IMAGE GRANTED: What’s the difference between fashion and style?
Think you know the difference between fashion and style? Grant Harris gives us his spoken word about the topic. Image from iStockphoto/Thinkstock.
Welcome to our first installment of Image Granted – an article series devoted to our resident style expert, Grant Harris. For today’s article, we ask him the difference between fashion and style when it comes to men.
Every day we get asked some fashion related question to which we gladly give an informed answer.
Is it OK to wear brown and black together? Should my jewelry match my belt buckle? How do I fold a pocket square? What’s the meaning of life?
OK, the last question has nothing to do with fashion but you get the idea.
However, by far and away one of the most important questions we’ve been asked over the years is “what’s the difference between fashion and style?”
Well, let’s talk about it.
There are many descriptions for fashion as well as style. Some people say fashion is fleeting while style is enduring. Others say fashion is about today and style is about forever.
We don’t disagree with these notions.
However, this conundrum goes deeper. It’s not just about the season, the runways, the magazines, the menswear hash tags, or even that tumblr you’ve been following the last three months.
"Um, we'll take the gray one." Our advice - don't just pick anything. Use your sense of style and you can never go wrong. Image from Jupiterimages/Creatas/Thinkstock.
None of these things are fashion and none of them are style.
These things are what we make them—icons. Not icons in the sense of looking up to a role model or super star athlete. Icons of what our culture has led us to believe what fashion or style should be.
It’s either flashing lights and skinny models, or bloggers typing away late at night in their own world of tweets and tumbles.
In our opinion fashion is what popular culture says we should be wearing, when we should wear it, how we should wear it, how long we should wear it, and oh—where we should wear it.
Did you keep up with that?
Fashion is spoon fed to us by magazines, TV, and movies. It is a prescription for what ails us in other aspects of life. It is an escape from to where we are to where we want to be and a drug we are addicted to but can’t afford.
On the other end of the spectrum lies style.
Style is what every man should be aiming for. Style—much like life—can’t be forced. It must be molded, massaged, and guided over time. It matures in its own way regardless of what time of year it is and what is walking down the runway.
Style is an inherent characteristic that lays dormant until a man is mature enough to recognize it, embrace it and follow it. Style marches to its own beat and doesn’t care what others think.
Style is comfort, confidence, and consciousness all in one. Conscious of its own story and disinterested in anyone else’s. Style can be seen, heard, and felt.
The differences between fashion and style are vast and while every man has the right to choose their own path, we hope you choose the stylish one.
Image Granted is a Washington, DC based Image Consulting Company dedicated to solving the complex image, style & fashion issues of today’s professional man. They provide private & corporate wardrobe consultations, closet organization, personal shopping & other value-based services for men in need of practical & affordable style advice. Image Granted has also been featured in several international publications such as The Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, Black Enterprise Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and CNN.
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