Monday 2 June 2014

#OOTD


On conscientious hashtagging, and what makes an outfit an outfit

Since finishing my exams, I've had some time to really reflect on life, and start asking the big questions. You know, like 'why are we here?', 'what is beauty?', and, perhaps most importantly, 'what the hell did people do before social media?'. I mean, how on earth did they procrastinate? People must have actually got stuff done instead of sharing cat videos with facebook friends and trawling through inane hashtags on twitter. Man, I know. Shit's gotten deep recently.

However, today's aid to procrastination comes not via twitter or cat videos, but rather via instagram in the form of #ootd. #ootd (that's Outfit Of The Day for you instagram novices/non-serial procrastinators out there) is a hashtag which, rather like a certain decking oil, does exactly what it says on the tin. Or so one would think. Right now there are a whopping 29,822,229 photos hashtagged 'ootd' on instagram, but - and here comes today's big question - how many of these are actually outfits? 

One response to this could be 'it's outfit of the day, so obvs all of them, FOOL' - and well, that would be logical. But when you actually start to look at these photos, a lot of them are just people in shorts and a t-shirt, or some little dress, and to me, that isn't an outfit. Those are just clothes.

Maybe I'm over-romanticising, but I've always thought of an outfit as something much more considered than that. It's something with personality and intelligence. It's something which speaks. Yes an outfit is clothes, but it's clothes which are in dialogue with each other; styles, cuts, colours and textures all singing a different note, each day strumming up new conversations to wrap your body in. Conversations which say something to you, about you, and for you. An outfit is something with a voice. 



So if we are to live in this world of social media, let's at least do it right - starting with #ootd. Instagrammers, hear my plea: next time you want to hashtag your photos, think to yourselves: what is my outfit saying? And if it's not saying anything then, my guess? It's probably not an outfit.

Vaguely,
Elizabeth x






All images via The Cut

4 comments:

  1. Love these style inspo pics! Amazing!

    Mindy

    www.kindofluxe.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. You should look at the #KimKardashian tags. Soooo many of them aren't even her, just people who crave more likes, smh.

    The Style Boro

    ReplyDelete
  3. Vests - http://www.robecart.com/category/clothing/vests_162/

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is really cool! Try to visit www.robecart.com they have nice clothing, pants, formal wear and accessories too!

    ReplyDelete

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