can we ever really escape influencer culture?

my changing wardrobe and whether i've actually been in charge all these years

I went shopping with my boyfriend the other week and picked out a pair of light blue jeans. He tilted his head and looked at me with serious concern. I haven’t worn a pair of jeans since circa 2016. I haven’t worn colour since I was about 16.

“I don’t know, I think it’s actually kinda cute,” I said in response to his worry. The jeans had little daisies embroidered on them. If I was going to venture into denim again, a material I’ve always hated, it might as well be a little unique and fun. “Maybe I like colour now.” I said.

I happened to be wearing a white top that day so when I came out of the dressing room trying on the jeans with daisies on them, my boyfriend looked as if he needed to sit down. “I’ve just never seen you look so bright before,” he said, with a soft smile. I liked the jeans and I ended up buying them—later returning them as they did no favours for my already unflattering body shape—mostly because I liked how happy he was to see me in them.

We entered into a few other shops that day and I started to broaden my scope, not just keeping an eye out for browns and beiges, as I’ve been wearing nothing but a neutral colour palette for the past few years now, but anything that took my fancy, no matter what colour it was. I ended up coming home with the jeans of course as well as two green jumpers, a couple of tops that were orange and yellow and some muted mint green corduroy trousers. When I hung them up in my closet, I felt a little spark somewhere inside of me. Look at me, venturing out into colours. It’s been nearly 10 years but I’m happy with myself for finally getting to this place where I’m comfortable wearing colours again. The colours in my wardrobe always said something more about me than just what I thought looked nice. But had this decision to start wearing colour come completely from me?

I was watching a YouTube video the other day that spoke about how colour is dying out and everything is so grey, beige and boring. Literally everything. McDonald’s could easily be mistaken for a fancy garden shed at this point, the interior of every newly built or decorated home looks like the equivalent of a prison’s solitary confinement unit, the shop windows of H&M have apparently banned colour and the UK fashion brand Pretty Little Thing thinks a quick font change and only ordering fabrics in brown and cream means you can sell polyester for triple the price. Colour is becoming a dying art. Colour is becoming a symbol of poor taste and being out of the loop. My boyfriend, who was sitting in the room with me passively watching the YouTube video too, said “Are you sure you’re not just venturing into colour now because you want to be different?”