I've just seen a face, I can't forget the time or place.

*trumpet sound* SWITZERLAND WAS CLASS. I had planned on writing a post on how insane the art was, or how the architecture and make-up of the place was terrifyingly/brilliantly like a more beautiful Brazil, or even the incredible, all-you-can-eat chocolate factory in Lausanne. But all that was before I saw this walking (or should that be sitting?) monochrome blob of INNOVATION.
This happened when we went out to a beer garden in Zurich one night and I happened to look over at the table about three metres away from us. I know how stalker-y that sounds but it really was a (totally platonic) Lolita Moment. I'm not going to upload the photo that I forced my mom at bread-knifepoint to take, because a)It just doesn't sum it all up and b)Within three weeks, I WILL be a mirror image of this man.
I'm not sure what age he was..maybe mid-sixties and looked exactly like Vincent Van Gogh except smilier, with short white hair and beard & brownish-french skin. I should probably point out now before the gushing starts that I was purely interested in his clothes for the clothes themselves and not from a That Shirt Would Look Better On My Floor viewpoint. How eloquent I am!
Basically, the outfit he was wearing just..redefined EVERYTHING for me about the makeup of Style itself. Without making a statement and without being visually radical or futuristicly original in the colour or cut. And even though it was just a short-sleeved shirt, trousers in the same pattern and leather sandals, I have never in my life of scrutinizing fashion in magazines, blogs, films, music, seen anyone wear clothes like that. In other words, it was mind-blowingly original without being Lady GaGa or like, Isabella Blow.
Plus the elusive thing about it is that it wasn't depicting a named style or era, but instead it was as if he was literally draping his personality over himself in a display of indescribable self-expression. But this form was just a bi-product of his own sphere of identity and complexion and that he had just happened to be using the medium of clothes.
I suppose you could call the whole ensemble bohemian, but it's difficult to put a label on it, just as it's difficult to put labels on people's diverse personalities, unless they obviously fit into a box. An emo box, that is. Really it was a uniform, a way of portaying your own character in a very new & subtle way, like Edie Sedgwick or Margaret Tenenbaum.
Maybe the only way the science behind your personal uniform can be summed up is by Coco Chanel:
"Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what's happening".
So what this all comes down to? A total shtyle re-think. BYE BYE 60s.

♥♥♥