Inspiration Monday

*H.A.U.S of Kolbee are a group of artists/designers dedicated to exposing all the beautiful diversities in music, art and fashion.

Dear Readers,

It has never hurt me more to say the next three words, but it’s eventual and futuristic prescence will nonetheless grace us soon. So without further ado, here I type: “Fall is coming.”

Fall. Autumn. To some, this season is nothing but a seasonal change of botanical death. But in the world of fashion, trends, and upcoming designer brilliance; Fall is a season of hope. For us fashion-addicts out there, Fall is a season of learning. And we are but the most deligent and humble students and scholars.

Some may rack up student loans for books, for tuition, for a new Apple laptop. But students of fashion are a different breed. After they study the architecture of that Louboutin “Dandelion” heel, respect and passion turns into an uncontrollable shoe-lust. No one loves math that much.

As a self-proclaimed fashion scholar myself, I have grown more and more restless about the articulation and intensity regarding the fierce facts of fashion. I have become utterly and irrevocably obsessed.

I have become obsessed with looking at the embroidery, textures, silhouette, fabrics, pletting, draping, beadwork and hemlines and having to know who gave birth to this idea first. I need to know who stole this idea, from which era, painted by which artist, from where was it inspired and where it was recreated.

I want to know how many designers reinvented the idea. I want to know how it became a trend and what music or cultural movement accompanies it as well. Like I said, us scholars of fashion, of the art of presenting and expressing your visual and physical self, simply dip our feet too deep in the fashionable waters. And when we are in haute water, we get cooking.

So, in midst of the Fall season. The season of change and hope. Today, I wanted to share that passion with you and hopefully take away any hate or judgement so that everyone has a chance at education. So that everyone: young and old, small or bootylicious, black or white and rich or poor can be scholars of the fashion trends that are popularized and saturated by our youth. Goth, Hipster, Bohemian, Prep, just to name a few. I want anyone and everyone to go out into the world, and try.

Today, I want us to ask ourselves the big questions and to challenge ourselves as brave fashion scholars.

Why has our generation, our world, embraced such distinct looks with an intense respect and disrespect at the same time, that the clothes become social game changers? Who on Earth made thick-framed Buddy Holly glasses so relevant?

In hopes of opening up and promoting a new generation of runway rebels, I believe I have narrowed it all down to the one big individual question that everyone who shops thinks about: “Being a hipster, a goth, whatever have you. To encapsulate you and your wardrobe to total dedication; is it plagiarism or revolutionary?”

“Am I a poser?”

And I have but one answer. A big, fat: “No.”

Art gives birth to new art. Fashion inspires new fashion. Everything that ever existed, your wardrobe, your furniture, are recreations of past things that always have been. Always will. And with fashion going through an evolution only time can chaperone, fashion can have a new meaning in the future.

So there is no chicken, or an egg. But simply, the ongoing outdoor unspayable barn sex that just keeps on giving.

Fashion, with future, will always ensure youth will of course homage the past but in their own interpratation. Because no matter how much time passes, no one can take away the value or importance of that memory.

So maybe, this is “posing”. But maybe, the evolution of fashion is nothing without “posing”, without the nods and winks to the past that have mothered us. For what is the future without the past? What is the past without the future? What is fashion without striking a “pose”?

So, when we connect back into the world and see the students prowling around in the school of life, in their own unique uniforms, is it possible that its not even imitation or plagiarism anymore. Maybe the imitation is interpretation. Fashion is not a dividing line but one that can bring us to strut on together.

So be brave. Learn, fashion scholars. Because knowledge is power… and fabulous.

With love and style,

Leroy Wan