Mad Style – Define Yourself! | CoreyTess - Screenwriter, Designer, Fashionista

Mad Style – Define Yourself!

Posted on 27. Aug, 2009 by Corey Tess in Fashion, General

So when I first moved to the South I was struck by the lack of over all diversity. Not to knock the South really… it was just extremely different from my home town of Los Angeles and California in general. I know that most people think of California as a Beach Boys, Surfer Girls, Plastic Surgery, Paris Hilton dominated state, and there ARE those elements to it, but the really defining style trait of California is the extreme diversity of fashion, ethnicity, hair-color, attitude, religion and lifeview. Where ever you go from San Diego to Sonoma and beyond...

you will inevitably be confronted by someone deeply different from yourself at least once every day if not more often… and it is wonderful…
bangs
When I got here.. (to Charlotte, NC) I walked around for a while with my jet black hair, blunt bangs and red lips feeling a little pang of the old High School fear… I DON’T FIT IN HERE… and for some time, allowed myself to be watered down to create a more palatable version of myself for the Southern Gentry… Let me tell you, there seems to be a huge favoring of the no bangs, center-parted, dirty blond to light brown bobbed above the shoulder haircut here in CLT… I realized this when I kept mixing girls I met up in my mind, they all had very similar hair-dos.. My over-the-top style was deemed a little too much by several critics of the South who regularly confronted me about my Jewelry, Make-Up, Hair Color and choice of lipstick… I was actually asked if I was a witch by someone who is now a good friend (apparently this was about the black hair) and told by another friend “just wear jeans and a top to go to the club” as in, don’t break out the “Irregular Choice Boots” and fishnets anymore… (at a Gwen Stefani Show, I rocked my IC boots with the big pink bows).
lips
It took me a while to find the support and friendship of other transplants who were going through a similar acclimation process and that helped quite a bit, but after a while I began to miss myself… I began to miss not having to think about what I put on in order to avoid the looks and the comments.. and then something odd happened… I saw a photo of one of my cousins on facebook… we hadn’t seen each other since childhood.. i was shocked by how similar her style was to mine… her look, her coloring, her lipstick! It made me jealous of my old self, to think of someone existing in that skin without the constant pestering thought of not being familiar to the established landscape… just being herself.. and rockin it.. the way I used to…
other
The next day I dyed out the highlights I had added to make my hair look less jet black.. spread on my NARS Ruby Woo lipstick (total matte finish) and donned a charcoal pencil skirt with large white buttons on the high waisted bib, added a pair of braces, a mans dress shirt and a funky 1970′s tie.. and rocked it out with my footless tights and a pair of scrunchy leather peep-toe booties… tossed my Patton leather zipper hangbag over my shoulder and headed to work… during a meeting with executives I noticed an old white haired man (very cigar old school type) starring at my boots with the look of a confused buddha… i leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs… a smile graced my RED lips as I realized he didn’t like my statement… and I really didn’t care…