2020 | A Year of Fashion in Review

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

I’ve loved fashion since before I understood it as a concept. Insistent on sleeping with my new shoes as a toddler, my obsession with the perfect accessory began early, and the joy I derive from adding to my wardrobe has been lifelong. I was comfortable with that. For a decade, I devoted every spare hour at my disposal to curating my wardrobe. I photographed it thoughtfully and presented it in this space as a personal diary, along with reflections on life. For me, the two are both parts of the same whole, and neither exists, nor serves a purpose, without the other. I took the fact that I, generally full of ideas but rarely able to see them through to completion, stuck with it as proof that it worked. I never questionned my formula.

But 2020 robbed us of distractions, forced us indoors for months and gave us all more opportunities to really get to know ourselves than any of us wanted. It’s been a year of looking inward for lack of anything else to do. My biweekly travel adventures ground to a complete halt in mid-February. On the rare occasions when we could leave home to take photos, we went to the same locations in Winnipeg over and over, their novelty appeal decreasing with every visit.

The world changed in 2020. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Aside from the inability to travel, my life remains largely the same as it was at this time last year. While it’s been a hard year for everyone, my hardships have been minimal compared to most. My career, in corporate healthcare, is not just safe, but more successful than ever. I’ve been able to keep shopping, keep living, while many people are much less lucky. All of that feels less relevant in a world where I can’t bring others along with me. It also feels unfair to celebrate when it takes places against a backdrop of needless death and political partisanship.

And I realise it’s not what most people were here for, anyway. This may be a fashion blog, but for years, it’s been less about what I wore than where I was wearing it. Together, we’ve lived from suitcase to suitcase. I adventured and brought you with me to places you might not get to visit yourself. And I moved to Winnipeg to be able to do more of that, not because I wanted to introduce anyone to my hometown or because I believed in its inherent appeal. (I didn’t and I don’t.) But then, in 2020, I found myself stranded here. The feeble joke I made about it early in the pandemic remains no less true today; this year made me realise that my favourite place to go in Winnipeg is the airport.

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
– Zora Neale Hurston

So, as we come to the end of 2020, I find myself asking where I go from here. Because where I’m going is nowhere further than the grocery store until I’ve been vaccinated. And the appeal of outfits in isolation is, I now know, relatively limited. I don’t have any answers. 2020 isn’t one of those years. But what I think I know is that if 2021 is another year spent at home, I’m going to have to find more to share than just what I’m wearing…