FBFF: Feeling Inspired

This week and last week, we're celebrating the 1-year anniversary of Fashion Beauty Friend Friday (Congratulations, Katy Rose!) As part of this, we're looking at the first set of FBFF questions, about what inspires us.

1. Which celebrity (celebrities) do you look to for fashion inspiration?
I don't really follow celebrities for fashion inspiration. There are celebrities whose views on fashion I find inspiring (like Sarah Jessica Parker, who basically wears what she finds wonderful/beautiful all the time), but I don't generally follow what celebrities wear or their general style. I'm more inspired by vintage movie stars like Audry Hepburn...and that perhaps less for their individual style, and more about the style of the era they come from.


Source

Say what you like about this dress on Sarah Jessica, it's definitely a bold and personal statement!

2. When it comes to your own personal style, what inspires you?
I have to say that these days my primary source of style inspiration is other fashion bloggers! Before I got into the fashion/style blogging world, I mostly viewed fashion/style as something that required buying the "trendy new items" that magazines demanded you wear. As I wasn't doing that, my personal style primarily was influenced by what I found comfortable. Fashion/style bloggers showed me that style can be the art of combining the clothing I already own, finding amazing pieces at thrift stores, incorporating vintage clothes with their own history, and creating a look that works for me, personally. Enjoying trends, perhaps, but fitting them into a real person's life. Treating clothing as fun, self-expression, a joyful statement. Seeing clothing as something to make or alter to suit my own taste and interests, to fit to my own body (as it is, not an idealized version). Engaging thoughtfully and playfully with clothing. Wearing a world's worth of clothing in hundreds of different, individual ways.

Occasionally I still look to fashion magazines for some inspiration, even more rarely to the runways. I'll also sometimes get an idea from people I see on the street or riding on subway. But my primary source of inspiration from other people is definitely style bloggers!


Image from Dear Golden Vintage

Besides that, textures and patterns and beautiful fabrics inspire me to wear them (or at least have them in my closet). I love lace and velvet and silk and beading and ruffles and clothing with elegant lines. I really like unique patterns. In general, clothing that is aesthetically and tactilely pleasing to me is a huge inspiration.

For some more things that are currently inspiring me, check out my Fashion Inspiration board on Pinterest

3. How do you hope to inspire your readers?
I hope I can give my readers some examples of wearing what I love and having fun with personal style even in an environment that doesn't require attention to style. I would like to inspire my readers to be creative with thrifting and refashioning clothing, and realize that refashioning doesn't have to require a lot of sewing skill. I also hope to get people thinking about some topics or points about style in ways they might not have otherwise.

4. Outside the realm of fashion who/what inspires you?
Goodness, a lot of things. As a performing artist, I am often quite inspired by dance and theater and music. A powerful performance is incredibly inspiring to me, as are the people who create them (the Punchdrunk theater company, Pina Bausch, Bill T. Jones, many others...). The other people at my lab are also doing amazing, fascinating, creative things and inspire me every day!


Pina Bausch's "Nelken." Source

The members of the Feminist Fashion Bloggers inspire me that fashion can be thoughtful and empowering. Bloggers who deal with positive body image like Sal have been huge influences on me. (okay, these are kind of fashion-related, but I felt they fit better in the general inspiration category...)

5. Which songs inspire you?
I've been on a big Imogen Heap kick for quite a while now. Also always love the orchestral works of Karl Jenkins (especially "Passacaglia"). The soundtrack to the film Once. Lots of musical theater stuff. I've got some fairly eclectic taste in music...

Hope everyone's having a good Friday evening and some nice plans for the weekend! I'm mostly going to be relaxing and continuing to get things in order from my crazy last month or so. Then I have the first rehearsal Sunday for a piece that I'm choreographing and hope to have performed in just two weeks. That's going to be a bit of an intense rehearsal period, I suspect...choreographic mind, don't fail me now!