This was the most interesting aside to me. I can’t say whether it’s totally what’s going on here, but I’ve noticed a real reticence in clothing advice generally to acknowledge that fashion changes preclude optimizing your wardrobe for timelessness, and that nothing stays neutral over time. I observe a lot of folks internalizing fashion dictates of one period in time as what’s “flattering”: other women my age commonly saying things like “wide leg jeans just don’t look good on my body” when younger women (critically, with the same body types) expect and prefer the look of the wider leg.
The principles here are laid out in a totally trend-agnostic way, which is super valuable to folks who haven’t thought about this much—but the examples are most notably very on-trend with menswear right now. A principle might be “to most successfully communicate to others with your clothing (whatever your goals), you will need to learn some of the language that fashion is using at this moment in time.”
This was the most interesting aside to me. I can’t say whether it’s totally what’s going on here, but I’ve noticed a real reticence in clothing advice generally to acknowledge that fashion changes preclude optimizing your wardrobe for timelessness, and that nothing stays neutral over time. I observe a lot of folks internalizing fashion dictates of one period in time as what’s “flattering”: other women my age commonly saying things like “wide leg jeans just don’t look good on my body” when younger women (critically, with the same body types) expect and prefer the look of the wider leg.
The principles here are laid out in a totally trend-agnostic way, which is super valuable to folks who haven’t thought about this much—but the examples are most notably very on-trend with menswear right now. A principle might be “to most successfully communicate to others with your clothing (whatever your goals), you will need to learn some of the language that fashion is using at this moment in time.”