Dark Days of Personal Style

At the end of the day, no one cares that you wore a pair of cringe-inducing neon pants to school.

I only have one principle when it comes to style: IT’S PERSONAL.

I am not the most fashionable person you’ll ever meet or even ask for advice from, but as with everybody else, I am entitled to have a style that suits either my taste or mood of the day.

For many of us normal beings that aren’t graced with a fashion sense, we can all recall the darkest days of our style – a.k.a. the unfortunate time(s) in your life when you wore your most cringe-worthy, burnable outfits. We all have them (admit it: you will feel better afterwards), may it be when we were younger or when we are having off days where style is the last thing on our minds.

Be honest: how many times have you regretted wearing those neon pants with those combat boots and that patterned shirt? (Okay, to some, this might be wearable, but to each their own.)

Others are lucky enough to have left these dark days in their past. But for some, like myself, it is a recurring phenomenon, where every day is a struggle not to look like shit.

Thus I attempted to categorize my excuses for wearing fashion don’ts:




Days when I was young and fashion-addled.
A large chunk of my dark days belong to this category. Honestly, what was I thinking? I got into bootleg jeans and green half-sleeved sweaters. I still cringe when I see such an abomination coupled with a cheeky pose. This is a perfect excuse to start cleaning up your Facebook timeline of possible blackmail material.

However, we must also consider that chances are, we didn’t know a thing about style when we were younger. We most likely just wore whatever we were comfortable with or whatever clothes mommy bought us.

Days when I tried to pull off a fashion trend. 
Once upon a time, I was the girl who collected every issue of Candy and Seventeen Magazines. I perused them with interest, thinking I could copy such tasteful styles, but alas! When I tried, I looked so horrendously different from the models.

I also liked watching fashion shows and attempted to copy pairings, but for some reason they never worked out. Maybe it’s the fashion gods’ way of saying that I will never be a style icon (*cry*).
Just last year, I got into Korean-style knitted cardigans and bought 2 different colors. Apparently, those things look horrible with my body type, especially when paired with jeans, dorky glasses, and hair pulled up in a bun. My dad said my style was so manang. I still don’t have the courage to wear them again.

This also happened to the point where my mom scolded me for either being overdressed or underdressed. Like the time I wore an all black ensemble on a sunny day, and casual shorts paired with velvet shoes on a rainy day.

Those fashion disasters always ended up with me trying on multiple outfits until it reached a point where Days When I Tried to Pull Off a Fashion Trend turned into Days When I Don’t Give a Damn.



Days when I don’t give a damn. 
This is the most common excuse, and I bet most of you can relate. Do you know that feeling when you wake up and feel like shit? You roll out of bed (stupid alarm), groggily do your routine, skip breakfast and wear the first clean thing from your closet, which turns out to be a complete fashion disaster. But you lack the damns to give.

There are times when comfort becomes our top priority and we end up wearing excessively baggy clothes without caring for the hobo consequences. A perfect example of this was when I had a 14-hour flight and I wore leggings with a chunky sweater and slippers. Sometimes I feel like the fashion police will jail me for being unfashionable. This is a recurring theme from my teenaged years, especially now in my uniform-less college days.

But at the end of the day, we admit that, yes, we all have dark days in our style. We have cringe-worthy outfits and make A LOT of fashion mishaps, but that’s life, right? The best you can do is smile and say that you’re trying out a new style – like a sleepless college student, maybe dumpster hip, or gothic rebel.

Really, who cares?

Article by Kristine
Art by Danielle, Alexie, and Mika
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Kristine is a frustrated actor/ writer/ director who is struggling to remain sane in the crazy pulchritude that is life, with a few existential crisis thrown in for good measure. A Communication Arts student at school, a weirdo at home, and all the time lost in another fictional world.

Alexie is 18-year-old multimedia artist, self proclaimed dried mango enthusiast, and lover of all things raw in the grocery's wet products section. When she's not focused on appreciating things, she likes to draw and hold concerts when she's showering or alone in her room.

An avid dreamer, Mika is a fairly eccentric girl with a penchant for the poignant, who spends her days either contemplating the infinite wonders of the great beyond or what to eat for dinner. A professional shower-singer, she lives in the world of her headphones and watercolor, all while her heart does the foxtrot among the stars. If she were a fruit, she would most probably be a banana.

Danielle is a 22-year-old illustrator / comic artist / writer / director and just a girl for all seasons. She enjoys reading novels about crime and killers, learning how to cook, visiting Korean spas, and watching movies over Skype with her far away boyfriend. You can read her comics on Tapastic @bedmoss and find her all over social media as @bedmoss or @bedmosslife.