farpitzs.

this post was taken out of context by multiple people and while it may be tempting to manipulate an innocent question into something catty and offensive, i think that we should all settle down for a moment. i rarely have the opportunity to expand upon posts, most of which are written from a fairly unbiased platform, so please excuse me if i am inarticulate; it has been a while since i have written something longer than three sentences. before i start, though, may i ask what “Not ALL of us spend hours on tumblr and create countless outfits on polyvore” means?

first and foremost, when i asked, “isn’t the point of individual personal style is that it was created from hard work and without the help of a retail chain?”, it was directed not toward miss aldridge (girl rocks an unprecedented level of style at her age that i’ve never seen before, and power to her, might i add) but rather at the millions of teenage girls who will now click on a link to copy a style that took hours upon hours of research and experimentation to cultivate. instead of a celebration of individualism, urban outfitters has now successfully taken a well-respected young blogger and turned her into a piece of mass appeal. if you would like to look at it as geekbonchic did, as “using UO as a means to translate her individual style into something attainable (and perhaps more approachable) for other people,” i can absolutely see your point, but for me, the purpose of an individual style is that it is individual. i must say, though, it would have never occurred to me to compare jane to kate moss for the sole reason that moss has created a copy of a copy with her collection. essentially, she has taken pieces from her wardrobe that she has loved [and other people have created for her] over the years and mass-produced them. now, that is not to say that it hasn’t been done well or that people haven’t loved it the world over. rather, jane has merely chosen clothing that she would likely wear from what the retail chain has set out for her, not  choosing from everything that they sell, nor necessarily giving style tips; what we are left with is an assumption that she may wear the items on the resulted one page of products.

regardless of whether you will admit it or not, the whole process now allows the general public to bite from her style a little bit in an effort to emulate what she’s got going on. as a crazy-beautiful and visionary dresser, who can blame them? it has always been easier to copy someone rather than break outside of the stereotypical box, but regardless of the clashing opinions [because no one person will truly be correct] i feel that one question still remains: can’t we have a little mystery?

if you would like to discuss this further, feel free to shoot me an e-mail.