Centrifugal force.
To me the highest form of beauty is that which is also functional. A painting on the wall might make me pause, but a well-hinged Dutch door moves me to tears. So it is with style. I’ve been thinking about this a great deal lately as I pack up to recommence the New York life. Been thinking about how for so long I threw off form for function alone, and now I rifle through the closets and drawers, tossing everything that will stand between me and the mountaintop. How will I make rent next month? It’s a mystery, but how I feel about myself, starting from the outside and working in, should not be. I’m looking for something - some sort of uniform. Sartorial stability.
Five years ago (to the weekend) while dressing for a party, I raked a comb straight down the center of my hair, parting it in two equal halves. Have worn it that way (almost) ever since, despite my mother’s and sisters’ harangues. “It’s so much more flattering on the side,” they say. Maybe it is; I disagree. Never do I feel prettier than when I know all sides, points, angles align symmetrically. I think first of the Parthenon. I think of Monticello and Ali McGraw in Love Story. There is only one center, but there are too many sides. The point is that a center part is consistent, functional. Puritan, even. The first - and perhaps only - element to whatever uniform I adopt that has not wavered (and I’ve tried on a lot of uniforms).
Silhouettes change, and fashion goes out of style, and I still don’t have a job, but I wake up every morning knowing that my hair will look beautiful to me and balanced - a reward perhaps, or, in its sameness, an anchor in this sea of fashionable unknowns.
amen sista. http://caryrandolph.com/
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