It wasn’t until the birth of this blog that I started to actually question why my closet looks the way it does. I mean, afterall, black isn’t exactly a contender for the “world’s happiest color” and who doesn’t want to look happy? But I swear, my closet isn’t a reflection of my personality, just ask around – I swear people won’t deny that my insides are rainbow.
Anywho, I’ve come to a rather obvious conclusion, but a conclusion nonetheless:
My all-black mindset (with room for other dark colors) is a result of, well, my life.
and now before you move onto another blog because you think “ugh another one of these shallow philosophers”
let me explain.
The biggest influence on my monochrome closet without a doubt is dance (cue sparkles). I grew up with a rather strict dress code: black leotard, pink tights for ballet and black leotard, black tights for modern. As you can tell from above, I identify myself as a modern dancer. So now, put some math into this big mess and multiply 10 years by 300 days (guestimating dance days out of a year) by 3 classes a day by 1.5 hours per class and it gives you a picture of how much black I’ve been seeing in a mirror.
so thus my defense: my pupils love me in black (thank you dance)
Furthermore, I was 13 when I picked up modeling, and at that wee baby age, all you want to be is cool. You want to be like Kate Moss, Adriana Lima, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley 24 hours a day. So naturally I turned to google for some help. Search up ‘models off duty’ on google images and bam! there’s all my fashion inspiration from year 13. Narrow it down a little more to ‘models off duty all black’ and you’ve got me where I am now.
I’ve become less strict about everythingeverythingeverything black….Now it’s a little more blackblackblackgreynavyblack. I have a few friends who like to challenge me from time to time to wear things other than black so to be prepared I’ve added some blues and and burgundys into my wardrobe. The other day I wore a half burgundy (half black obviously) top with a dark navy skirt and there were hush hushes about “oh my gosh Umi I’ve never seen you wear THIS much color!”. It excites me that I can excite my friends so I’ve trickled in some pieces with hues other than black.
It’s a rare sighting, so catch me (inthingsotherthanblack) if you cannnnnnnn
I guess ultimately what I’m saying that you really are the sum of your parts. Your past affects your present in more ways than you think until you take the time to think about it.
(Oh, also I was born and raised in New York City that might have something to do with that)
What about you? What parts of your life do you think influenced your closet the most?
Leave a comment below!
It wasn’t until 1926 when Coco Chanel coined the term “little black dress” and had her dress featured in Vogue that it became kind of a style necessity for every woman’s closet. It was affordable, complementary, and easy for any woman of any social class of any size
THAT IN BLACK 