The girl in gloves... Where did she come from?
I'm not able to answer who is the girl in gloves yet, all I know is that she hasn't always worn gloves and that she wasn't as confident before. I'm not ashamed of where I've been or who I was, I embrace every phase I went through because it made me who I am today - as cheesy as it sounds. It's funny to notice how much we change - or stay the same - throughout the years... I guess I'm a nostalgic person after all. Looking back makes me realize that every single styling decision I've ever made could only be done by me and no one else, because each person has - or should have - their own background, taste and references. Mixing it all together is what makes authenticity and I think it's so powerful to use fashion to express that.
Gathering this trajectory was a long process of digging deep down in my memory and my files. Although I had all the photos saved and organized, I wanted this timeline to be not only chronological but also a little glimpse of what I was thinking, listening and being influenced by during each year. I play Stardoll since 2010, but I couldn't include outfits from my first couple years because I don't have many registers from that period as I was not into the blogging world yet. There wasn't much to see though, just a 12-year-old having fun in a dress up game without thinking too much... Simpler times! Anyhow, here's my trajectory to becoming the girl in gloves:
__________________2013__________________
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Look Of The Day
I started writing on this blog in December 2012 and stayed there for a good portion of the following year. It's no longer available, but I remember the owner having some strict rules about posting at least 3 times a week. If we didn't, we would be expelled. It never happened to me, but this level of dedication sounds crazy nowadays. Back then I was only 15 and had a lot of free time in my hands though.
It was more about quantity than quality. My style was all over the place as I was just starting to figure out what I liked. At some point I started learning how to make edits of my looks and the more you practice, the more you get better at it. That goes for styling as well! Now some of them feel costume-y to me, but that's because at the time I barely had fashion references. My influences were basically Stardoll itself, Pretty Little Liars, Katy Perry, Disney Channel/Nickelodeon shows and teen magazines such as Capricho - only until Lana Del Rey, Tumblr aesthetics and Lookbook.nu came into the mix. You had to be there to understand the impact of these things.
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Deep Fashion - Round 1
I had a brief one-month passage through this blog in November 2013. I always wanted to be on it - everyone did back then. All the cool fashion girlies would write on DF at the time. This was my very first opportunity there and it felt like a big deal. Too bad my fashion knowledge was so little and my outfit choices were not the best I could've done. I recall trying so hard to somehow show versatility and different ideas through my looks, but I still had a lot of growing and maturing to do. Overall, my work was not par with the quality other writers had. That’s why I didn’t last long there, now I understand.
___________________2014__________________
This was a cool blog with lots of cool writers... I was a part of their team for a whole year - which was also my senior year of high school - and that was a period of so much learning and growth! I can see clearly an evolution path here, although I didn't have a very defined style yet at this point, I feel like the constant shifting was crucial for me to figure out my identity, so I could start having some unity within my looks. For me and for many, Lookbook.nu was a huge source of inspiration and some of these outfits really scream the aesthetic of that website circa that year, not gonna lie! It was a time of experimenting new things, not only with my virtual fashion choices, but with music too. I recall seeking to discover new artists to expand my musical repertoire and some artists that became really big for me at that time where Banks, FKA Twigs, HAIM, Sia... I always used song titles for my post titles in every blog I've been, usually what was stuck in my mind at the time. Music and creating looks were - and still are - a form of escapism to me... It's funny to notice how our tastes start to take shape in these formative years of our lives, because I still like most of the stuff I started liking back then!
___________________2015__________________
Deep Fashion - Round 2
Back on Deep Fashion once again! This time feeling more confident on my looks, because I was definitely putting more effort into them and I had learnt a thing or two about fashion and styling and layering and, most importantly, about my personal taste. I felt like I was getting somewhere and hoped I would last more than a month as a writer there this time around. The year prior, I started trying to repeat certain elements in my looks, such as the tight ponytail, the dark lipstick and the hat - or all three at once. In my opinion, the last two made such good focal points. I wanted to have some kind of signature to solidify my image in the reader's subconscious somehow, but, eventually, having such strong identity would become boring and predictable, maybe even forced. Still, the times I tried a different approach feels like I landed more on a 'generic' side of styling, maybe even mirroring a little the 'it girls' from that period. It was all very well put together, but I don't see much of an authentic and cohesive style yet. Either way, my edits got so much better compared to the start, back in 2013. I remember at some point I started retouching the hair as well. I felt like I was slowly starting to be the blueprint for other people quality-wise.
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The Stardoll Lookbook features
2015 was also the year I got featured for the first time in one of my favorite blogs ever! TSL features always evoked the feeling of being candidly papped outside on the street, which was very validating and a sign I was doing something right. Many more features there came with time, but I just wanted to take this space to say I treasure them so much, specially because many times Kirsten captured a look on my suite that I forgot to screenshot myself before changing or that I really didn’t feel like saving or posting until she did. I'm really grateful to her for including me and my outfits on her blog for all these years!
___________________2016__________________
I wasn’t writing on a blog anymore, just contenting myself in taking some raw screenshoots without editing and posting some of them on Facebook. TSL features kept coming occasionally, but the frequency I was making outfits wasn't the same as before. I remember it was the time I started getting much more into high fashion and really began diving deep into the world of runways, designers, fashion weeks, fashion history and such. I was kinda obsessed with labels back then, so a piece from a luxury brand was a must-have in every single look. That was when I started coordinating colors very well and putting a lot of attention into the smallest details - even if it goes unnoticed. To me, it was all about being loud and expensive-looking with my outfits - not in a tacky logomaniac way but in a elegant peacock-esque way - pretty much inspired by some street style stars from that time such as Anna Dello Russo, Giovanna Battaglia, Chiara Ferragini... Basically I would feed my brain every season with Phil Oh's street style photos at Vogue Runway and it kinda sums up the direction my style was going at that point.
Guest Writer at The Stardoll Lookbook
In 2017, TSL had temporary guest writers for each month of that year and when Kirsten invited me to be the first one during January, I couldn't be more flattered. I loved planning the outfits in advance and building narratives for each one in my head. It was nice getting back into writing after some time off from style blogs. Back then, they also had this section called We Wear Hotbuys, in which all the writers had to style the same piece as soon as it arrived. It was a bit challenging, but very fun to have a post showing such different ways to wear the same item. There was even a poll at the end for the readers to vote on their favorite look. Overall, during my time there I tried to show variety within my style, though keeping the luxury and street style elements I was still drawn to.
From February to November I was still being featured on TSL every now and then, but mostly I was just making looks and keeping them to myself. I wasn't posting them anywhere yet I would hope they were seen by others, specially people whose opinions I cared about. Back then, being called 'basic' was the biggest insult imaginable and although nobody ever called me that, I would do anything to stray away from what was deemed anywhere near basic. I deliberately started to define my style as maximalist and really tried to commit to it, further than before. "More is more and less is a bore!" - I would remind myself every time I was creating a new look, even if that was just to my parameters at that time. Having something at the top of my outfits - either glasses, headwear, earrings or all at once - was absolutely essential at this point. Also, head-to-toe designer was still a thing for me, but I would always try to add my personal touch instead of fully copying a styling seen on the runway. Mixing different brands and references was my favorite thing to do as well. I was heavily inspired by some campaigns and editorials of that time and they played a big part on building my taste.
December of that year marks when I turned outfits into moodboards/collages for the first time. I'm not sure how that came about, It was just something silly I started doing casually, with no pretension. I didn't mean to post these anywhere until now, nor I knew if it was a thing I would be doing continuously, I was just having fun. To me, these were not about inspiration, but a way of really enhancing the looks and their atmosphere by bringing images of the things that were on my mind during the process.
This year being my last on college made me realize how making outfits on my time off was such an escape from reality and a much needed relief in such a stressful period. That time was also when I started exploring other forms of creating fashion imagery as I began making sets on Polyvore, so maybe that explains why I gave up on the moodboard/collage format from here on. Either way, I feel like it was when I started leaning much more into the storytelling aspect of styling, building a narrative for each outfit in which I could picture a whole context of where and how and why it was being worn. Not that I wasn't doing it before, but for me it got to a whole new level now, to the point that I would care imagining how the outfits would look in real life, how they would move and how the textures would feel. Back then, influencers were at their peak on Instagram and I cannot deny some of them were very influential to me, more so than the fashion shows and campaigns. I used to watch lots of vlogs on YouTube from girls that were attending fashion weeks and sometimes achieving their style/vibes on my looks was my main goal.
This year, I was still making sets, even more dedicated to it I would say, but this time on another platform similar to Polyvore, since it was discontinued the year prior. I was still a label-whore though, but I feel like slowly, the luxury designers pieces were not the main focus all the time anymore, compared to a couple years back. Also comparing to the beginning, I wasn't making looks as often as I used to, it became more like an once a month thing. I was not only taking more time elaborating and building them but also if I loved an outfit a lot, I would take more time to change it, specially if it had a backstory. The gloves started appearing here and there, but they weren't a constant thing yet. The girl in gloves was just taking her first breaths of life. I now feel like some of these outfits are definitely missing gloves, just to tie it altogether as a final touch. Overall, I feel like the fashion world was having a great moment back then and some of my favorite outfits of mine from all time are from both 2018 and 2019, even if that period marks when street style started to decay and the death of personal style started to happen.
This is where this project lands on the timeline. I noticed it was from this year on that the gloves were constantly appearing on my outfits - not as the main attraction, but as an omnipresent guest. Back then I didn't have this blog or this name in mind yet. This space was conceived in June 2023, so all posts prior to that were written under a present perspective while looking back at my thoughts and process for each look. The dates of the entries refer to when each screenshot was taken and therefore to when each outfit was made/worn. It's my first time having my very own blog, where I can write whatever I want and post whenever I want, with no pressure to make it palatable to anyone but me.
Despite claiming gloves as my thing now, I don't think that alone fills the blank of what my fashion identity is. They are just a detail that adds up to my references, my personality, my taste and my brand. Defining my style was a recurrent theme throughout this trajectory, but currently I don't think that's something that should be defined. What I create shouldn't be reduced to an idea or a word even. Im much more into blurring the lines instead of being put into a box. I don't think I'm anywhere near my final form yet, but I will get there eventually. For now, I just want to be the girl in gloves, whatever that means.