RICHARD YOUNG

Fash­ion speaks vol­umes about what we feel cul­tur­al­ly, at any giv­en point in our his­to­ry. I like to say it’s the cos­tume of our soul. It re­flects the pre­vail­ing ethos of the time. When we think of Jack­ie O, Di­ana Ross, Madon­na, Grace Jones, Princess Di­ana, La­dy Gaga, Michelle Oba­ma, and Ri­han­na, we have spanned the gamut of six decades of icon­ic ref­er­ences that are rel­a­tive to each pe­ri­od. It’s such a fas­ci­nat­ing study of how style chron­i­cles our times, mak­ing state­ments with­out say­ing a word. I love it!

How­ev­er, times have changed or should I say times are al­ways chang­ing and now mak­ing a fash­ion state­ment is a tes­ta­ment to peren­ni­al style. Co­co Chanel coined it bril­liant­ly, ‘fash­ion changes but style en­dures’. To­day’s trend­set­ters are an amal­gam of fash­ion­istas, so­cialites, en­tre­pre­neurs, Min­is­ters of Gov­ern­ment and Jane Does. You don’t have to be of fash­ion to make fash­ion state­ments.

One does not have to do fash­ion, one can be fash­ion.

It’s an em­pow­er­ing space and time, so beau­ti­ful­ly aligned

with no­tions of in­de­pen­dence and forg­ing iden­ti­ty,

ab­solute­ly rel­e­vant at this Ju­bilee an­niver­sary

cel­e­bra­tion of our na­tion.

It’s all about per­son­al­i­ty pro­jec­tion, fine taste,

a cer­tain je ne sais quoi sen­si­bil­i­ty and in­or­di­nate

savoir-faire to make choic­es that ‘werk’!

The fash­ions that stand out are a mo­sa­ic of all of the above, mak­ing them sim­ply ir­re­sistible and mem­o­rable. At In­de­pen­dence time, we speak a fash­ion lan­guage that is bold, cut­ting-edge and just fab­u­lous. We take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be ex­per­i­men­tal and dar­ing, com­ing up with looks that are eclec­tic, ex­quis­ite and en­dur­ing. It’s more about style than fash­ion, mak­ing in­di­vid­u­al­is­tic ex­pres­sions, in­spired by our hy­brid palette of cul­tur­al in­flu­ences.

Al­lud­ing to our na­tion­al colours, our women stepped out in fine style, this sea­son, to say not on­ly that we are a sov­er­eign na­tion, but our el­e­gance tells a great sto­ry of bravu­ra, brava­do and bril­liance.

We have earned the right to write our own fash­ion sto­ry and style a new nar­ra­tive. Watch us make style and step up to the plate. Af­ter all, as the ma­tri­arch of fash­ion once said, “a girl should be two things: classy and fab­u­lous.