time (whether the old Colourful Maximalist version, or the recent Southwestern Cottagecore version). Which leaves me to wonder: what is winter going to be? Time will tell.