Fashionus Maximus
A polar neck worn under a striped shirt, embroidered jersey and jacquard jacket. Glittered starry socks tucked into silver patent leather boots worn with a red pleated skirt and pink chunky jersey, accessorized with lobster earrings. Outfits that scream look at me, as well as I may own red polka dot tights, have a penchant for millinery, wear feathers and occasionally knit. Eccentricity is being celebrated, as designers steer away from the more subdued and ironic normcore and head towards maximalism.
As is the way with the cyclical system of fashion, extravagance and excess are back and just in time for winter. I have always preferred winter dressing, rather an impractical love to have in South Africa, because winter means layers, and layers mean more clothes on my body. So now I can imprudently limit my movement by wearing two jackets instead of one, accessorized with layers of necklaces without feeling too lavish because the trends made me do it.
The look is easily achieved by putting all your favourite pieces on at once, so sorry Coco, but instead of removing the last piece of clothing we put on before leaving the house, we will put on another piece, and then another.
Layering is not the only thing maximalism calls for, but clashing prints, loud colours and earrings bigger than your face. I have always marvelled at the 80s, heralded as the age of excess, because more meant more and the louder your outfit was, the better. Now retrospective google searches of shoulder pad clad women are unnecessary, because superfluous dressing has saturated my Instagram feed, and I’m not complaining.
I have a running joke with my mum that I intend on being extremely eccentric when I’m an old woman and will try with all my might to emulate Idris Apfel and her kooky-chic sense of style. Yet with all the delight of the multi-coloured, gilded magic wafting down runways, I wonder why I feel the need to wait until I’m old to wear exactly what I want. Perhaps it’s because by seventy five, you’ve stopped caring about what people think, having your insecure twenties well behind you and decades to figure out who you are, so worrying about being thought of as crazy for wearing a purple suede coat at seventy five seems futile.
And perhaps it’s the fact that, as a student, I don’t have too many opportunities to dress up. Practicality takes precedence because being a student entails mainly sitting down and walking up stairs to get to places, and doing this in a pink tuxedo suit worn with red loafers and fish net socks seems a bit-much. Thus I will endeavour to find more occasions to dress up and be the whimsical woman of my dreams, because all I want is to be an ornamental, walking Christmas tree, so what’s a girl to do?
