Wardrobe Rewild

At the end of the day there are no rules.

An Artistic collaboration with Seriesnthings

A few Mondays ago, I realized that I had been remiss in my foraging activities over the weekend. No knick knacks or thrift finds to admire on my mantel or a hanger. It’s a craving I can only compare to that of my former alcohol urges, a whole other can of worms we can unpack at a later date.

Today I worship carbonation and found objects.

So, I drove to a fabric warehouse looking for scraps. Tassels, fringe, pom poms, striped samples, buttons and greek key motifs piled up in my arms.

They say you trade one addiction for the other. But substance abuse is a matter of wellness, and I can’t think of a more fulfilling remedy than creativity.

Even if you have no idea what you are going to do with said things… yet.

For every life lesson there is a horticultural metaphor. We tend to these gardens, tow the soil, sow the seeds, etc. However, this has been the rainiest summer in my recent memory. Jungle level precipitation, from retrogrades to deluges down the street. Street style has suffered, if there is such a thing in Georgia. The less is more philosophy that complements summer heat waves lined with linen and breezy layers has given way to weeds.

There’s been no point in pulling them though, because it will just rain more tomorrow.

What has sprouted are evenings chasing fireflies as I watch my brindled bully swipe a frisbee out of the air, a sartorial impulse secured by safety pins, and striking balance between minimalist and maximalist sensibilities.

How can we go with the flow while simultaneously planning living art?

Margiela drove stick shift by celebrating the unfinished. Jonathan Anderson’s Dior is tucked to perfection.

Each has a heritage. A story. A kaleidoscope of original and referential excellence.

Somewhere between Amy Smilovic’s Creative Pragmatist and pinning a flower to a Costco shirt to alter a silhouette, we are unlearning the notion that rules must be followed while respecting that systems absolutely work.

Frameworks are even better.

In the process of shearing back vegetation in the wild, I have added 30 + items to my closet this month, so I decided to conduct a little analysis to take a look at the color foundation that gives way to whimsical touches.

Like an underpainting.

I am no mathematician, but I think we can all agree that numbers say a lot. These pie slices act as vessels for the filling. Seventy-nine percent earth and neutral browns ground me, whites clarify, blues and greens echo the gardens I’m consciously and subconsciously tending. Just like in recovery, the foundation is everything. It’s why I can safely pin freely, why the embroidery is implicitly earnest, why the fringe finds its place without fighting for it. The tassels meant for curtain tie-backs I pulled from that fabric warehouse? They land because the base says yes before they arrive.

Then there’s the 12% of intentional jewels. A red dress becomes a canvas for my creativity. A purple piece tempers my experiments. Personal style isn’t about rejecting color. It’s about respecting it so much that every hue has to earn its place in my story. Even if the red is reminiscent of the velvet red number I wore in the finale of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. Or $3 black Stuart Weitzman pumps take me back to boarding school drama a decade ago.

You rewild your wardrobe with the seeds that may have shrivelled but wake up the moment a rain drop slips down a weed’s stem.

In third grade, I attended the Father/Daughter dance at the convention center in our South Georgia town, and I vividly remember the metallic dress my grandmother and I secured at Belk that week.

At the last minute, I reached for a leather jacket in my closet.

While all the other little girls were dressed to the nines in their pink puffy sleeved, smocked numbers, I remember my friend running up to me and saying, “You always have to do a little something to your outfit don’t you.”

I smiled and ran to the dance floor.

In the Primacy of Drawing by Deanna Petherbridge, she takes us all the way back to Pliny the Elder’s tale of the original illustration.

Before her lover embarked on a long journey, a woman wanted to capture his likeness to remember what he looked like by lamp light. The act is using the shadows to trace his outline. The story then goes that her potter father pressed clay into the outline to create the first portrait relief.

A fable at the end of the day, but ultimately, this links symbolic creation not just to human longing but to the feeling of absence. So much of what has been created throughout human history has been intended to fill a void.

In that spirit, here are 4 ways I filled the absences evident in my outfits.

1. Rosettes

Rosette’s anchoring my shoulders. A little something something.

2. Pins on pins

   I truly was about to walk out the door in my boatneck zara cap sleeve tee. A voice whispered and stopped me in my tracks as I went to turn the knob on the side door. In a mad dash, I threw on an oversized men’s shirt and made it an asymmetrical study with a floral piece from my grandmother’s closet. I have a hunch that she made this one herself due to the condition of the pin.

   

3. TEXTURED

This one was a study in pattern recognition. Reading what you write, seeing what I grabbed at random at the thrift shop or the fabric store, a style story came to life. Certainly rooted in Chinese traditional attire through the pankou clasp and South Asian sartorial outfitting through the tassel, there is something regal about the way the textures tickle our neurological transmitters.

4. Needle & Thread

When I walked into yoga on Saturday morning, the last thing I expected was that my yoga instructor had a bag full of vintage goodies for me. To be loved is to be known!! As well as having a signature look. It puts you on your friends and families radars when they are out foraging themselves.

I excitedly tried the sweet shirt on at home, and all I could think was that this top would be my first victim of embroidery. A shell no less. Some pearls that came with the embroidery kit from Amazon, et voila!

A totally customized keepsake.

she’s a coastal Grand-mamah

Right now, the internal GPS is telling me to add. Not subtract. The addition is intentional. Hand-made, a flash of inspiration while doing the dishes, a loose interpretation of an outcome yet to materialize.

Each decision goes with the flow of the system you have created all on your own. And by definition, that is wellness, creative freedom and pure joy.

You aren’t working for the content machine anymore, instead you are freeing your mind of the attachments relative to what is expected of you.

If you control your own expectations, you will find yourself subconsciously and quite literally rewilding your wardrobe in every medium while lounging on a purple picnic blanket.