I Know What I Like and That Is Enough

If you do not know me, I am sorry that you have managed to go through life without me in it. Do not worry though, we will quickly remedy that with this blog.  

Let me reintroduce myself. I originally started this blog in 2020, just after the pandemic, in Perth, Western Australia (my home state and the greatest state in the world). No, the Western Australian government did not pay me to say that, but they absolutely should for all the tourism I have done on their behalf since moving to Sydney. 

The idea for this blog came from a simple realisation. I wanted a place to share my thoughts and feelings, but also a place to archive them. A living library of the things that move me and, if I am being honest, a way to relieve my friends from having to hear the full force of my endless thoughts about fashion, life and culture. My friends had encouraged me for years to start something where I could share my thoughts. I always told them I would, eventually. I thought I had time.

Then the pandemic happened and it forced a kind of clarity. Life is fragile and sacred and the things that move you deserve urgency. I love fashion. I love art. I love anything that stirs emotion. I am, by nature, a passionate person and I wanted a space where that passion could live.

One of those passions, perhaps unsurprisingly, is fashion. I have loved dressing up since I was a child. Growing up I wanted to be a stylish, Bratz princess frolicking through the gorgeous estate of my castle. Years passed, I became an adult and I am still dressing up. I do not yet own a castle but that is only a matter of time. Fashion has never been a phase for me. It is a language that I have never stopped speaking. Fast forward to university and the university events became my fashion arena (see the photos below for evidence of the energy I brought to those nights).  

Back to the blog, so the pandemic and I decided that it was time to launch the blog. Upon the launch I felt relieved and so proud of what I had put out in the world. Two years later, I moved to Sydney and I was excited for this new adventure. I wanted to soak up the city. I wanted to experience my new home fully, make friends, wander, attend, live. I told myself I would pause the blog briefly and return once I felt settled. That pause lasted a little longer than I expected, just over three years, but everything happens for a reason. And here I am re-launching this beautiful blog. 

When I began mapping out what this new era would look like, I felt a surge of excitement. I had so many ideas on what my first piece back should be (in time I will share those ideas) but the thread I kept returning to was dressing for yourself. Over the years I have developed a very strong personal style that feels unmistakably mine. No matter the occasion, I always bring a piece of myself with me. 

Some people think fashion is vain or that it is not a serious art form. I disagree completely. Fashion is one of the greatest art forms that exists, especially when you consider the culture and craftsmanship that shape it. It is self-expression in its purest form. When I wear an outfit that feels entirely me, the right clothes and the right accessories, I feel like a piece of art walking through the world, sharing a core part of who I am. Fashion also forces a deep level of introspection and you are required to ask yourself difficult questions. Who are you? What do you love? Why do you love it? What are you drawn to it and why are you rejecting it? These questions shaped me long before I knew they were doing it. Ultimately, they were teaching me confidence, not only in my life choices and my body but in what I chose to wear.

There is a particular kind of confidence that comes from dressing for yourself. Not dressing for approval or permission or trends or the invisible panel of judges we sometimes carry in our heads. Dressing for yourself is quieter than that. It is not rebellious. It is not performative. It is simply a decision. I know what I like, I am going to wear it and that is enough. The pieces worn feel like extensions of the self. They are not costumes and they are not disguises. They are a language. When you dress this way, clothes stop being decoration and start becoming articulation. You are saying something about your mood, your humour, your appetite and your energy. You are choosing how you want to move through the day. And that choice is intimate.

The way I would describe my personal style is bold, colourful and whimsical. The boldness and colourfulness make sense if you grew up like me in very rich cultures, specifically Congolese, Zambian and Rwandese cultures, where colour was not an accent, it was a foundation. Colour was something you listened to in the music, tasted in the food, saw in tradition and ceremony and wore without hesitation. Clothes, food, music and tradition all packed a punch. It is impossible to grow up inside that kind of visual language and come out muted. Or at least, it was for me. Then again, maybe you did. You will have to reach out and tell me. I also loved how boldly my community around me dressed in traditional clothing for church, weddings and gatherings. Even though they were living far from the motherland, they continued to celebrate and honour their culture without compromise. Watching that taught me to be proud of my own culture and heritage and to show up in the world as my authentic myself, more importantly I did not need to fit into people’s pre-conceived notions of who I should be.

You can tell by the photos in this article (and the whole aesthetic of this blog) that red is my favourite colour. No matter where I am, I always gravitate towards it instinctively. The reason why I love colour, apart from the cultural influence, is the warmth it brings to my skin. It makes me feel like I am radiating from the inside out, which makes me so happy. I have always been a high-energy person and I want my clothes to reflect that and boy does the colour red to that for me. On days when I do not quite feel like myself or it’s raining outside, I will throw on something colourful and bam I am back to being me, or at least close enough. Unless an occasion requires black, you can usually spot me across the room in something very bright.

Now that you know where the boldness and colour come from, let us explore the whimsical part of my personal style. As a child I loved, and, still love, Alice in Wonderland. I have read the book, watched every adaptation I could find, I want to a museum exhibition and even saw two ballets inspired by it, one in Perth and one in Sydney. The idea of falling down a rabbit hole and landing in a strange, illogical world fascinates me. There is something freeing in that chaos, a place where the rules bend and imagination takes the lead. 

It was not until I was shopping for a birthday dress in March 2020 that whimsy fully integrated into my personal style. A few years ago, I tried on a blue dress for my birthday picnic, think balloon sleeves and a silhouette that feels like falling gently down a rabbit hole. The dress moved something in me (see below), and the reference was impossible to ignore. From that moment onwards my personal style absorbed that feeling completely and since then I have been obsessed with balloon sleeves. If you know where I can find more balloon-sleeved dresses, please enable me. 

There was a time when I had fashion fatigue, in that it felt like I had gone down the rabbit hole only to find Wonderland was too chaotic. When I was younger (and I know I am still very young), but I feel somewhat wiser now, I used to fall into the trap of buying things for the sake of buying, especially trendy pieces that everyone else seemed to be wearing. I would bring them home, wear them once or twice (or not all in the worst-case scenario) and then watch them sit untouched. I felt annoyed at myself for buying them in the first place. The clothes would pile up, and then I would complain that “I had nothing to wear, and I need to buy more clothes”.

Eventually I had to sit down with myself and ask why I was buying things I did not need. After a lot of introspection, I realised I had learned from a young age that if I kept seeing a piece repeatedly, it must be good and it must be what the “cool girls” wore. So I started waiting a week before buying anything. By the time I returned to it, I often realised I did not really like it, and it was not me. One week became two. Two became a month. In that patience I discovered that what I liked is what made me stylish, not what was trending. I always tell myself: ten-year-old me and sixteen-year-old me would think I am the coolest, most stylish and fabulous person in the universe. And honestly, that is all that matters.

In line with my updated fashion philosophy, I have also stopped waiting for the “right moment” to wear things. If it is in my wardrobe, I will create the occasion myself. I have organised catchups with friends that began with the sentence “I have a cute dress that deserves an outing”. I no longer believe in saving clothes for a hypothetical future version of my life. I am living now. Trendy pieces can still be fun (I am not anti-trend) but now when I try something on, I ask whether it actually belongs to me or if I am borrowing someone else’s identity for the afternoon.

Dressing for yourself is not about rejecting trends or declaring independence from culture. It is about choosing what delights you and letting that be reason enough. If clothes are the first story we tell about who we are, it should be a story we enjoy.

I am happy to report that my fashion Wonderland is no longer chaotic, and I am enjoying being the architect of “Linda in Wonderland”.

Yours, in style and curiosity 

—
Linda Mulenda