Personal style is not a zero-sum game

First, allow me to explain what zero-sum means, as just as a placeholder here. I know you know the definitions, but all the same, for clarities sake, I want to make sure we’re on the same page.

Zero-sum is a bit like if you and I are hungry, we begin eating a small pizza, and I eat 5 of the 6 slices. And this sucks because you’re still hungry and my gain was a direct loss to you. Often times though, zero-sum is not our reality. Unless we were on a desert island, we find or create other options for ourselves. You may go find another food alternative, like a sandwich, while acknowledging out loud that I’m an asshole. I may feel sick from eating too much and suffer the ramifications while you are now nimble and better focused. Or you may create new and innovative solutions for sustenance, and then lock me out, rightly so, when I sulk up next to you asking you to share.

Over the last two weeks, in the dressing rooms of Zurich, Eindhoven, Antwerp and Dallas, I sometimes heard a comment, in a wide range of accents, declaring without conscious realization that they view style as zero-sum. When I styled a shirt in three different ways, their head would cock and attempts were made to select which way they “liked it best.” Choosing one option of three.

And I would ask, “why do you need to rank or select?”

And they would pause, and intimate that it was so reflexive to do so. To feel the need to give an opinion.

And I would ask, “why is your opinion a judgement rather than a musing?”

And this would evolve into a conversation about how we sometimes second guess what people are looking for from us: to have an “absolute opinion about something”. Is it the headlines and style training over years or decades (depending on one’s age) that have asked us to rank, sort and judge? I think so.

Thoughts, opinions, sure they are good. But in their absoluteness, they can become constricting. They leave you no room to re-evaluate, understand what’s underlying them, determine their rightness for the moment. Here’s a good example. The pleated skirt, below. No one has to choose which way was best, each way it was worn was right for the moment. The right event, the right temperature, and most importantly the right frame of mind I wanted to be in. The choice was made early on, the underlying principles that form my style: chill, modern and classic. But the literalness in how I interpret my principles are always based on the information on hand, from the past, and what I’m wanting from the future. Me, below, just different, sometimes.