If you study people their personal style projects to the world what they are feeling or experiencing internally, whether they would like to admit it or not. This is the discovery I made after I wrote this piece.
My knowledge of style is rather shocking considering most people define style as the way in which something is said, done, expressed, or performed. So let us apply this to fashion - what you are wearing right now, what does it say or express about you?
My style and Madonna’s
To encourage you to think about how this relates to your life, let’s take me as an example. My current style is driven by my comfortable All Stars which I have in almost every colour. Presumably it projects something about my demanding lifestyle. But I’m not the most exciting subject as my style has remained mostly stagnant – in fact it’s so stagnant I wear my mother’s clothes!
Instead, how about we observe Madonna who has been named the ultimate style icon of the 80’s by various websites and publications such as marieclaire.co.uk? Her look consisted of lace tops, skirts over Capri pants, fishnet stockings (and yes this look has made a scary come back), jewellery bearing the crucifix (I still think that’s hot), bracelets, and bleached hair... all very out there as per the music and art she was projecting at the time. Right?
Like a Virgin style
That is the time Madonna attracted the attention of organisations who complained that the song and video Like a Virgin in 1984 promoted premarital sex and undermined family values. Plus she got into trouble when she performed the song at the first MTV Video Music Awards where she appeared on stage atop a giant wedding cake, wearing a wedding dress and bridal veil, adorned with her characteristic "Boy Toy" belt buckle. The performance is an iconic moment in MTV history.
This was just the beginning for Madonna who, during her Blond Ambition Tour in 1990 (and she was still in the middle of her youthful and outrageous I-want-to-be-seen-stage), wore the Jean Paul Gaultier-designed cone bras over her clothing. For years Madonna’s crazy lifestyle matched her mad outfits to an extent that we all expected nothing more, nothing less of her.
Madonna’s changing style
But after her daughter Lourdes' birth, Madonna became involved in Eastern mysticism and Kabbalah. Immediately we started seeing a more subdued woman emerging from that heavy 80’s and 90’s makeup. Her seventh studio album, Ray of Light, (1998) reflected this change in her perception and image and to this day Madonna has maintained her more refined look.
MTV Video Music Awards 1998: Madonna's henna-covered hands were recurring accessories during her "Ray of Light” phase.
She commented: ‘This record, more than any other records, covers all the areas of life. I had recently joined Kabbalah and I had left off partying — but I had just had a baby, so my mood was complete, and I was incredibly thoughtful, retrospective and intrigued by the mystical aspects of life.’
And if you still cannot see the point that I am trying to make, i.e. your style most likely comes directly from how you are feeling internally, let’s look at one of my biggest crushes, Angelina Jolie.
Angelina Jolie’s style
Beautiful Jolie has changed her style with every emotional tribulation she has been thorough in the last few decades. From a drug abusing, bisexual, knife-wielding wild child to a humanitarian activist and mother, Angelina Jolie's life has changed tremendously since her unsettling portrayal of Lisa Rowe in the acclaimed Girl, Interrupted which catapulted her to superstardom.
Jolie’s self esteem was knocked around like a ping pong ball back in her teenage years – from the lows of having her mother die of cancer and becoming increasingly estranged from her father– to the highs of appearing in several music videos, namely those by Lenny Kravitz (Stand by My Woman 1991) and finally being cast GIA that made way for more successful starring roles. During these extreme years - Angie’s style was dark and downright scary (and if you allow me to play therapist that is probably what she was feeling as well). But that was then...
Angelina’s Humanitarian Style
Now Ms. Jolie is all too aware of a worldwide humanitarian crisis. She was sensitized to it while filming Tomb Raider in Cambodia. She eventually turned to UNHCR for more information on international trouble spots and in the following months she visited refugee camps around the world to learn more about the situation and the conditions in these areas.
In 2002 she adopted her first child, Maddox. And I can only assume that Jolie started seeing her real purpose here and she started taking herself and those around her more seriously. Accordingly, her style changed to suit this new lifestyle of humanitarian, wife and mother, and film star when she feels like it.
Tattoo style
Oh! By the way, my personal favourite style thing that she does is her fetish for tattoos. Jolie has 13 known tattoos, among them the Tennessee Williams quote "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages", which she got together with her mother; the Arabic language phrase ‘العزيمة’ (strength of will) and the Latin proverb ‘quod me nutrit me destruit’ (what nourishes me destroys me).
Over time she covered or lasered several of her tattoos, including a window on her lower back; she explained that she removed the window, because, while she used to spend all of her time looking out of windows wishing to be outside, she now lives there all of the time. Jolie’s windows explanation is exactly what I am attempting to demonstrate – what you put on your body, be it tattoos or clothing or braids – says something about where you are right now.
Michelle Branco’s style
And Michelle Branco, Executive Head: Marketing at Vodacom Business, completely agrees with me. When it comes to style Michelle is impeccable. There is not one day that I have seen her manicured nails chipped or her tailored Jenny Button suit missing a button (I had to). Her black hair frames her fair, well-preserved skin.
But Michelle will be the first to tell you that it wasn’t always like this. When she was born she was so overweight that the nurses passed her around the hospital for everyone to see. Like a spectacle. And this set the tone for most of her life. Progressively she gained more weight with age until a doctor labelled her ‘morbidly obese’.
How her physical appearance affected her style
It could’ve have been the labelling. It could have been the actual weight. It could have also been how society treats overweight people. But Michelle tells me she became increasingly harder and aggressive in the boardroom, loud and obnoxious at parties to comply with the fat stereotype, and when alone, she was sad and unhappy. Her reasoning is that at the time she felt like “there was no alignment between the physical body and the spirit.”
Together with her doctor she decided to undergo gastric bypass surgery at the height of some medical complications caused by her weight. Naturally after she recovered she lost weight due to the reduced stomach. And soon her whole attitude changed when 18kg dropped in the first month! ‘I can do it’ she thought at the time.
She enrolled in an 18-month Body for Life Programme which combined a balanced diet with an hour in the gym 6 days a week. What ensued was a renewed sense of life, energy and the body transformation allowed the real personality trapped inside to surface. The two finally became one whole, aligned person who was content on every level and felt alive for the first time.
