Glamourising the Quotidienne

by Marlowe Bjorklund

Do you ever read something, perhaps something old, perhaps something new, and feel the whole world crash into your skull?

Desperately clinging to the collective knowledge, trying to drink up as much as I can without drowning on the fire hose, I die. The water goes down the wrong pipe, I consume something that so viscerally strikes a chord, and I feel my brain burst. The feeling starts in my feet, travels up through my spine, and every vein in me runs cold. I read, see, hear something, and it’s as though the creator made it with the fabric of my soul. It’s in that moment when I realise part of me has always been missing. There was a piece of me cut out, two hundred years ago, and put to pen, paint, piano, by some long-lost version of who I aspire to be.

When I read the quote from Oscar Wilde:

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art

I felt known.

Now, to make any comparison betwixt myself and one and only Mr. Oscar Wilde feels like sacrilege. I am, however, considering getting that quote tattooed in bold across my forehead. Why? Well because! I think there is so much ugliness. So much dreadful ugliness.

For Instance: People wearing grey.

Not in an artful layer of grey, strong fabrics, textures, and an eye behind the groutfit. Just sad, nondescript, grey. Absolutely tragic. Oscar, Mr. Wilde, our one and only, was right.

Be art. Wear art. Body art.

As they say, be the art you want to see in the world. That’s a saying, isn’t it?

We do some things every day, on a quotidian basis. Now you might already be wondering, why even use the word quotidian? Isn’t the answer obvious? Because it is there, and because it is beautiful. I find constant joy in the use of vocabulary as a means of zhuzhing up an otherwise boring sentence (add THAT word to your file). Why would you do your daily habits in a manner that is dull? That does not inspire joy? That is lackluster and ultimately if you just put 12% more effort in could make you that extra notch happier?

When I was choosing to come to St Andrews, one of the biggest elements that I heard about from my friends who had already graduated or who were in the second and third years, was that people here put in fashion effort. That was a thrill. My family has always been fashion centric, and from an early age it was repeated to be constantly: present yourself how you want to be treated.

It did not always make sense. In part, because being at an all-boys Catholic school with a uniform, presentation did not mean much since everyone had known everyone since age five or even before. It started to click for me in high school, though. Fashion became an art form. It became the way my older sister could juggle and navigate self-expression via fabric, pattern, layering, and colors. Imagine it being Monday morning, she rocks down the hall to the kitchen in a graphic dark tank top, ACDC in glittering silver across her chest, studs accentuating her shoulders and arms, finely layered gold chains, a black distressed miniskirt, and red and black FU cowboy boots. She looked dangerous, and she looked ready to have her photo taken outside a diner along the highway as she headed West. She was a rogue, she was the queen of the highway, and not only because she sped at least 15 miles above the speed limit. She was badass. Cut to Tuesday, and who walks down the hall to the kitchen but my sister. A pair of straight-leg white jeans, slip-on sneakers that turned her feet into taxicabs, a cropped white sweater, and a sleek belt. She was an entirely different woman. The day before I was nervous she would crush me under her heel and spit in my face, and today she embodied merriment and playful youth. Wednesday - the week was moving fast for us - and once again who is strutting down the hall but my sister. Today it was dark suede ankle boots, silver balloon cut jeans, a navy sequins top, and big sunglasses even though it was still dark outside. The gangster of Monday and artsy college girl to be of Tuesday melted into a hippie ready to hit the discotheque. Her pallet was fabric, chains, leather, and she was above all, an artist in her craft. By the time Friday came around, I did not know who would rock her way down that hallway, but I knew there would be finesse and finery behind every decision.

That is something I too have worked to embody. The artist’s eye is not something that is undeveloped. The artist’s eye, the poet’s pen, the courtier's cut, they are built over years of careful craft. It takes time to develop art, and while I wish my name was Bella Hadid and I could wake up every morning and be a work of art graced by genetics, my name is •not• Bella Hadid. So, what do I do every day? I turn myself into a work of art through what I wear. You, whether or not you think you can, should work on doing the same.

Perhaps you are a perfect ten, you wake with glowing white teeth, coiffed to the nines, and ready for a Royal Ball. If that is you, good for you. If that is not you, welcome to the 99.9%. So, what should you do? You should wake up, do that morning routine of yours, be it a simple brush of a twelve-step beautification routine, and then go to your closet, dressed, drawers, whatever. Look at what you have. You do not need forty pairs of socks to match any potential outfit you could dream to wear. That, if I am honest, is a slightly obsessive thing to have. However, you do not need to have an obscene number of socks to build an artful outfit. You need to work on building your eye more than your collection. The eye is the foundation of any collection. You need to go to your closet, and carefully choose what will best say who you are, how you feel, and who you wish to become. Put on the pants you feel your best in, just make sure they are not sweatpants. Loungewear is meant to be lounged in, and you can do better than sweatpants on a Tuesday at two in the afternoon. Wait until you’re home for loungewear. Go grab some trousers, some jeans, maybe a skirt, throw them on. What color would best suit them? Go look at your shirts, sweaters, tops of all varieties. Build yourself as you are the canvas you’ll always have. Create beauty in yourself. It will inspire beauty around you.