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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/dec/28/courtney-love-abbey-clancy-identity-crisis-new-year-s-eve
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| How to dress for an identity crisis: enjoy the thrill of being whoever you want to be | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| I am graduating from university in two weeks. I just broke up with my boyfriend. I have no idea what’s going to happen next. So the pressing issue is: how do I dress in times of an identity crisis? Who to turn to for guidance: Jane Birkin 1972 (French), Courtney Love 1997 (wacky) or Abbey Clancy 2015 (sexy-ish)? | I am graduating from university in two weeks. I just broke up with my boyfriend. I have no idea what’s going to happen next. So the pressing issue is: how do I dress in times of an identity crisis? Who to turn to for guidance: Jane Birkin 1972 (French), Courtney Love 1997 (wacky) or Abbey Clancy 2015 (sexy-ish)? |
| Nina, by email | Nina, by email |
| Less of the “or”, Nina, and more of the “and”! You say, “I have no idea what’s going to happen next” and I can hear the anxiety in that sentence. But really, this is a matter of perspective: you have no idea who you are and what the future will bring, and I know how unsettling that feels. But from my Methuselah-like stance it looks unimaginably exciting. | Less of the “or”, Nina, and more of the “and”! You say, “I have no idea what’s going to happen next” and I can hear the anxiety in that sentence. But really, this is a matter of perspective: you have no idea who you are and what the future will bring, and I know how unsettling that feels. But from my Methuselah-like stance it looks unimaginably exciting. |
| I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow, next month and, in all likelihood, next year, too. And that’s if I’m lucky: boring security is the best case scenario after a certain point in life. But I look back on the summer when I was 21, when I’d left university and had no clue what I was going to do with my life, with a certain sense of wistfulness. I was back living with my parents and broke. But there was something amazing about feeling like I was on the precipice of something – my life, I guess – where who knew what would happen. | I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow, next month and, in all likelihood, next year, too. And that’s if I’m lucky: boring security is the best case scenario after a certain point in life. But I look back on the summer when I was 21, when I’d left university and had no clue what I was going to do with my life, with a certain sense of wistfulness. I was back living with my parents and broke. But there was something amazing about feeling like I was on the precipice of something – my life, I guess – where who knew what would happen. |
| As the modern sage, Chris Rock, says, you’re either single and lonely or married and bored. But my point is, focus, if you can, on the thrill of your situation: you are soon to be wholly unencumbered from any obligations, romantic and institutional. The future is yours and you can be whoever you want. So why not be everyone? Be Jane on Monday, Courtney on Tuesday, Abbey on Wednesday and, once you’ve jump-started yourself with these inspirations, be Nina the rest of the week. | As the modern sage, Chris Rock, says, you’re either single and lonely or married and bored. But my point is, focus, if you can, on the thrill of your situation: you are soon to be wholly unencumbered from any obligations, romantic and institutional. The future is yours and you can be whoever you want. So why not be everyone? Be Jane on Monday, Courtney on Tuesday, Abbey on Wednesday and, once you’ve jump-started yourself with these inspirations, be Nina the rest of the week. |
| Honestly, I have a very clear vision of just how destabilising it felt to no longer have the old structures shaping my days and, by extension, me: no parental authorities, no school timetables, no old boyfriends. Your nervousness is understandable. But that is all the more reason not to hitch your bandwagon to only one train. Not yet, anyway. Try things out. Have fun. Experiment – in your personal style, your career and your social circle. Take time to find yourself and seize all options with both hands. You have no idea what’s going to happen next in your specific future, Nina, and neither do I. But I can promise you this: you will be just fine. | Honestly, I have a very clear vision of just how destabilising it felt to no longer have the old structures shaping my days and, by extension, me: no parental authorities, no school timetables, no old boyfriends. Your nervousness is understandable. But that is all the more reason not to hitch your bandwagon to only one train. Not yet, anyway. Try things out. Have fun. Experiment – in your personal style, your career and your social circle. Take time to find yourself and seize all options with both hands. You have no idea what’s going to happen next in your specific future, Nina, and neither do I. But I can promise you this: you will be just fine. |
| I’m going to a New Year’s Eve party this year. What shall I wear? | I’m going to a New Year’s Eve party this year. What shall I wear? |
| Marcie, by email | Marcie, by email |
| How about a pair of jackboots, Marcie, so that we can all kick the arse out of 2016 as it finally wheezes its last toxic breath? Or perhaps we need the opposite approach: forget about your It bags, ladies, and bring butterfly nets so you can catch 2016 on its way out and make it stay. Because, sure, this year was bad, but next year? If 2016 was represented by the laugh-cry emoji, then 2017 is looking like the Munch scream emoji: article 50, President Trump, a Putin-shaped world – need we continue? Or shall we all just go down to my bunker in the garden? | How about a pair of jackboots, Marcie, so that we can all kick the arse out of 2016 as it finally wheezes its last toxic breath? Or perhaps we need the opposite approach: forget about your It bags, ladies, and bring butterfly nets so you can catch 2016 on its way out and make it stay. Because, sure, this year was bad, but next year? If 2016 was represented by the laugh-cry emoji, then 2017 is looking like the Munch scream emoji: article 50, President Trump, a Putin-shaped world – need we continue? Or shall we all just go down to my bunker in the garden? |
| Oh Marcie, I’m sorry. I realise I’m being something of a Debbie Downer here. But don’t worry, I am a professional (a professional dancing monkey). So here is my advice about New Year’s Eve outfits: make like it’s the last days of the Weimar republic and party like it’s 1933. What this means in practice is: layer on the gilt, gender-bend and spend whatever money you have while it still has any monetary value on silly costumes. In other words, be debauched, be extreme and party your damn head off. | Oh Marcie, I’m sorry. I realise I’m being something of a Debbie Downer here. But don’t worry, I am a professional (a professional dancing monkey). So here is my advice about New Year’s Eve outfits: make like it’s the last days of the Weimar republic and party like it’s 1933. What this means in practice is: layer on the gilt, gender-bend and spend whatever money you have while it still has any monetary value on silly costumes. In other words, be debauched, be extreme and party your damn head off. |
| Oh calm down, Trump supporters, Brexiters and all the rest of you who got everything you wanted this year and yet still, oddly, act like oversensitive losers because styling yourself as the victim is the only way you can justify your actions to yourself. I’m not saying Trump and Brexit are analogous with the greatest modern evil the west has faced. But I am saying we are clearly on the brink of something strange and ominous, and to ignore it is to demonstrate one’s idiocy or self-interested destructiveness. The rest of us, however, need not have our New Year’s Eve ruined by these fools. So pile on the gold and black, Marcie, opt for a tux or flapper dress and do your best Sally Bowles impression. Roll on, 2017. Our teeth are gritted. | Oh calm down, Trump supporters, Brexiters and all the rest of you who got everything you wanted this year and yet still, oddly, act like oversensitive losers because styling yourself as the victim is the only way you can justify your actions to yourself. I’m not saying Trump and Brexit are analogous with the greatest modern evil the west has faced. But I am saying we are clearly on the brink of something strange and ominous, and to ignore it is to demonstrate one’s idiocy or self-interested destructiveness. The rest of us, however, need not have our New Year’s Eve ruined by these fools. So pile on the gold and black, Marcie, opt for a tux or flapper dress and do your best Sally Bowles impression. Roll on, 2017. Our teeth are gritted. |