A tribute to femininity
I always loved colours but you wouldn’t know it seeing my wardrobe, where dark colours dominated. And when I say dark, I mean gray, black and (for some diversity) dark red. Meanwhile yesterday, I went to uni dressed like this:
Yesterday my shirt was so bright I matched the wall, chameleon-style.
So there’s a detective needed here to figure out what happened that caused me to suddenly wear beige and (!) pink. So what is it?
- Moving to Belgium and, later, the Netherlands?
- Growing up?
- Love?
- A quarter-life crisis?
- Purchase of new crayons?
- Too many animated movies from Disney and Pixar?
- Hypnosis?
It turns out it’s none of these things. It started with a thoughtless statement by a friend and a personal challenge. This challenge was the following: in the next year, I’m not allowed to buy a single black shirt or sweater. This naturally meant that at first, my closet saw a rapid increase in the amount of gray shirts. And dark red ones. And dark green ones. But the dramatic turn happened when I, nearly accidentally, bought a thin beige sweater that was so comfortable I wanted to wear it constantly.
*At this point, I remembered that I put (beige) bed sheets to the wash two hours ago and ran to the washing machine. Who is an adult? Me? Meh, fine, I guess.
Now my favorite piece of clothing is a long scarf that can double as a blanket. This is surprisingly important here in the Netherlands, even though I look like a grandmother when I’m at uni. Who cares, at least I’m warm.
My scarf can be a blanket …
Of course I can’t even go near certain colours. Blue, which brings out people’s eyes so beautifully, mostly looks like pajamas on me. That’s also probably because my eyes are brown and I’m not prepared to use colour contacts just because of one colour. I have better things to do in life. Bright green and bright orange, no matter how attractive they are to me on paper, aren’t the right choice for clothes unless you are a clown. (Teenage Teja, I’m sorry you didn’t know that).
Don’t get me wrong: the lower half of my body is still dressed in dark colours. I like combinations with gray or black jeans, leather skirt … I think I’ll never feel comfortable in white pants because there are just too many opportunities to sit on something dirty. I’ll also always hold a special hatred for three-quarter pants. I just don’t see the reason why clothes designers can’t contribute those additional few centimeters of fabric and give me a whole product. But despite these limitations, I’ve significantly expanded my wardrobe in the past two years.
At the end, let me tell you this: the challenge that was so difficult to me at the beginning helped me feel comfortable in lighter clothes. I became attentive to old idols such as Buffy (the vampire slayer, of course!) and realized they wield their femininity as a weapon.
Dresses aren’t a weakness if you can run better in them than you can in pants. Bags aren’t lame if they can hold more things than any backpack. High heels aren’t uncomfortable if they give you self-confidence when you most need it. And light-coloured clothes aren’t Barbie – they are camouflage in a world that’s convinced that women have to be like men if they wish to achieve anything. But one day, we’ll prove them wrong. You’ll see.
