It's Important To Be A Hot Mess.
I don’t remember when I first began dressing this way, like I had just decided to place all the mismatching clothing I had on my body. Clothing of different patterns, sizes and styles, the more that is going on, the better. I would imagine it started when I was young, a little feminist in the making, refusing my mother’s choice of nicely matching clothing. Shirts which matched the skirts, shoes with matching frilly socks.
I revolted against white, grey and black. My wardrobe became a vast display of colours you could only find in the early 2000s. I thought I was the coolest. My go-to outfit was a black skirt, Crocs and an hot pink shirt that read “Paris” in fake gem stones.
A photo of me in the best outfit I owned as a 7-year-old.
Being an attention seeking 7-year-old, the need to stand out was strong. The goal was to walk into a room and for everyone to turn around and check out my flared jeans and sequinned purple crop top, while ‘Dirty’ by X-Tina played in the background; as I squeaked off into the sunset with my fake Crocs. I knew that when that day came, it could only mean one thing, I had made it in life.
The urge to look like a hot mess only grew stronger when I saw magazines claiming that patterns are a pear-shaped woman’s worst nightmare. Even now, the magazines contradictory instructions of how to be a woman leave me feeling discombobulated.
''5 ways to love your body! 10 tricks to lose 20 kilos in a week. Black is slimming, don’t wear bright colours, strips make you look round and that is bad. Don’t wear all black, you look like you just went to a funeral, try a little colour, not pink, orange, yellow, green, blue or purple though, try red? Avoid anything that makes you stand out, hide if you can, wear khaki, blend into bushes or trees. Don’t rip your stockings though, always carry around clear nail polish to mend them. Carrying extra weight on your legs? Wear heels, it makes your legs look thinner, men like that. Oh, you’re tall? Don’t wear heels, men don’t like it when you’re taller than them, try sandals.''
Pretty quickly I was aware that I was never going to win the war against my own body that the magazines were suggesting; as it’s pretty hard to run in Crocs, and they’re an absolute nightmare in sand. However, if I cried enough about it I would be able to use them as a floatation device, which is pretty handy.
I still see so many people at war with themselves over their appearance. “Oh no, I can’t wear that, you’ll see my muffin top!” “I’m too old for that!” or “When I lose weight I can wear that.” And eventually resulting in a war against others, “She shouldn’t be wearing that with those thighs,” “I would never be caught in that,” or “Those colours don’t look good on them.”
A photo of me literally demonstrating everything the magazines tell you not to do.
And while I can recognise that all these comments stem from issues with societal norms and perceptions of femininity and masculinity; it makes me really frustrated because I recently wore Birkenstocks with socks and I have honestly never felt more beautiful.
I think it is so important to look like a hot mess sometimes, because society has perpetually told us that looking untidy is a way of showing fault. Contrary to what society says, I think looking like a hot mess is an important step in being confident in yourself.
There’s such a rewarding feeling of satisfaction with proudly looking like a mess, and it’s something I don’t think many people speak about. If you want to look like the people in the magazines, be my guest, dress in whatever you feel comfortable in. However, if you feel like that’s an unattainable goal, and you prefer to wear whatever you want, no matter how peculiar it is, that’s just as good.
Wear clashing patterns, colours and clothes that aren’t “meant” for your body type. Wear socks and Birkenstocks and don’t apologise for looking that way. I think there’s a lesson everyone can learn in wearing socks and Birkenstocks, and the lesson is that it’s okay to rebel against societies standards of what works and what doesn’t, and I think it’s very important that we do so.
