"The thing about uncomfortable beauty"

There's something kinda thrilling about teetering the line between alienating the public with bizarre clothing choices and receiving multiple outfit compliments in a day. That's something I love and admire about personal style and the concept of beauty in general.

It's perfectly easy to appreciate and (slightly harder) to emulate traditional concepts of beauty. I am fully mesmerized when I see a picture of a carefully constructed (Weheartit worthy) Elie Saab gown or even someone in a perfectly fitted pair of jeans and T shirt. There's a sureness about that kind of beauty- where everything is as it should be- either tumbling in decadence or radiating the eternal cool of timelessness. It's a kind of unspoken agreement among us, where certain boxes are ticked and a certain look or feel of something is universally recognized as beautiful.

Obviously, there are terms and conditions to all of this- thank you white capitalist cis-het Europe- as many of the reasons behind this 'agreement' are heavily influenced by the media and Eurocentric understandings of beauty. We have to some extent been 'taught' what beauty is, in terms of a number of things including and especially fashion.




That definitely hasn't stopped a lot of people, including many designers who work to challenge that 'traditional beauty' concept and perhaps start to create new kinds of beauty.

It's seen with design houses like Prada- who choose to elevate the traditionally "ugly" colours in the crayon box by making use of browns, mustards and murky greens in their pieces. More extreme examples include the cult design houses- Comme des Garcons and Vetements- who completely flip the script and hyper elevate even the most basically considered items of clothing like the hoodie. Meticulously tailored garments are thus contrasted with oddly proportioned silhouettes, granny wallpaper print and huge sweaters with long ass sleeves-that are very slightly almost 'ugly'.

That's what I love. I love beauty that's uncomfortable and risky- that makes people do a double take.

taken by me

So cool I'm not a major fashion designer making people wear socks with a lighter as a heel and calling them shoes, but I do think it is possible to bring this down to a personal style level and chat about how that type of beauty manifests itself in an outfit.

My fave fave fave, Carrie Bradshaw (who I spoke about in my previous post) does this thing that I'm talking about perfectly. Her outfits are literally uncomfortably beautiful. Stuff doesn't really match. Style rules are broken. But it's still beautiful and essentially entertaining to look at.
I've learned about what always wins, what looks good and sexy and cool all the time. I love and admire it. It's beautiful af. It more often than not makes fashion sense.
What I've recently come to recognize about my self though, is that I also love stuff that doesn't always win. Stuff that looks bad and unsexy and uncool too. I love challenging myself to find loopholes in the "fashion don'ts" and creating something that kinda works but maybe doesn't.

This look serves as a manifestation of that. I could have tucked in my shirt and paired the skirt instead with a form fitting top coz the style rule book specifically states that 'you have to choose top or bottom half when wearing loose clothes'. I could have worn matching black boots instead of these acidicly bright sneakers. I didn't. I took a bit of a risk and surprised myself- and that for me is the best part about dressing up.

So yeah. The point is.
Beauty is beauty. cool.
But more importantly for me

Beauty is intrigue.

right taken by me

taken by me

P.S: Yayy! Jemma is blogging again! Click here to see her most recent post.


Outfit details

jacket: Vintage Bill Blass
sunglasses: Balenciaga
green shirt: Topshop
skirt: Mr Price/MRP
shoes: Nike

Credits

Concept and Photography: Jemma Richmond and Refiloe Mokgele
Styling: Refiloe Mokgele