dilemma

I have a love/hate relationship with fashion or even style.

Dressing well seems like such a chore after years of living in school uniforms (even in kindergarden or nursery school) and oversized t-shirts and jeans. Yet, to be able to dress as what I wish, rather than what is dicated, is also a freedom and I want to grasp and take advantage of said freedom.

Restrains bog me down. An extremely limited budget where clothes are a neglected category, overridden by more pressing needs/wants: food, transport, books. It's almost an indulgence that is guilt-inducing. You know you cant have it, yet the more you want it because it is denied.

Magazines are so expensive and almost shallow and frivolous (in my opinion), when I compare them to books. Especially, my fave fantasy fiction. Besides books have a higher re-read value than magazines. Yet mags are important in the sense that they educate me about styling and trends, which leads me to the next point: I need to dress my age!

For whatever obsure or obvious reasons, I tend towards the conservative in my dress sense. I'm not very adventurous or should I say, have yet to try out anything new. Boring, old, work, stiff, drab are some adjectives that can be used to describe my dress sense. I guess if I'm feeling positive, classic is
another word that can be used. But classic when you're 19 is not exactly the best thing in the world, it'll be too easy to degenerate to boring, stuffy, lacklustre when I'm older.

I want to inject more life, more youth in the way I dress. I want to dress my age! Yet I dont want to come across as brash, uncouth youngster, or a vain bimbo. There's a thin line between adventurous and plain trashy.