INTRODUCTION

Clothery = diary of clothes, aka, my clothes, day by day. And who, in God´s name, would ever be interested in that? Don´t know, don´t care. I like the idea and it is pretty much what matters, since this is my personal cyber space. ha!

I like clothes. I like fabrics, textures, colours, shapes. I like to put 2 and 2 together and make one. I like the art of composing one´s look. My look in this case....but who else´s look would I compose anyway? I am ....well me.....and unless I turn into a fashion adviser (which I won´t, because I´m not sure I am that fond of fashion), I won´t have much chance of using anyone else as a guinea pig. And in the unlikely case I would have available guinea pigs...I would like to actually choose them,and you know how it goes with guinea pigs...the ones you choose are never the ones you have available.

Apart from that, and lets be honest here, I am the main character in my life and partially, I am as well its main artistic director. So, since I was brought into this world and I am a sucker for good old tales, quality cinema and novels beutifully written....I should try to make the best out of my main character. Right? Please understand that when I talk about charater, I don´t mean it in a hypocrit, self constructive, false sort of way. Actually, I didn´t write the lines for my own character, and I am not responsible por most of its story board. As an artistic director though, I do have a saying about her aesthetics and about the general way my character fits into this movie/novel (errr....it changes...sometimes I am even in a cartoon).

Have you ever been young, very young, maybe a child, or maybe even you still feel it to this day, and felt a desire to be like a movie star? You look at Katherine Hepburn, or Audrey Hepburn (swear this was coincidence) or....lets say a more modern one...Isabelle Hupert (this was the most modern I could come up with? cheez, I must be becoming out of date pretty fast hahahaha), and you think to yourself: 'if only I had that elegance, if only my life was so exciting, if only I was that charming, if only I had a theme song running behind me, turning every moment of my life into something extremely poetic?'. And then you go on with your regular life and nothing looks that exciting? Well....I pretty much consider life full of hard bits as it is, and I decided that if I let the rest of my life become just 'normal' or 'regular' or even 'boring', that would make my life, in a general way, one that is pending to the low end of the hapiness scale. Which I don´t intend to let happen...

We are all characters. I am pretty sure someone is up there looking at us and having a good time. Or then again maybe not. Maybe nobody is up there watching us. Or maybe there is something, but the way or little lifes go is of little matter to that something. It doesn´t matter. WE are always following our own personal lifes. And how often it is that people end their own lifes without knowing themselves at all and without having a slighest idea of the greater picture? How often iis it that people come to the end of their lifes and think 'Where the heck did my life go? Where or how did I spend the last 30 years?? What did I do, who was I? And when did I become this person I don´t remember recognizing in the mirror?'

In a general way and in our sweet society, it is almost considered a crime to give too much attention to yourself. Sometimes we are even ashamed of being happy. It seems it needs a justification as in ' ok, I am happy now, but don´t forget everything I have been through before. See all the previous sacrifices in my life and you´ll understand that I do deserve this little drop of happiness now.' Sometimes it feels like we had to be sacrifing ourselves all of the time and that we are not supposed to praise ourselves, love ourselves, be proud of ourselves . A close friend commented very wisely that people are more likely to be by your side when you´re down then when you up. Meaning, if you´re sad, or going through a though moment, many people will give you a hand, support you, be by your side. But if you´re happy, very often you feel that some of the people you expected to be by your side, will actually be wondering why is it you that deserves all the happiness and not them. Have you ever wanted to share something good with someone, and instead of having the other person asking you 'really? that´s really good! and how will that be? how did that happen? how are you feeling about it? I am really happy for you' the only answer you get is 'oooh, I am really envious (in a joyfull sort of way) I want that to happen to me as well!'. Half of the time people may not mean something wrong. But if someone close doesn´t ask you anything else about what you are so excitedly telling them, and the only comment is 'I want that for myself as well' or 'why is it that those things never happen to me?', you can´t help feeling a little sad. That dangerously aproaches something called envy, and I think we´ve all (or nearly all) been there and done that, in both roles. But then, when finally something good happens to people, they feel they have to justify it to the world with all their previous misery. As if we have to prove we deserve to be happy.

I see it the other way around. I think we are responsable for being as happy as possible. I believe that if there is something superior to us all, and we were put in this life for a reason, then we are supposed to live it, and live it in the best way possible. And that means 1) Loving one´s self 2) Fighting for your happiness at every moment - if you're happy, you are more likely to make other people happy and to bring good things into this world. It is not a crime to suffer, to grieve, to feel, to cry. But when it is time to be happy- be happy. Don´t be normal - be happy, enjoy life, smell it breathe it, live it. It´s yours! 3) Taking part of life. Come down to earth and get your hand on the ground. Feel the pleasure, don´t deny it. Being imaculate will not take you to heaven...it will only drive you away from the rest of humanity and make you more arrogant. And arrogance is no exactely charming...unless you know how to play with it very well. Feel, admit you feel, admit not all your feelings are noble. Nobody in this life does things only for their noble reasons. We are all selfish in a way, and that´s the way it goes. Half of our altruistic reasons, are only hiding our major fears and justifying them. Let loose, let go, come down to the ground and get dirty. Life will have a flavor then.

And if you´re wondering, yes, this is all, in some contorted way, related to the main theme in this blog: my passion for clothes AND dressing up (and down and sideways, I just like dressing!)
Clothes are considered shallow. Well I say, things are not shallow in itselves. It´s the way we aproach things that can be or not be shallow. Not liking what everybody else likes doesn´t make you more special or profound in itself. Because as far as I know, you could have choosen that in order to 'be different'. And that´s shallow. I think you get my point in here....no need to go on. As I said at the beggining, clothes for me are pure composicion. The clothes and accessories in themselves AND the way they are put together in a person. Or, if you rather, in a wall, in a chair, in a graveyard or a daisy field. The way you compose with what you have in hands. And yes, for me you can use clothes to compose visual art (I know art is a very dodgy word in here, but I should warn you...I am not going into semantic or artistic discussions in here - my point here is.....well to make my point in an understandable way). This is one bit.

The other bit is that clothes are a statement. They always are, weather you care too much or too little about them. They may be more or less active, or more or less important in the way you express yourself wordlessly to the world, but they are, necessarily, part of that expression. A part that oyu choose actively. And if you choose to always be plain...then you are clearly making a choice. For years, I tried playing with clothes, but I knew it was something that was not harmonized in me, yet. I loved them, but I didn´t feel 100% confortable in them. It was like I was always either chasing something I couldn´t grab, showing off or hidding. I really couldn´t express myself through clothes. Until I started admiting I really love them and, most importantly, until I started feeling some love for myself as well, and allowed myself to ....put myself in the best way possible. Until I lost all the fears. Presentely, I am quite aware of the way I wear clothes most times. Meaning, I am aware that sometimes I am trying to say something through them. For example, everytime I am meeting people that belong to more convencional environments, I have the tendency to dress in a way that is not exactely shocking (not even close to that) but that says, in a way 'don´t expect convencionlism from me. I am NOT convencional, look at me, read that, and if you aproach me, you do it at your own risk. ' It more or less helps to keep some people and bay, and it saves me part of the effort of having to make myself clear. Usefull!

I had a lot of prejudices about clothes, although I never dressed exactely in the most conventional way. But I wouldn´t use certain things for a variety of reason. Nowadays I´ll wear everything I like as long as I like the combinations I am making. Final stop. And sometimes I will take care of what I dress, and other days I am just worried about getting ready quickly. But I don´t care that I care. And I don´t mind taking time. And I don´t mind taking records of my creations. Meaning, taking pictures, taking records of my character and the way the costume guys (aka me) decided to dress her up this time around. And this is where my blog is born! Clothery...a diary of the clothes I wear. Twenty years on, and I will find it fascinating to look at this pictures. I do like documenting my life. It´s my own personal way of not only being in love with the characters of my everytime movies and novels, but also in love with my character. Finally. After all this time. I wanna be aware of my character, the same way I am aware of the other characters around. Because I am aware of the other characters around. Who they are, they way they present themselves, they way they dress, they move, they talk. I observe and admire. Some of them are very close to my own character, some of them just by passers. I watch, think, admire, love, enjoy (or not hehe). But I am aware of them. And for some time now, I have been aware of myself as well. Which is a pretty good thing to do.

And....to end this already long introduction....there is something I want to add. Just in case someone feels like playing smart guy with me. Yes, I am making all this speech partially to prevent people from calling me narcisistic. And yes, it is still narcisism to upload pictures of myself. And yes, I am making the point of letting everybody know I really couldn´t care less. I like this. I like clothes, and pictures and myself. And it took me years to like myself and even more time to be able to say this out loud without criticizing me for being conceived. Thank God I am free now. I am finally free to consider myself in between the beautiful beings I enconter in my life. And just to make sure you are following me, I was not talking about movie stars in the last two paragraphs. Just in case you were wondering! I was talking about everyone who is part of my life, long time friends, short time (but long souled) friends, passers by, acquaintances, and so on....

Speech is over. Wellcome here if you like whatever you find in here. I am delighted to meet you, even more if you let me know you were here. I am not sure what will happen in here. I have been conciously paying more attention to my passion for clothes. I am learning how to transform them and even to make them, as well. So really, anything could happen. This is pure experimentation, like everything else in my life. First and main rule, is to have fun with it.

So let the party begin!!!!!