Becoming ‘That Girl’
I was looking at pictures of myself in high school recently. My face is the same it’s been since childhood: I have the same nose, blocky eyebrows, square jaw. My hair is the same, just a different colour. But the clothes I wore then were nothing like those I wear now. It makes sense, to an extent. Fashion is fluid and a good sense of it comes with maturity. It’s also unfair to expect model-off-duty outfits from someone in high school, before they have the financial means to obtain high-fashion clothes. But I still feel like at eighteen years old I should have been able to match my shoes to the rest of my outfit, or had the common sense not to mix dinner tops with distressed jeans.Pinterest has been a fixture on my home screen for years now, but only recently has it become a staple in my everyday routine alongside other social media platforms. The app was initially a boredom fix, with the benefit of having easy-to-download lock screens for my phone. But over the past few months, it’s transitioned from being a passive hobby into something much more. High school me dreamt of a youthful, New York businesswoman aesthetic. Tailored trousers of every colour, kitten heels, pastel-coloured turtlenecks, crisp white button-ups. After months of daily browsing and the Pinterest algorithm changing to show me pins I’m more likely to interact with, I’ve developed a more intimate understanding of my personal sense of style. I learned that a mature wardrobe wasn’t compatible with one, my baby face, and two, my life as a university student. Slowly but surely, my visions of heels became high-top Converse and dress pants faded into flared jeans. I learned which clothes looked and suited my lifestyle best, while still liking this new wardrobe all the same.Pinterest has also improved my eye for design. This has benefits beyond the clothes I wear daily but also on things like how I decorate my bedroom. Though I only go on it for a few minutes every day, sometimes actively and sometimes passively, I still end up absorbing a lot of the content I consume. Seeing endless pictures of how people style their own rooms on the app, you pick up on recurring traits that make those bedrooms look so put together: colour schemes; complementary texture combinations; even the way people make their beds. A coordinated wardrobe of clothes you like and an attractive, well-designed room are not ideals limited to ‘that girl’. With the right tools (and financial means), these goals are perfectly attainable. Creativity, whether it be the way you style an outfit or how you decorate your room, is a skill. Some people are inherently blessed with it, and sometimes you have to work a little harder at it to develop some expertise. But at the end of the day, it can still be trained– therefore Pinterest should be a cornerstone for any person who wants to be a better creative. It is host to a vast multitude of media for you to elevate those aspects of your life that you want to appear more put together, from your room, your closet, to even your nails. More than that, people can go on the app without feeling ashamed for not having attained the aesthetics they put together in their Pinterest boards. There isn’t any pressure to chase likes and comments, so as a result, it doesn’t give you any FOMO. It’s a space free of judgement and pressure that allows people to post about the things they enjoy, while at the same time learning from others. Don’t sleep on Pinterest- it is the perfect vessel to tap into your creative side.
HEADER IMAGE SOURCE: PINTEREST
