It’s 10:30pm… You’re getting ready for a big party and you open up your closet….

Now let’s talk about what you see. You might see a nice dress, maybe a cool shirt or some fly shoes, but look closer, what do you want others to see? You may want others to not just see your clothes, but also who made them. Supreme, Giuseppe, Fashionova – the list of brands go one and on.  For a lot of us, seeing a nice pair of shoes will cause us to not think objectively about what the real cost of purchasing a brand name item will do to us financially, we “just do it”. Yet, what culture does that breed? – where a white shirt isn’t worth wearing unless a designer brand name is on it. Do we buy clothes for ourselves? Better yet, do we wear clothes for ourselves?

Now let’s go back to you getting ready for this party… so you got your fit on but you look at the mirror and realize “Damn this is not me..”

Well riddle me this, what makes us so afraid to dress like ourselves? Has society created an environment in which how we dress becomes a measure of social acceptance? Fewer and fewer of us are able to simply “dress how we like to dress” without fear of being judged or othered. All this is done for the sake of preserving our personal brand. Isn’t it weird how we wear certain brands in order to preserve our brand. Let me ask this question…if people like you never wore that designer brand, would it still be cool? If no one wore Gucci, would it be expensive? We need to understand that we are the ones with the power. We say what’s hot and what’s not – each of us individually. WE ARE THE BRANDS THAT DESIGNERS WANT TO ASSOCIATE THEMSELVES WITH. In that case, it’s not about the brand you wear as much as it is about who the brand is dressing. A white shirt was a white shirt before the supreme tag, a shoe was just a shoe before the checkmark, but the only constant was us, who see clothing as a means of self-expression. Don’t let the designer brands make you think they are the ones pulling the strings here. You are. Don’t let these brands leave you without a sense of self for the sake of fitting in. So next time you do go out, remember, you are the best brand there is and whatever you rock YOU make it fly! At the end of the day, self-expression starts with SELF – appreciation. So be yourself, wear what you like…. “just do it” for yourself.