Jacket: Hannan, Jeans: AG, Sunglasses: Efva Attling

One of the best things about a good interviewer is that they ask question or make a comment about you that cause you to pause and reflect. Yesterday someone made a statement that I was a very visual person. I found this momentarily startling because I have always been, and always consider myself,  to be a woman of words. When I stopped to reflect on this for a moment I realized that somehow my mind has made a shift. Where before I used to read and then make a picture, now I see a picture and it inspires me to write. Truth be told it is more likely a back and forth between images and text that produce an image that probably tells my story better than I can with words.

I find now that when I buy my ever-ending supply of independent fashion magazines it is always the photography that pulls me in and gives me an inspiration or a new idea. The text has become more of an afterthought. Compared to my digital diet where images are streaming by so fast you can hardly take them in, photographs in a magazine that are thoughtfully produced demand I sit quietly with them for a moment before moving on to something new. And so we add another dimension to the processing of information: the difference between what you take in slowly and what you take in fast. Slow is like a full and satisfying meal, fast is like snacking. I find I need both forms in my daily diet.

One of the best things about reading a good interview of someone else is that how that person might respond will also make you reflect. The question posed was how do you really learn about fashion? The answer by “doing it” and by looking at photographs. When I was trying to come up with a topic for my dissertation one of the activities I loved the most was independently doing the research and exploring topics I did not know much about. It was not the classes I enjoyed but this free, unstructured, unfacilitated time of pure exploration. I believe it is the last time I felt pleasure in an academic task other than teaching. My foray in the study of the subject of fashion makes me feel this same sense of play through the “doing” and my excavation of independent fashion magazines. My blog is the place where out of everything I am doing now,  I feel the most myself. The photo today inspired me to write about when I feel the most comfortable, full of pleasure and most like me.

A big part of that is you and the kind of conversations we have. So once again let me say how I am grateful to have you in my life and as company during the exploration.

What are you wearing when you feel, “most like yourself?”