What About Fashion?

What (not) to wear? In February, we kicked off our series The Future of Fashion with the first part: 'Shop 'till You Drop'. Besides two talks by Maeve McKeown and Femke Knoop, we interviewed people about how they feel about fashion and why they chose a specific style. One if them is Anna Cyprianova, and here's her story:

"I always thought that the clothes I wore did the exact opposite of reflecting who I was, and I took great joy in putting on costumes and creating fantasies that corresponded very little with reality.

When I started university in Groningen, I chose to portray a specific persona that would help me feel more confident in the new and unfamiliar world. She wore bright lipstick every day and adored Lana Del Rey; her dresses were red and flattering; her sunglasses always big and heart-shaped. She was still me, but more open, more hopeful, and more happy; the idealized self I hoped to embody by putting on old Hollywood-inspired outfits.

There were, naturally, certain assumptions that accompanied this kind of look. At first I didn't pay them any mind; they did not offend me, and I believed the people I loved the most saw me for who I really was.

Sadly, I was proven very wrong, and the most readily obvious consequence of this (I still feel guilty calling it that) trauma was the shift in my style and the different relationship to fashion that I developed afterwards. I don't enjoy dressing up very much anymore, and I use clothing in an altogether different way - to create distance between myself and the outside world. I like to wear many layers of oversized shirts, cardigans, and scarfs. I also wear blue light glasses, a fake septum piercing, and a lumpy beanie hat, to detach myself from that previous life and sustain the feeling that whatever went wrong there can't reach me anymore.

One disguise seems to have followed another. I cut off my hair, got a tattoo, lost weight. I exchanged my beloved reds for greys and greens. My heart shaped glasses broke and I never replaced them.

Yet, there is still one thing that I feel comfortable expressing with fashion: my love of music. I usually incorporate gothic elements into my outfits - black lace, elaborate eyeliner designs, and band t-shirts. When people look at me, I hope they see a person with a concerningly high spotify minutes count and a vinyl collection."

Are you interested in learning more about (sustainable) fashion and how to mend your torn and holly clothes? Then join us on 20 March for the O-Swap clothing repair café.