An image tells a story. A fashion photograph, whether it be by renowned fashion photographer Herb Ritts or Tim Walker, shot or taken either for a fashion editorial or for a fashion inspired exhibition, tells a story. It can tell the story of the wearer and the story of the clothes. A photograph aims to capture the fleeting moment of time, freezing it forever in an image. Fashion, on the other hand, knowingly celebrates the new with a notion that what is new in the present will soon come to pass, and that there will be new new things in the future, so it aims to praise the present. Both fashion and photography capture the current time. For me, the pictures in this blog tell the story of my life. When writing this blog I have come to find that certain outfits are “bloggable,” certain moments are “bloggable.” When you start to live life hoping to get the right pictures and aiming to write something that is “blog worthy,” everything you wear carries a certain excitement and a particular attention to both detail and connotation. Every moment is thereby lived to convey what I want the clothes to do for me.

By writing to you, I am trying to see how the process of writing and learning about fashion can change my outlook on what I observe in the present. In many ways, fashion is a commentary on the present, past, and what-is-hoped-to-be future. Fashion is thereby looked at and examined best not in the most conventional sense, but in a range of capacities and forms. This is why I started this blog. When doing anything, whether it be taking a particular class, or going to an art exhibition, or trying an unusual dish, aiming to learn something new, as opposed to going in with the attitude of knowing all there is to know, proves to be much more valuable. With this blog I do not claim to know everything about fashion. This blog is allowing me to write and examine fashion as a mode to learn.

When I started this blog just over a year ago I didn’t tell anyone about it. I started blogging because I had ideas on fashion. When writing this to you I would like you to know something:  In every post I try to leave an idea unclosed. Perhaps this is because I don’t know how I could claim to know all there is to know on any particular topic and therefore hope to revisit it, but also because I hope anything I write, draw, or wear, makes you think. Whether you agree or disagree or are plainly confused by anything I write excites me. This blog is intended to be a dialogue.

What I love about the header image of this post is what it represents for me. It captures me and one of my best friends, Francesca, laughing at Broughton Castle. This image, although not directly of what either of us are wearing, in many ways conveys what I love about fashion: a way of capturing a certain moment. Whether photographed or not, when I look or try on a particular outfit, I am reminded of a memory. An outfit serves as documentation. It serves as the photograph. That day, Francesca and I both decided to dress for a castle. We wore dresses and me, heels, and we laughed and smiled as we walked about the gardens. This picture was taken by the talented Spencer Wilson. What I love is that we didn’t even know this photo was being taken, it captured the moment as it was lived. In daily pictures, I would like to invite you to follow me on my instagram: ceciliaroses1, and if you have any images that tell your story and how you are expressing yourself through fashion send them over by email (csheppard@fwparker.org) and I will look forward to publishing them.

xoxo,
Cecilia Roses