We still can’t believe we’re a part of this great project, but, you guys, here we are. We learned so much about each other while working on this and are pretty amazed by how similar our experiences were - whether the topic be hair, influences, or perspectives. Most important, we had a lot of fun doing it. Below are a few excerpts from our style roundtable (which you can listen to here) as well as our personal style surveys (which you can read here, here, and here). Please check them out and feel free to share your own style outlooks and journeys with us!
Fatima:
On the street I especially love spotting really stylish older women. It’s so soul-crushingly difficult to just be who you want to be as a woman without the world telling you otherwise, so if you’ve managed to survive all that and come out the other side a badass elderly lady, I take my hat off to you. Maya Angelou talked about not just surviving, but thriving and the importance of that and I couldn’t agree more. Especially as a Black woman. You made it! Despite it all, you’re still here! There should be some celebration in that. I joke with my friends that I view stylish old women as my peers. I can’t wait to be one of them!
Ramou:
I really don’t understand people who say that they don’t care how they look or present. Or maybe I just don’t believe them. It’s also a privilege to feel this way since we are so often judged not only on first appearances, but on the perceived thoughts about us based on how we look. There’s too much stereotypical and racist nonsense projected on black women for me to fuck it up on my own by looking a mess. Maybe that’s fucked up in its own way. (It is.) It’s important to me — how I look and feel and how these two things are related — because I’m in my body everyday and out in the world most days. Feeling good about being in my body, looking the way I look, wearing what I’m wearing, sets the tone for so much else.
Aurelia:
I want to insinuate myself in somebody’s life, no matter how I look. A stranger doesn’t even have to speak to me - I just need to know that I look good enough that you are now thinking about me. Like, you’ve fallen in love with me a little bit. You’re maybe not creepy enough to write a Missed Connections, but you thought about it for a second.
Alesia:
I like complimenting other black women - women of color - in general because I feel like a lot of times the only people giving us compliments are other women of color. It’s not a conscious thing where I’m like, “I’m going to go in here and find the two black girls and load them down with compliments.” It’s just something I tend to do because I realize, “Look, I see what you’re doing over there, I see what you’re working with, and I like it.”
You can find more info on this project at the official Women in Clothes website!
xoxoxo,
BGT
On the street I especially love spotting really stylish older women. It’s so soul-crushingly difficult to just be who you want to be as a woman without the world telling you otherwise, so if you’ve managed to survive all that and come out the other side a badass elderly lady, I take my hat off to you. Maya Angelou talked about not just surviving, but thriving and the importance of that and I couldn’t agree more. Especially as a Black woman. You made it! Despite it all, you’re still here! There should be some celebration in that. I joke with my friends that I view stylish old women as my peers. I can’t wait to be one of them!
Ramou:
I really don’t understand people who say that they don’t care how they look or present. Or maybe I just don’t believe them. It’s also a privilege to feel this way since we are so often judged not only on first appearances, but on the perceived thoughts about us based on how we look. There’s too much stereotypical and racist nonsense projected on black women for me to fuck it up on my own by looking a mess. Maybe that’s fucked up in its own way. (It is.) It’s important to me — how I look and feel and how these two things are related — because I’m in my body everyday and out in the world most days. Feeling good about being in my body, looking the way I look, wearing what I’m wearing, sets the tone for so much else.
Aurelia:
I want to insinuate myself in somebody’s life, no matter how I look. A stranger doesn’t even have to speak to me - I just need to know that I look good enough that you are now thinking about me. Like, you’ve fallen in love with me a little bit. You’re maybe not creepy enough to write a Missed Connections, but you thought about it for a second.
Alesia:
I like complimenting other black women - women of color - in general because I feel like a lot of times the only people giving us compliments are other women of color. It’s not a conscious thing where I’m like, “I’m going to go in here and find the two black girls and load them down with compliments.” It’s just something I tend to do because I realize, “Look, I see what you’re doing over there, I see what you’re working with, and I like it.”
You can find more info on this project at the official Women in Clothes website!
xoxoxo,
BGT
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