Fashion Disasters and Epic Wins

Fashion sense? I don't think I have that one. I am deliciously gifted at pointing out clothes that could be eye candies for my sister or my mom to put on, but when it comes to myself, I barely have the ability to keep up with the trend.

I have been browsing a lot of websites, even the news and entertainment section, heck, I am even a subscriber of Glamour magazine for a year so I could have my monthly supply of makeup tips and what's-hot-and-what's-not - but to no end I could apply every bit of it to myself. It always leaves me wondering why.

For example, if I go out shopping with my friends, they all have these concrete ideas of what they should wear at a certain occasion and I don't. I go inside some stores and all I can see is total confusion. Sometimes I literally end up not going just because I didn't want to look stupid amidst all the glitzy dressed females.

Those magazines state that we, girls, should opt for mixing and matching. I have tried it about more than a dozen times but sometimes it ends up in panic buying of a complete ensemble, an outfit ready for the What Were They Thinking?! portion of omgyahoo, or not getting anywhere at all. I mean, what the hell is wrong with me? Is there something wrong with the color and design orientation of my brain or am I just low on confidence that I always think that I'm doing it wrong?

Sometimes I blame it on the way I was brought up. I always thought that I couldn't wear sleeveless shirts or even shorts because men will be ogling at me, and I couldn't say my grandmother was wrong either. (The jeepney drivers in the Philippines really know how to stare, to my utter horror.) I also thought that girls should look conservative, should always be au naturel, and should not pluck their horrific eyebrows, no matter how thick they are. Imagine that.

So yes, you can imagine the culture shock I felt when I first came here, where models are plain sight and people can wear whatever they want without worrying about the fact that there are also other people who exist around them that could stare, could ogle or sometimes, when one's wearing a very sexy attire, could drool.

Sometimes I am a fashion victim, other times I'm really not. I would gladly pick up a first edition of the first book of Harry Potter over a pair of Louboutin pumps that I could never wear while running for the bus. I do own some leopard-printed things, some fancy accessories, the floral skirts, and bags. I also pluck my eyebrows on a regular basis, wear make-up (I even have a primer for my foundation, haha!)  sometimes, but most of the days, you'll see me walking on my black coat, wearing a beret or beanie, a pair of overused boots and bag without any trace of make-up. You'll be lucky seeing me all glammed up in an ordinary day.

My relationship with fashion is a love and hate one. I love it when shirts are trendy, when skirts are not so in, when water-and-soap faces are in demand. I hate it when it starts treading the grounds of being glamorous, of being all made up, of latex leggings being sexy or just putting on the red lipstick that makes you look like a femme fatale. I hate it not because it doesn't fit my taste, but because I couldn't do it.

What's more loathsome is the fact that guys dig it. Not only guys, but the people dig it. They really do. When you go out sans anything that could show that you wear the latest trend, they make you feel like you live in the stone age. Whatever happened to simplicity? Whatever happened to guitar-nails; the short, unpolished nails that would allow you to strum your guitar without worrying if it would ruin your bloody red nail polish?

It makes me want to drink so I can have the Dutch courage to try to wear something out of my ordinary outfits and show the world that I am not just a geek reading her book and drinking her coffee in the cold weather.

But then again, I'd rather be myself.

So yea, I should stop wondering. Maybe I'm just really a geek. And proud of it.