MANY YOUNG PEOPLE (and some who think they are young but should know better) constantly demonstrate, through their behaviour and dress, that they believe firmly in the dancehall proclamation: "Fashion over style!" Luckily for them, ignorance is bliss and stupidity is still legal. I believe in style over fashion.
Although style and fashion can be used interchangeably, the two words have slightly different connotations. As I understand it, fashion (when it comes to clothes and behaviour) is usually about what is trendy or current, while style suggests distinctive, individual, aesthetic or personal taste. In other words, fashions come and go but "style a style and style cyaan spwile."
I can't put fashion over style. To me, fashion over style means that you are willing to sacrifice your sense of personal taste and good judgement (and common sense) just to be fashionable. From where I stand, it doesn't make sense. It is easy to be a 'falla fashin monkey', but you need courage and confidence and originality, as well as a solid appreciation of art and beauty, to create your own style. Unless of course, following fashion is the only style you know.
The silly youths and grown men who take care in ensuring that their pants waists fall below their bottom so that their boxers show, obviously believe in fashion over style. And the women not any better. As actress and social worker Claudette Pious suggests: "Belly skin is about showing off skin. It is not about exposing belly". So, even if a 'belly-skin blouse' is the latest fashion trend, it still really isn't the best style for you if you have more belly than skin. There is now a new trendy way for greeting among men, which involves rubbing thumbs repeatedly. Call me old fashioned, but I really can't stand it. I hate the idea of another man rubbing his sweaty big-finger on mine when I have no idea what he just did (and if he washed his hands.) That kind of fashion is not my style! I don't even like shaking hands, prefer touching fists because as Dr. Orville Taylor says, "Better you knock it, because some men back it!"
And one can always find some fashionable people in the peak of July moving through the sweltering Kingston midday heat wearing the latest winter fashion that 'somebody send from farin': happily roasting in fashion while boiling in style.
No matter how fashionable some things are, they may become my style for a variety of reasons. Like excessive body piercing and tattoos will never be my style. Why? Although I think it looks nice, I hate pain and refuse to endure it in the name of fashion and beauty. I don't even want to undergo pain for health reasons. Trust me, when my doctor give me injection, I mad fi grab something sharp and jook her back, but violence is not my style either.
What is clear though is that anybody can follow fashion but not everybody has style. So what you say? Fashion over style or style over fashion?
A version of this article was previously published in BUZZZ Caribbean Lifestyle Magazine.
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