Colour = Chaos

Simple Retro dress (c/o) (similar)
Rouje sandals (similar)
Ellen James handbag
Celine sunglasses
Vintage necklace (similar)
Mejuri bracelet (similar)
Mejuri earrings (similar)
Location: The Fort Garry Hotel – Winnipeg, Manitoba

The fact that I almost exclusively wear three colours would, reasonably, surprise most people who knew me growing up – particularly in my early twenties. That was my orange boots era – a time when I deliberately chose to wear the brightest, most unexpected coloured garments I could find. Unbelievably, I don’t have a single photo of my orange boots. But there are few people who could forget them after seeing them even once. To many of my university classmates, I was simply, “the girl with the orange boots.” And I loved it.

Considering that these days, I associate colour with chaos, and try to keep my environment, as well as my wardrobe, as simple as possible, almost none of the sartorial choices I made in my early twenties make any sense. And yet, in another way, they do. It was this spring that I finally realised why I was so keen on colour when I was younger… and why, briefly, I felt drawn to it again this year.

It all started this spring when we went into our third lockdown in fourteen months. Faced with the prospect of yet another undefined period of time spent sequestered at home, I dove into online shopping to kill time. The urge to completely overhaul my wardrobe was incredibly strong. I went down a nineties vintage rabbit hole at one point, which is how this Simple Retro dress wound up in my wardrobe. Basically, I was craving all kinds of things that make no sense in my closet or in my life – especially bright colours. For me, colour is chaos, but it’s also, in some ways, excitement. At the time, I couldn’t have the real thing, but I could have the illusion of it if I just filled my closet with colour clothes.

It was the same thing in my early twenties, I realised, looking back. I went to univeristy right out of high school, with only the most vague sense of what I wanted to do with my life. Most of my classes bored me, and even those I enjoyed didn’t give me a clear sense of what path to pursue. I was directionless. All around me, people were excited. They were learning new things, pursuing long held dreams… and I was buying shoes. Somehow, those shoes, the orange boots in particular, temporarily dulled the nagging fear that the “real world” I’d held such high hopes for was no more interesting than high school.

I went to university expecting it was where my life would begin. But the first year and a half I spent there just felt like more of the same. I was stagnating. Acknowledging that was extremely hard for me t admit to myself.

Colours, and the attention I got from wearing them, gave me the false but much needed sense that something was happening to me in that period of my life. That held me over until, halfway through second year, I realised that if I wanted things to happen in my life, I needed to make them happen myself. I chose a new major, moved across the country and slowly, bright colours made their way out of my wardrobe.

During the pandemic, it hasn’t been that simple. I couldn’t make lockdown end by simply following health measures. When everything in life felt like it was outside of my control, my wardrobe was still here. And when nothing at all was happening, I could make colour happen. It wasn’t a perfect solution. And it certainly wasn’t a lasting one. But it worked for about as long as I needed it to.

Unlike my orange boots from the early 2000s, I do genuinely love this dress. The yellow shade and floral print are not what I would normally ever choose. But the cut and fit are practically perfect. And whether it would be my first choice or not, yellow is my colour.

Now that life is slowly starting to move towards something like normalcy, my craving for colour is gone. I’ve been adding beige and black garments to my wardrobe for fall, just like every other year. But I know myself well enough to know never to say never. I associate colour with chaos, but sometimes we all need a little bit of chaos to help us feel alive.

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