Never changing your looks: Classic or Dud ?

I love old blokes who still dress like Teds. They're classic. Changing your look every season is also classic though, because it means SHOPPING! Which is what I'm going to do in precisely ten minutes. Hurrah!

I liked when Grunge was all the rage, I was in fashion back then...the only way I ever change my looks is either by having my hair trimmed or getting new glasses, I've got school photos of me when I was 8 and I still wear the same sort of clothes now (not the same clothes mind!)...I think if you are gonna radically alter your image it's best to get it over with when you are a teenager...like a 22 year old guy suddenly shaving his head and getting his eyebrows pierced is just plain silly!

I always try to look generic becasue I don't like to be noticed. I think its usually poor to go along with fashion trends. I mean I worn those carpenter Dickies pantswith the hammer loop in like 1995 when it wasn't that popular but when LL BEan started having their version...christ! I say always wait 20 years before following a trend

22 is hardly ancient, James....

Do you mean changing your appearance i.e hair cutting / dying, tats, piercings etc. etc. or changing the way you dress or both? I spent half an hour fiddling with new ways of doing my hair last night. It was a very unrewarding 30 minutes.

Never change your look, it means shopping. Euch. And it's expensive to buy things as well. I changed my hairstyle 2 years ago, making it shorter. That's as far as I go.

Emma, what new styles were under consideration? A bun? Square-tin toaster? Ciabatta? Crusty Bloomer?

What Ally C said, only in a bigger size.

I unfortunately am always switching things up. The receptionist at corporate asks me every time I see her if I've dyed my hair again, literally every time I see her.

Oh, I meant like suddenly looking like a gothic skate boarding nu- metaller when you are 22, there's noting wrong with changing your look per se, just not to that!!! (I'm just being snobbish)

I try to make my clothes less indiekitsch and more big town sophistacated. I am failing .

Emma: hair, clothes, style, any change that would be noticeable to someone who otherwise doesn't pay attention.

Ned in 1990 -- long hair, T-shirts and shorts (in warm weather; in colder, pants), plus occasional more formal wear when the occasion demands it.

Ned in 2001 -- utterly unchanged. I defy trends.

i'm a firm believer in the black boots, flannie shirts and concert t- shirts will never die look

Has anyone seen my favourite jumper?

MUST...RESIST...SULTANS OF PING FC REFERENCE!

Erm...what exactly is wrong with the orange/brown combination? On second thoughts, forget I ever said that.

Bill

My 'look' has remained virtually the same since I was about 16, and I add or subtract to it depending on what's available (More Dash Than Cash, as the Voguettes have it) and looks good on pale people with dark hair. I have loads of really good vintage from '30s/'70s because my gran (dad's mum, French-Scots K Hepburn clone) was a fashion buyer from '45-'75 and my aunt (mum's sister, spit of Grace Kelly) was (briefly) a model; both were VERY picky women. My other gran was a wicked seamstress and I've got some amazing things of hers.

There have been slight haircut variations (57 kinds of bob, starting with Phil Oakey and Louise Brooks remixes) and a proportional decline in black clothes as I've gone for (gulp) other colours. I do not wear purple, on me it looks shite. Red, however, really works.

If I hadn't gone for the 'writer' option, fashion design might well have been the answer. Unfortunately, sewing machines drive me nuts. Whatever you do, don't get me going on stylists as I could easily do their jobs but no way in Hell could they do mine. You will also be pleased to know that I'm not a *real* fashion victim; I leave that to certain co-workers (I like food aand I have some slob DNA, which saves me).

I tend to be a little rash about these things. I'll just know when it's time to change my "look", as if it is a higher power commanding me to do so. The last time, it was the week after school ended, and the spirit moved me to buy lots of secondhand knee length skirts and simple tops in a pathetic emulation of Marxist babes of the twenties and thirties.

My friends laugh at me because I buy 90% of my wardrobe in thrifts and places like Ragstock, and when I go for a new look, the old clothes all go back to where they came from, as if Goodwill is some sort of lending library.

I SO DO THAT !
I thought i was the only one who viewed thrift as a two way street.

Never changing my looks = classic because I have settled on a neutral enough look that it will never go out of fashion (while remaining tastefully afashionable). Shooting for career as philosophy professor = classic, because then I can still wear my blue jeans and have some kind of sophistry to back up my wardrobe (I am like, opposed to institutional authority, man).

Whatever aesthetic it is, I've got something tasteful in black. Like Kerry, half of it is from Ragstock, which is the bomb.

But my favourite thing right now is my kids' Bloomsbury FC trackie jacket in Tiffany blue, with yellow trim, because my landlady just left a bag of thrift and said, here, take what you want and sell the rejects to Retro Woman for your Sin Fund.

Anthony, have you ever found your old clothes hanging on the racks in the thrifts? I have. You know you're a thrift addict when *that* happens!

Yep.
Have you bought stuff from thrifts and realized it was somethign you donated when you got home .

I always try to keep myself vaguely relevant, though you wouldn't know to look at me. this usually consists of me having gurly stressies about having nothing to wear, and then going out and buying stuff that is exactly the same as what I already had. Repeat ad infinitum.

Classic: Keeping a look that was hip once, like being a 50 year old Ted or Mod or Heavy Metal Biker.

Dud: Sticking with the same crap look that was never cool, like my aunt still rocking a rubbish 80s big hair perm. If you're going to have a rubbish haircut, at least have a current rubbish haircut. At least it looks like you're trying.

Lord no! Imagine listening to the Happy Mondays every day until maybe it's your best friends wdding, when you might listen to the Stone Roses for a day. It's boring! Currently I am into tweed.

I used to change my look quite often when I was younger, veering between practically every indie kid stereotype. Favourite: Manics Fan DG, with my slinky combat trousers (before everyone else wore them, thank you) and tasteful make-up. But I'm a fattie now so every day is casual day.

My Manics 4REAL Fan phase was one of my personal favorites too. I wish I still had my combat boots and my army shirt. Grrr.

Anthony - yes. I believe I have done that at least once.

So we are the offical ILE thrift whores then ?

Well, in favour of changing your look: this morning I did my hair differently (to less resemble any form of bread, thank you Tim) and no less than 2 workmen in vans whistled and 1 builder said I had a 'beautiful smile' (I love him). Of course that is their job but still.

So girls. My advice is: wanna pull a builder? Do your hair differently!

So that's why, when last year, I pulled out some of my "Pete DeFrietas dress in only camoflauge for a year" outfits, our teenage keyboardist asked if I was "doing a Manic". Good god, I was a Bunnymen fan when Richey Manic was in primary school. Hah!

Changing your look to follow fashions, or equally, changing your look to not follow fashion, are both silly. (Though it was irritating the year that every girl in the world went through the pseudo-art school goth look, to the point where, every time some little buffygirl would walk down the street in a black turtleneck and miniskirt, my friends would shout "Hey! Kate!" at her.)

But going through your own mad little phases where you wear nothing but black, or else, nothing but vintage paisley, or else nothing but camoflauge or whatever = classic. Especially if you change your hair colour while doing it, so your friends don't recognise you.

These days changing my look means putting on something other than pyjamas to leave the house. Oh well.