| So what is style? One begins to ask after an exposure to the field. The answer comes in the crowds of the style-less. An amusement park is where I found my epiphany. People wear their lives on their faces and style is a form of protection, a mask of prefabricated identity. Those without style, are in many ways so much more fascinating, there is so much more you can see in them. As my eyes wandered from children, to couples, I wondered at the back stories, aware that each had a unique life, unique problems and unique aspirations. The monkey child with the glasses bound to his jerking, squaking little head; the visibly jewish little man with his even more visibly jewish little boy; the bearded, little, romanian looking man with the two boys, one unibrowishly his father's double, the other destined for the Tommy Hilfiger popularity of good looks; the gangly six foot, fourteen year old girl practically growing as I watch. I can see the stories alive in these people, their clothes, their adopted attitudes are clear and open, they blend easily into the amalgam of humanity, they have no identity crisis, no reason to stand out. But not all style is an identity crisis. There is cultural style. Cultural style seems to define a line between style and no style; in the home of the culture it is the style of no style. But in a new country, in conflict with a new culture, it takes on a new standing, it becomes a style fighting for identity. Ironic, isn't it, how style is an effort to find one's individuality but is always in conformance to some predetermined template; a template that represents the desired identity. |