my closet, myself

scarf styling, mid-20s melodramas, and personal style rejects

Scarves are the only thing that fits me right now, and we will be styling some of them today, with a healthy dose of self indulgent dramatics about one (of many) mid 20s rites of passage- a self identity spiral triggered by a bad haircut. I hate my haircut more with each day that passes. I’ve never felt less like myself, which has made for a frustrating spring sartorially. It’s to the point that I’ve had dreams of giving myself a buzzcut so it would at least feel off in some sort of this-is-ugly-on-me-on-purpose Lower East Side transplant cosplaying as part of some fringe counterculture movement, but if I’m this dramatic about an over-balayaged LOB, I would certainly not survive a pixie length grow out period.

Plan B, after shaving my head didn’t pan out

No one perceives any of this of course, which is what makes these personal melodramas all the more desperate in the present, and then sublimely entertaining to rehash with yourself six months into the future. It’s the kind of thing that’s not usually verbalized, knowing it’s not a real problem, or even an experience unique to you, but is still felt deeply in the small pockets in between life happening. We will see if I make it through my weekend back home without a trip to CVS to at least take the entire LOB back to my natural color via some box dye. 10 years ago I used to call Cali, my high school friend, to come over to help me bleach my hair in that same shower, which leads me to the question that inspired this letter; when should we change, and when should we stay the same?

The pain about personal style, and the allure of styling and influencing content, is that I think most of us want someone to be able to tell us which changes we can make, or what we can buy, that will make us feel like we don’t want to change anymore. I’m often asked, how can we experiment without wasting money or feeling regret? Perhaps ask someone who did not just let a French man talk her into a “new look” when she should have just gotten a trim. Enter: scarves.