What Fashion Means To Me and Why I Get Upset When It's Branded Superficial
Written by Damien Testu
Please raise your hand if you ever felt like you would never find your purpose…
Yeah, me too.
Damien, Elisa Palmer (Totem Fashion), Chris Lavish
I am 24 and I spent the first twenty years of my life wondering what I was going to do with it. Surrounded by overachievers and passionate individuals, I often felt disconnected; it was as if I couldn’t relate to them. Sure, I loved watching American TV shows and hanging out with my friends and learning the lyrics to my favorite pop songs but I didn’t have a thing to call my own.
Coat by Mimii
I don’t know if you got the memo but we are all supposed to have a thing. Every one of us. Whether we look for it or not, it has to exist to define us. Like a business card, it says something about the kind of people we are. Our society seems desperate to put labels on us depending on what we do and how we live our life - and with that comes a whole lot of pressure. It took me a while and several life experiences (my first breakup! my first professional failure!) to finally tie the loose ends. One day, a light went off in my brain. The word had been bouncing in my head for years. Desperately wanting to make its way out without ever making it far enough to roll off my lips. Fashion.
Damien Testu
Where I come from (a really small town fifty kilometers away from Paris) you don’t necessarily leave. People finish high school, get married, buy a house, find a steady job. Dreams take a backseat as they grow older and get stuck into the same town they grew up in. Are they happy? I don’t have the answer to that intimate question but back then, I just knew it would not have been my place. That does not mean I felt legitimate enough to even think of beginning a career in fashion. I never really gave it much thought because every time the idea would appear to me, I’d reject it automatically. It wasn’t my world. And I would convince myself of it more and more until the idea faded and retreated to the back of my mind. Of course, I strongly advise not to do the same thing with your dreams.
When came the time to work for it, pursue it, make it mine, I had to sit myself down and wonder what made that world so appealing to me. Was it the countless episodes of The Hills I watched? The fact that whenever I’d look at someone, I’d dissect their outfit and look at their shoes first? I knew I had always been interested, even when I did not have to dress yet. On TV and in movies, characters would only matter to me when I could make sense of their style and how it would evolve to tell a story. So I knew it wasn’t a phase. It was in me.
Hat by Mimii
This is probably the reason why I take it so personally every time someone comes at me with something to say about the fashion industry. Calling it fake, superficial and stupid. The sly smile I get at parties when I say the F-word (interestingly enough, fashion is seen as a bad word by some people), the eye rolls I notice when I insist my job does not only consist of going to parties and have champagne with celebrity stylists? I remember them all too well. I also recall two seasons ago when an Uber driver told me that this industry was useless. At the time, I couldn’t even disagree - how do you explain something you’re passionate about to somebody who completely dismisses its existence?
Because despite the things you hear daily, the misconceptions and misconstructions; I have met the most interesting people in fashion. Could it be more diverse? Sure. Did I encounter mean-spirited, vile people? Absolutely. But overall, I love that we all come from different backgrounds. That there’s no golden path to get there. The passion and excitement that comes when you connect with someone from your field who just gets it.
Fashion was never just a word to me. Hell, it was never just an idea. It means more to me than what people see at first glance. I happen to think that it’s not just clothes. It is not just the shoes you wear or the labels you have in your closet. It is certainly not what most influencers want us to believe. Not a product, not a “vibe”, not a social status. It is art. Colors, shapes. Silhouettes, prints. Castelbajac’s bright blues, yellows, and reds. Alaïa’s way of making women feel sexy and beautiful. Cristobal Balenciaga’s architectural garments. Yves Saint Laurent’s vision and his desire to make fashion more accessible.
It’s about feeling. Telling a story. Mixing influences and inspirations. 20th-century painters like David Hockney and Matisse. Trips to Morocco and Tokyo. Jean Cocteau’s drawings and movies. It’s how you see the world or what you would like the world to look like. It’s so intimately tied to society and politics. As Diana Vreeland said: “Fashion is part of the daily air, and it changes all the time, with all the events. You can even see the approaching of a revolution in clothes. You can see and feel everything in clothes.” I can’t picture a life without fashion and I don’t want to. Some people understand it and some don’t. I know which side I’m on and I hope you do too.
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